First, Talloaf has reconfigured the map we were playing on to more properly reflect the environmental conditions of the scenario -- buh-bye out of season grain and orchards! Click above for a magnified version.
Remember Rule #1? Don't be afraid to make mistakes?
Talloaf rolled up the German side with two Tiger tanks and some Panzer IVF2s to try to eliminate or prevent my ten or so T-34 M41s and M43s from running off the map to the right (south).
I have to say a couple of things:
That's it for now; now the Prawn can start learning the vehicle rules... where the inevitable smashing will commence!
p.s. GO SIGN UP FOR THE VASLEAGUE! VASLeague@gmail.com!
p.p.s. Thanks again to richfam for making this less of a heroic endeavour than it had to be!
Welcome to Triple Point Blank Fire's third AAR!Private Demidov nervously clutched his rifle and fingered the safety. His superior officer had already "briefed" him with a hearty slap on his back and a hoarsely whispered, "Shoot them when they come, Demidov!" Demidov wondered if this Christmas would be his last... here in the rubbled buildings on the southern flank of the city named after the master of the state...
Demidov was spread out in the ruined building north of the old church with his fellow squadmates. They were to be the blunt front end of the defense of this small sector of Stalingrad. He'd already seen many of his comrades fall against the German war machine. With their backs to the Volga, Demidov's company knew that action would be imminent. Word was that there was only a small chance of a reserve being made available to them... The young private wondered if it was more propaganda from his commissar or wishful thinking.
In the shot above was the initial set-up. The Prawn was keen to try a modified defensive set-up and I'll try to detail it here. In (X), (Y) and (Z) he placed a conscript squad forward in a building to try to both draw fire and blunt any initial pushes. The German side would obviously be loath to take the bait and pour too much fire into these simple conscripts but moving up next to them we would still have to respect the doubled point-blank fire they could muster. I suspect that (X) and (Y) were primarily squads meant to slow me down as much as possible (the former having their sole MMG and each having a leader for rally purposes). Group (Z) seemed to be the more respectable defense -- I think that the Prawn was hoping to hold out longest here and apply his reinforcements there when they showed up. What the Prawn was most afraid of was my Flamethrower -- with good reason, that thing is a roving barbeque machine. Ignoring the +3 TEM of buildings in an urban map is pure comedy gold.They all looked at each other. They had all heard it. The German command had been barked out across that bloody street and quick and deliberate movement was seen through the sudden rain of smoke grenades. Demidov's breath grew shallow as he pressed his rifle to his shoulder and flicked the safety. The distinct sound of a German MG42 accompanied by the whizzing of bullets across the face of the house he was hiding in made him duck his head. They were coming...The action in the scenario can basically be divided into the battles on the northeast and southwest flanks. On the northeast side the FT detachment was slowly encrouching from the west while the main thrust by MG and DC supported squads advanced across the very very bare street. Two rolls for smoke in the NE zone came up nada and the Germans made a desperate push. Both (A) and (B) stacks were repulsed with broken squads but not before breaking the conscripts in (X). The conscripts in (Y) were vaporized by the FT.
Demidov couldn't believe it. He was still alive. The smoke made it easy to tell where the Germans were coming from but it was not a trivial task to still hold his bladder and pull the trigger when the ominous shapes of men grew from the shadows. His lonely squad was once again on its own -- the scouts on the broken rooftops had yelled down that the insipid lieutenant in the adjacent building had already run back to the church with his men and the machine gun. And now, it had started to snow... A beautiful sight juxtaposed with the crimson in the street and groans of the fallen.
For the first part of the scenario, the Prawn and I rolled a lot of eleven's and boxcars. It was actually pretty comical for a bit. I've photographed the offending dice to document to the Dice Gods that yes, it was funny the first three times in a row, not so funny the next few times. Time to buy a dice tower!
Above: The view around the mid-game from the Prawn's perch. Note the incredibly bad job of defense by the farmboys of the Ukraine.
To be honest, the Russian defense was a lot harder to crack than the first game. It was clear that the Prawn had done quite a bit of thinking for this rematch. At the end of turn three in the NE zone the Germans had suffered some losses taking the easternmost Victory building when a CXed stack huffed around the back and cut off the retreat of stack (X) containing a leader, MMG and a few broken squads.
Funny ASL Moment: The Russian MMG broke (one of those boxcar rolls) and so did their squad who subsequently were eliminated by failure to rout. The funny part was the German squad that got into the hex was able to recover the MMG and then repair it. We spent a good couple of minutes joking about the Russian conscripts:
"Sir! We've broken the machine gun again! It won't fire!"
"RUN!!!!"
[Germans enter the broken building.]
"Herr Lieutenant, I'm not sure why those Russians didn't shoot us in the face point blank!"
"Well Corporal, it appears they didn't undo the safety..."
The situation was getting a bit dire for the Russians in the NE. The eastern building was basically goners and the FT stack was only slowed temporarily for a turn by a broken squad. I should also mention that the arrangement of the German offense in this area made skulking unsafe -- there was literally no where safe to skulk to.
On the SW side the Russians were doing a much better job, probably aided by the amazing conscript squad which repeatedly resisted massed firepower and kept breaking my squads in Defensive Fire. I think they broke once and rallied immediately in the next RPh and came right back to laugh at me. (They inspired the Demidov story.) Below you can see that the German Wehrmarct was being stopped cold.
Demidov brushed away the dust and caked on blood from his face. It was yet another Christmas miracle, he was still alive. The German squad had advanced into his building and in the heat of battle Demidov's little band was able to hold them off in a deadly melee. Demidov's squad looked at him in amazement -- he himself had killed a half dozen of the invaders. Even the commissar was wide-eyed, "Demidov, you are true hero of the Soviet Union!" It was Demidov's turn to be surprised. What a Christmas present!
The Prawn finally triggered the Leader Creation rules in this game. A 8-0 leader was created out of a CC.
If things were going badly for Germany in the SW then the opposite was true on the other flank. As you can see below, one squad with the fixed Russian MMG was sitting on the building awaiting the Russian reinforcements while the other stacks were also anticipating their arrival. There was no way the elite Russian squads were going to come through on this side of the board (and the Prawn objected on the moral grounds that he wouldn't have his men killed by their own machine gun).
At the end of turn four the Russian reinforcements still hadn't arrived (nice rolling Prawn!) but all wasn't lost yet. The SW zone was still being tenaciously defended by Demidov's super-conscript buddies. (Everyone else were broken and ELRed multiple times.)
He actually started to believe he might survive this firefight. Demidov allowed himself the hope that this Christmas would see him live to fight another day -- better yet, live to enjoy the simple comforts of a warm fire and the company of his family. That's when he heard the sound of another German officer extorting his troops forward. Would it ever end? Demidov took one last look around the hunkered down troops around him. Who would live? Who would die? Here, in the bombed out, burned out remains of an apartment buildling in Stalingrad? And then the fear began to constrict him again...
Alas, the Russian defense of the SW flank ended all too abruptly when the super-conscripts finally failed their morale check in the face of the German superstack. In fact, another German leader and supporting squad with LMG had infiltrated the victory building from the other side of the map (where they fell in CC but not before breaking a few more squads and scaring the Prawn). By the way, do you see the Russian reinforcements? Me neither!
I think this above picture says it all.
Here's the board position at the very end of the game on turn 6. The Russian elites finally showed up and were mercilessly gunned down in the SW area as they crossed the open fields. The other Russian squads had all evaporated from failure to rout or routing off the board. Here's the magnificent defense that awaited the reinforcements: (A) first-liners with a Russian MMG; (B) Elites with a LMG; (C) Leader with two squads, a LMG and FT; (D) Leader with squad and MMG; and (E) squad with LMG.
We hashed out the scenario again and here were some preliminary thoughts:
Demidov woke on a hard cot. He remembered firing and firing and running out of bullets. He remembered running. He remembered getting shot in the calf as he reached the trees. He half-remembered someone pulling him over their shoulders. And then he remembered nothing.
He thought he heard the soft singing of a Christmas carol but doubted himself. There would be no overt shows of religion here in the very battleground where Soviet Communism strove mightily against the fascists. And yet, as he looked up through the open rafters of the triage centre he couldn't help but hum a little Christmas tune, glad to be alive and glad, perhaps, to be able to fight again...
Anyone interested in joining up for the VASLeague Starter Kit division, YOU HAVE NINE DAYS left to sign up!
Just spotted a great thread on the 'Geek featuring ASLSK1 and specifically the fun OCD symptom known as "Counter Clipping"! Check it:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/37769
(I have a C4 Corner Cutter coming in the mail for Christmas!)
Wow I better get this second AAR wrapped up because the Prawn has asked-- nay -- demanded a rematch of S2 War of the Rats and it's ON tomorrow!
[Hello gentle readers! This post is the Prawn's AAR. Minimal editing was done and my review of the action follows soonish.] Welcome to Triple Point Blank Fire's second After Action Report! The Germans must control ALL three buildings by scenario end. Control being defined by being the last player to have Good Order troops in them at any time. The Russians are seeking to prevent this.Set-up is divided along the long diagonal (northeast-southwest) road basically. Additionally the Russians will enter along the bottom map edge (south) sometime after turn 1 based on a die roll. If you play the SK scenarios in order, you get a good progression -- S1 has basic elite squads with no Support Weapons (SW) and ELR is not an issue. S2 starts to differentiate itself with ELR (both sides have ELR 3 and can and will degrade over the course of the scenario) and SW (yay toys!). The Russians get 2 LMG and a MMG with a host of Conscript-level cowards-- sorry, comrades to start with. The reinforcements they get are first-line troops with a good leader and LMG. The Germans get Elite and first-liners with lots of LMG, a MMG, Demolition Charges and a fun Flamethrower -- but no reinforcements, they make do with what they have.
Russians set-up first and the Germans move first. Why is this critical? The Germans get the first shot (their Prep Fire) and this weighed heavily into the Prawn's intial set-up. Here's how we set up for the War of the Rats:
Key things to note here (analysis and handwringing to come later): the Russian MMG was installed in the rear building and not on a flank or Victory building. Leaders were placed with the squads holding the SWs. I additionally put the DCs and FT in the hands of leaders as well. I spread out the 5-4-8s with the increased smoke exponents of 4 (due to SSR) across the line of advance to cover everyone.
The first shot of the game had my MMG open up on the Russian leader with squad and LMG on the east flank. I anticipated massive havoc and promptly rolled crap. Very well then, the squads would have to advance on their own. Here's a shot of the first turn (the label should say north-east):
The black acquistion counter is flipped to white to show German control (this wasn't to last more than a turn). Under heavy fire all the squads on the left flank have gone DM and routed leaving a leader pinned in the middle of the street with his DC (he wouldn't make it). The large-ish stack in the middle has a leader and two squads with a LMG and a FT. This Death Star stack would cause the Russkies a lot of difficulty in the middle.On the whole, the FT was an MVP. It liquidated more than a few squads. The fact that it ignores TEM makes it the ideal SW in urban firefights.
On the south-west flank the approach of the other German squads was held up a little less as we were able to wrap around the buildings with smoke cover. Of note were the two conscript squads here that survived a 30FP DC attack by just breaking. They may have crapped their pants but they were still alive...
That being said, the Russians were taking an awful lot of casualties. I think we were both being schooled on the very very distinct differences between 8-, 7-, and 6-morale troops. The Germans were DMed quite a bit but the Prawn was never able to totally finish them off. The Russian conscripts, on the other hand, seemed to do a lot of running and melting. Here's the "pile o' dead".
Fun ASL Story #1: The Prawn's MMG stacked with a 4-4-7 and 8-1 leader broke very early on and was a non-factor for a couple of turns as the hapless Russians desparately tried to unjam it. When they finally got it back on track it broke down again on the very next firing. This was a source of much loud guffawing on both sides. This will forever be known as the malfunctioning machine gun story.
Fun ASL Story #2: The Prawn's reinforcements never showed up. His die rolls were never under the turn number. As the vast number of his conscripts started to disintegrate under the German advance, the failure of the die roll at the beginning of his turns became a grotesque reminder of the failure of the Soviet system and all it stood for. The fall of the Iron Curtain could be directly traced to this tactical travesty.
Above is a shot from about turn 3 from the Prawn's perspective. Things had started to really go sour for the Russians. The defense was basically in tatters and the conscripts were all dead or running. The Prawn really had only one functioning and defensible stack at his rear (the MMG stack) but they couldn't really do more than plink away at the southern victory building (and with my troops pulled back they couldn't even do that later).
Below is a shot of the map table as a whole. I included it to show our table set-up and how we play. On the left, we've stacked the info counters for easy access (this really speeds up play). The top of the map not involved in the scenario was our die rolling space (I have got to get me a dice tower or something). For kicks, we stacked the dead in the lower right. Just off the bottom we put the scenario card with the reinforcements and turn counter.
The piles of the dead continue to flow brown:
If it wasn't already clear the game was a slaughter. The Prawn conceded after about 150 minutes at the end of turn 4. He had only one stack (the losers in the rear with the very crappy MMG) and the reinforcements still hadn't shown up.
I just want you guys to note that my squads have already set-up massive defense stacks to murder the reinforcements had they even shown up the next turn!
Above: the losers cower in their broken, rubbled, dormatory for little girls.
Seriously though, I went to check out ROAR (the ASL scenario results database) after this game and I was a little surprised to see it only 63-57 for the Germans. The Prawn and I spent a good chunk of time just debriefing the firefight. He's even written up a little AAR of his own and I'll add that to mine.
The questions that arose were basically about the set-up and its effectiveness, conscript (read: crappy) morale, and the relative evenness of the die rolling and our generally good grasp of the rules (we did very little consultation of the rulebook). Should the Prawn had conceded? Was Stalin's purges having their unintended consequences? When did we have time for a rematch?
But that's for part two...
The boys have put up Episode 13!
I'm currently listening to this episode while I type up some of my new eASLSK3... Gentlemen, I love the recurring ASL box joke. The intro is a hoot.
And oh yeah, finished up a game of S2 today with the Prawn -- get ready for more crazy action soon!
One of the great learning tips I tell my students is to rewrite and recompile their notes, especially on regular basis, to learn and really retain something. In a way it's very "old-school" -- learning by rote.
Can't let a full week go by without posting something!"Games are meant to be enjoyable pastimes, not tedious tests. In order to learn this game, begin by lightly reading the rules and thumbing through the game’s component parts. Don’t memorize anything. Punch out a few units from both sides and set them up on the map in any desired fashion. Now, with the rules in hand, follow the “sequence of play” below, re-reading as needed. ... Once you are moving along with your random game and rarely have to look things up, set up the real game and give it a try. By this time the terminology should be well under control and you will be able to play any SCS game with little additional effort." (Essig)Now just substitute ASL for SCS and "scenario" for "real game" you'll get the wisdom of this.
It's been a few days since my face-to-face with the Prawn over S1 Retaking Vierville and I've been thinking about the game in an effort to sort through mistakes, rules and other reactions. It's basically inevitable in a game of ASL and ASLSK-level of complexity to have these sorts of debriefs in order ot improve. At least at the ASLSK-level, the quick run through the rules makes finding your mistakes a lot easier!
