Winter of Discontent AP 19

Blaze

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Moving along with our Few Returned mini-campaign, Gruppo Nord defends the town of Chertkovo. Victory in this scenario is granted to the side that amasses the most VP’s, CVP as well as 1VP for each building hex. The Axis has his normal allotment of OB and several counterattack groups from which to purchase units at a cost of VP’s. The Russians start on the east setup area, and they can spend VP’s to have units enter on the north edge on turn one. Since my opponent will have the balance in his favor I am limited to the setup area. With 80 building VP’s and only 7 turns, this is a scenario of move, move, and move! The scenario seems well playtested; however by being limited by balance I initially thought it was an impossible task for my Russians.

The usual ground snow and winter camouflage is issued, but this time the axis player has a bit of camouflaged units himself. The force balance isn’t bad and the axis has quite a few choices as to which counterattack groups to purchase. Depending on the axis purchases this scenario has a good mix of AFVs. The edge is to the axis as he will also have two AT guns (pak 38) and an Italian AA gun 75mm. The Russians must use a certain caution in AFV movements but also MUST maintain a tempo to achieve needed VP’s within the 7 turn deadline.



The sides are set fellow comrades! Let us expel the fascist invader pigs from the motherland!



My Evil plot v3:

Looking at the board array I sense a feeling of urgency, but with caution. Since I’m limited to a small setup area (because my opponent has scenario balance), the Axis can setup en masse, knowing my avenue of approach. On a good note however, the play area is small (two half boards), and there’s a juicy cluster of building hexes on the southeast approach. The Northern corridor has less density of buildings, but it does have a nice seven hex factory in the North West quadrant. I will place a stronger commitment in the dense cluster but will also send a reasonable force along the north approach.

Turn one goes off as expected, I have good movement into the buildings straddling the 49U4-49U8 road cluster. I easily engage any resistance there and have a good footing for a turn 2 death grip. My threeT-34 manage to strip some over-watch units of concealment and even break a few, but sadly I boxcar one of the T-34 guns.

Come turn two I’m sting with a decent force and poised to make a scenario breaking move. I use my T-70’s as fast recon and bait for the hidden guns, which does flush one out, however it paid the ultimate sacrifice. All my moves completed I have amassed some good firepower to clear enemy concealed units for my soon to be real-estate. So it would all seem to me! Fate hates me as a morale check 4 is passed. I yielded good results in many locations and failed to even pin a single unit. To add further insult to injury another T-34 main armament goes boxcar. After all this bad misfortune I all but thought the game was a lost cause.

Never less the Russians forge ahead on the southern approach, which is going well as the axis start to melt there. The center cluster is also in good shape, even though the Axis has a good force to slow me there. The North approach is starting to look dismal for me. My MMG stack and 9-2 leader there, are ineffective despite several shots at two of the AT guns. I was forced to leave them in a bad area because I had to clear the center AT gun. They actually pinned the crew there which let me clear it that turn, however they had the continuing bad luck as they needed 10’s to pass their MC, and I rolled back to back 11’s.

Luck would balance me by turn 4 as one T-34 gun fixed and one recalled. Things settled down at this point as I have sputtered the center attack and now have two Panzer IVf2’s dividing the board. Luck would have it that I nabbed factory P9 and was able to get several squads into the frozen stream. This set me up nice to grab a cluster of building hexes to the south as well as one near the west bridge.



The axis plan:

Easy with a limited setup now just set up a linear defense and inflict as many CVP’s as possible. Jeff purchased his counterattack groups wisely. He opted for the Mark IVf2’s but not the Rad 8’s. The AC’s would have been reduced in speed due to ground snow and were easy enough to cost VP’s should a just as fast T-70 find it. He also got the 1st line German MMG platoon and an 8-1 leader. The setup was decent and the placement of the AA gun was ideal for where I committed, it really slowed/stopped me up from getting the north approach.



Conclusions:

I was having a miserable go at it. It was one of those days where my dice were just terrible. The Axis on the other hand had one of those days where rolling 3’s is the norm. Fate usually balances out as I also got some timely rolls when needed to push on. It was getting late/early (3:00 am) Jeff and I were getting really punchy at this point. I even moved a t-34 foolishly as a Panzer pounced on it and set it on fire.

At that point I was all but willing to concede defeat and get next week’s scenario balance. I thought I was about 30 VP’s in deficit as he had generated a good bit of Russian casualties and a few AFV’s as well. I got us another round of coffee and asked Jeff to tabulate the VP’s. To my surprise I was just a tad shy of equilibrium. We played out the last turn and a half and getting those Russian squads into the stream paid me dividends, as I got across the bridge and into the larger factory even with a toe hold.

My moves completed I was sitting plus 8 VP, as all I had to do was weather the storm of axis counter attacks. I assumed he would get all 8 in building hexes, plus a few more to spare. My hopes at this point were on inflicting casualties. As the Axis began to move he fired up a Panzer IVf2 to freeze a key position. Moving to it and my eventual scenario loss I had one shot of pure luck with a T-34 and wouldn’t you know. Fate turned to favor me as I hit and set it on fire. This stunned me as I could not understand how I won the scenario. “You just kept coming” Jeff replied. For all the bad luck I had I can’t complain one bit. Because no matter it all, it was good luck that paid me back.

This scenario is immensely fun and forgiving. You have many choices to make and it would never be the same twice. I strongly recommend it as it’s the best one so far in AP 3.

Stay tuned for more next week as “Victory is Life” hits the table!
 

jrv

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This may be my new battle cry:

"I sense a feeling of urgency, but with caution!"

Has a decent, war-like ring. Anyway, I'll try it out at ASLOK and report back on the impact ;-) Thanks for the AAR.

JR
 
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Vinnie

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Good AAR. When I played this one the defender set an MG up right on the board edge to lay a firelane along the edge. A cool and annoying move.
 

Blaze

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Good AAR. When I played this one the defender set an MG up right on the board edge to lay a firelane along the edge. A cool and annoying move.
I wish I had the option of purchasing a flank move, scenario balance kept me from doing so and entering the North edge.
 
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