S6 - The fat lady has sung!

It's over and it wasn't pretty! More details later this week as I write up an AAR. Mr. Kastel schooled me and the dice did not feel like disputing it. Regardless, another fun game of ASLSK with another great competitor. I'm a bit rusty on the rules for the long layoff and I relearned a lot of stuff.

Here's another gem:

Self-rallies are 3.1e and proceed before Unit rallies (leader-led) which are 3.1f. A nice subtle difference but something to keep in mind if you're playing competitively.

Overall I'd say that S6 - Released from the East is another good, solid scenario from ASLSK1.

SK VASLeague 2010 - Round One GO!

Just wrapped up a great first session (first two turns) with Mr. Larry Kastel in our SK VASLeague Round 1 matchup. There be German SS roaming about here. It's turning out to be quite the bloodbath all around.

As always, I'm learning something new in this game. First, SK3 level errata has been added somewhere along the line that states:

SK3 3.3: "Units enter from off board - either at the start of a scenario or as reinforcements - as directed by the scenario card, including turn and location of entry. Units are set up offboard along the specified edge(s) of the map at the start of their RPh in the player turn of entry.They may not perform any action while offboard except move during the MPh per normal Open Ground movement costs. They must enterduring the MPh or APh of their turn of entry or be eliminated. Roads are considered to extend off board for purposes of road bonus."

Soooooo... basically I and my opponents have being doing this all wrong for a year (ha!). Reinforcements must basically set-up in "virtual hexes" just offboard before entering during the MPh or APh. There you go, more stuff you didn't know...

S15 AAR - The long story short...

It wasn't pretty. MartijnV, my opponent, took me apart quite skillfully to make it to the VASLeague Final.

Complete AAR to follow but I just wanted to mention that once again, my game was a super-positive experience. I have yet, knock on wood, to play anyone who wasn't a good sport.

Also, Martijn and I drew quite an audience. Kudos to Lorenzo and ChrisNL who were another set of eyes for us for rules oversights. Again, the ASL community seems to be quite awesome.

VASLeague Round 4 - News! I suck!

Just wanted to let everyone know that reading is a skill that is integral to ASL. Also, "Level 1" means hills. "Level 0" is the ground. Read over your S15 scenario card... yeah, the Germans set up on the HILL, not the ground.... God I suck... That is all.

p.s. Thanks to MartijnV, my opponent for a tough, tough game so far. One other thing, does anyone have a good method of recording and transmitting HIP-status Guns to opponents in VASL? The problem being that my encrypted files to Martijn were not able to be opened by him (they are vanilla Microsoft Word 2007 files). Ease of use and infalliability a plus!

p.p.s. Wow we drew quite the crowd on VASL while playing today. Shout outs to Lorenzo, Andy, Pvt. Davis, Evan, et. al. Roll low kids!

S19 - Terrain Transformation

S19 - Purple Heart Lane with a few terrain transformations in my paint editor. This is what Carentan should look like in the scenario.

VASLeague Round 3 - AAR - Purple Heart Lane

Remember this scene from Band of Brothers? When Winters had to get the paratroops out of the ditches and charge the MGs set-up by Fallschimjagers in the sleepy little French town of Carentan, before they were cut to ribbons? That heart-stopping moment is the focus of ASLSK S19 - Purple Heart Lane. (This scenario is available at MMP's website here.) This is the AAR for my VASLeague Round Three game of that scenario with BryanS (as the Germans). It definitely lived up to the drama of the television show!

Thanks to Winters and Andy -- my opponent from the day before my VASLeague session -- I learned that aggression is important in these sorts of scenarios where you are attacking entrenched defenders. Though to be perfectly honest, the German troops here are hardly "entrenched" per se, but still elite. So a hearty thanks goes out to Andy for teaching me that pussyfooting around when you need to take an objective is stupid. (See D1 AAR!)

Below is a screenshot of the set-up. Due to SSR, the grain fields are impassable flooded fields that do not block line of sight. This was historical reality in Normandy as German troops tried to narrow the approaches to key locations. There is one other minor terrain transformation (and I'm still a little hazy on why it was necessary -- was it just to give more breathing room to the entering US Airborne?) in that hex CC6 is considered Open Ground*. The final SSR of note is that starting on Turn 4, German squads could start pulling out of the town and concurrently raise the VP locations required to be taken on a one-squad to one-building basis.

Essentially, the 101st Airborne have to charge into the town and capture/control at least 6+ buildings by game's end. They have one squad almost to the crossroads with a leader, one squad starting their run and five off board raring to go. Opposing them at first are a couple of German elites with LMGs and leaders. Four more squads come in on turn one from the south (left side of the board) with leaders, MGs, and a DC.

The plan was simple. Charge!

Above is a shot of the board after my first turn, at the start of BryanS' Rally Phase. I've established a fallback position (very very important tactic kids!) at Z8 where I put a leader to rally anyone who broke during the charge up the middle of the intersection. I actually laid some smoke in the wrong position accidentally which slightly hindered my charge but basically allowed me to move about to set-up the Z8 command post. Through sheer weight of numbers (BryanS simply didn't have enough squads to fire at me) I got close enough to ambush the building in W6 despite the tenacious defense. Buildings controlled after one turn: 1.

The Z8 hex turned out to be an excellent position to prep fire from and fix the enemy in the first set of buildings. Twenty-one leader-led-FP is nothing to sneeze at.

BryanS spent his turn deploying his reinforcements around the main set of buildings, probably with an eye to trying to hold out as long as possible before bugging out to increase the victory threshold. His advance forces were basically down to a single leader who continuously survived multiple point blank shots and wounds to limp away.

Above is the board disposition after two full turns. The 101st have taken the two outlying buildings and another to the west (top). That top squad would perform a sweep around the right flank and doubletime to secure the other buildings on the fringe of the town.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Aggression proved the better part of valour and I charged again, carefully, with single units, trying to find cracks and seams in the defensive fire. The key is to use the terrain as much as possible. I conciously also tried to "fix" defenders with the non-moving elements of my forces.

The shot above is Allied Turn 3, just after Movement. Note the residual laid down. In probably the most critical DF shot of game, BryanS had the misfortune to roll boxcars -- if I'm remembering right it either allowed my guys to sidle right up to him in the main buildings or was a FPF shot breaking his men or both. And again, if I remember correctly, I annihilated his men in another round of CC.

On, as it would turn out, the last turn of the game, BryanS had one last ace up his sleeve in a DC-toting squad next to my megastack of Airborne. He attempted to operably place the DC and in my DF I rolled five-hojillion point-blank-fire snakes, or the equivalent. His squad was vapourized and he conceded.

Red Stars are controlled buildings

Doing the math, by the half-way point of the game I already had my required six buildings with few casualties while inflicting some grievous damage. There was no way Bryan could disengage without taking more hits and even if he did, I had more than enough manpower to capture the additional buildings to make up for it.

It was a ridiculously successful assault borne of massive aggression. Part of it was evoked by the memories of the Band of Brothers show and part of it was the game I had had with Andy the previous day. In retrospect, this scenario (by Brian Youse, head honcho of MMP) really captured the "feel" of combat in Normandy. I actually tried and succeeded in the use of fire and manuever.

I think I've heard this somewhere, not sure of the source, but there are wrong answers, but there are never any wrong questions -- in essence, my forces asked too many questions of BryanS' and I won a hard fought victory.

Thanks to Mr. Youse for a fun scenario. Thanks to BryanS for being a great opponent and gracious in defeat. As per usual, my VASLeague opponent was a gentleman. Thank you to anyone reading out there. Sorry I haven't been on in a bit but I've been enjoying the sun -- yes, the scrub does go outside!

Roll low!

p.s. next VASLeague opponent and I are playing S15 - Hammer to the Teeth!

* - Talloaf has explained this terrain SSR: the SSR says "woods mass" so it's the whole bloody woods! You can now run to the top of the map (west!). Don't do it coward!

Vacation in the Pacific...

What the heck has the scrub been up to?

Well, thanks to the little ones having some sort of crazy sleep issues I no longer get any! Yay!

Gaming has gone on the back shelf -- yesterday, the missus and I got Fire in the Sky on the table, an MMP title that's not ASL-related (got it in a nice package deal from Chas Argent -- thanks Chas!). Relevance to ASL?

Mr. Argent made a recent post/progress report on Gamesquad and CSW about the upcoming PTO repackaging of ASL-stuff: the long out-of-print Code of Bushido and Gung Ho! will be bundled together and hopefully come out next year. I sense a nice dovetailing of PTO interest between this and the Band of Brothers "sequel" in the Pacific...

In other news, The 2 Half-Squads have episode 21 up:

http://the2halfsquads.podbean.com/

On my plate?

I'll finish up the AAR on my third round VASLeague game (my round 4 opponent is in Europe and just had a baby so things are still getting sorted out) and post it soon and perhaps a primer on VASL itself, or making homemade counters -- why the last two? Ken Dunn has accepted my offer to playtest the new ASLSK HASL and I'll need to get more British counters on the table if I want to do ftf play!

Roll LOw!

VASLeague Round 3 FINISHED!

Too tired to type much. Here's the VASL Analyzer numbers:

Opponent: Snakes: 0. Boxcars 2. DR Average = 7.568
(37 rolls). dr Average = 4.25 (4 rolls)

scrub: Snakes: 2. Boxcars 0. DR
Average = 7.19 (42 rolls). dr Average = 1.75 (4 rolls)

DR was pretty even. But the boxcars and snakes tell the story. One dr meant an ambush... Great game, great and gracious opponent.

The Pacific - a sequel to Band of Brothers

Tom Hanks' and Steven Spielberg's Band of Brothers on HBO (and later on DVD ad nauseum!) was a big reason I got back into wargames and into ASL itself in particular.

The "cinematic" nature of ASL was a big draw of course -- die rolls replicating some of the chaos and sheer intensity of the conflict we so often see on the big screen, be it in Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers or The Longest Day et al.

So, some interesting news has come that the long awaited "sequel" to Band of Brothers has entered final production and will be released March 2010.

Check out the trailer on youtube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I_O6lHIDTM

UPDATE: Looks like the powers that be don't like free advertising. Youtube has pulled this trailer for "The Pacific". Fear not though, just search the site and there are mirrors.

All I can say is, with due deference to our veterans, is WOW. I cannot wait to game after seeing something that stirring. Here's hoping MMP can get the much anticipated Code of Ho module redone in time to take advantage of the synergies involved. In the meantime, I'll be playing ETO in ASL and Combat Commander: Pacific!

---

UPDATE: TABSCon in two days! If you're in the Toronto area get out there!

UPDATE: My opponent and I in VASLeague Round 3 have settled on a scenario and sides (S19 Purple Heart Lane -- Band of Brothers inspired! -- and I'm the American parachute infantry!) Somebody call up Lt. Winters!

Roll low...

As each June comes to a close and the day light hours lengthen and grow, so too does the massive pile of marking that oppresses and mocks me. After a furious week of non-stop marking I'm done. Take that education!

So, as usual, my VASLeague game has been put off to the last minute. You might as well call it the Procrastinator's League.

Anyways, here are some fun dice links for those of you who like math:

1. http://www.nextshooter.com/trueodds - Nice pictorial representation of all the possibilities of rolling two dice.

2. http://boardgames.about.com/od/dicegames/a/probabilities.htm - Short article with the odds of rolling a specific number with two dice.

3. http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/TwoDiceWithHistogram/ - Want to roll a lot of dice and see what happens, without having to literally roll the dice?

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dice#Probability - Wikipedia has a say.

5. http://www.jimloy.com/math/probabil.htm - Nice concise math explanation.


So, this chart is probably the most interesting one:

2 – 1 – 2.8% - 2.8%
3 – 2 – 5.6% - 8.4%
4 – 3 – 8.3% - 16.7%
5 – 4 – 11.1% - 27.8%
6 – 5 – 13.9% - 41.7%
7 – 6 – 16.7% - 58.4%
8 – 5 – 13.9% - 72.3%
9 – 4 – 11.1% - 83.4%
10 – 3 – 8.3% - 91.7%
11 – 2 – 5.6% - 97.3%
12 – 1 – 2.8% - 100%

The bolded numbers are the probabilities (with bad rounding) of rolling a particular number or less -- very important in ASL!

[Post inspired by the severe beating I received from the prawn in our last C&C: Ancients game -- wow, what a crushing defeat!]

VASLeague Round 2 - AAR Part 4

[Four parts?! How self-indulgent!]

Axis Turn Five

My half of the fifth turn was quiet as I waited for the inevitable counterattack from the remaining Russian squads their reinforcements. Lady Luck was still on my side however. The first-line reinforcement squad armed with the LMG was vapourized by yet another very low roll by yours truly in hex T3. And of course, the Commissar offed another hapless conscript half-squad when they failed their miserably low MC.

In the MPh I even brought in my HMG stack from M5 to O5...

Allies Turn 5

Paul was massing one last big push into the Bread Factory from the east. The question was whether he could mosey around the inevitable blasting from my stacks o' death.

In the interest of brevity and following the axiom of "a picture is worth a thousand words", here is the answer to that question:

OUCH! -- The Wall of Lead

They couldn't make it past the Wall of Lead. Stacks were blasting from O5, P5, R5 and the Bread Factory itself. It was a brave charge that ended in tragedy. Turn Six saw some little bit of maneuvering (one stack approached the Russians directly and the HMG stack went to good ol' N3).

On the final Allied turn the rally checks for the last couple of squads failed and that was that. Appropriately, I guess, the Commissar was the last to shoot in this meeting engagement around the Red Barricades' Bread Factory #2.

S18 Baking Bread - End of Game

Here's a final shot of the map at the end of the scenario. The last of the Russian forces huddled up in R1, their AT Gun still sitting alone in R5, and a ton of their discarded support weapons littering the field of battle.

For the Germans, the MVP was Sgt. Esser himself who, after watching his stack get blasted away, picked up an LMG and voluntarily forfeited his leadership modifier for the rest of the game -- who says there's no "Berserk" in ASLSK?

---

Notes from the Rubble

1. Once again, I'd like to thank LTC Paul for being such a good sport. In retrospect, I think he was a good guy for trying to the very last in the face of such long odds. He definitely passed his PMC.

2. I really, really, like S18. The more I think about it, the more I like the densely urban scenarios a la Stalingrad.

3. I think this was my very first scenario with a Gun. I wasn't too worried about it; AFVs are moving Guns after all... I think Paul did a fine job with the HIP -- perhaps he could have rotated the CA once counter-clockwise? But how would he know that I wouldn't be charging Esser on a route north?

4. A Commissar really changes the rally calculations. I'd say Paul was unlucky for the most part early, but seriously, no halfway decent squad should be failing the rally checks?

5. Gun crews self-rally?! Oh crap!

6. My counter discipline is a LOT better. My language about doing things is not as precise as it needs to be. You must always be very clear in what you intend to do, and with whom or what you intend to do it with.

Example: In the early game I prepped or DFed a line of squads in big FG. Later on, I added anothe squad into the stack in the group. When I DFed again later I said "same guys" doing the DF. Well, when I was placing the Fired markers I discovered I had neglected to mention that new squad and Paul and I had to judge what to do. Had I intended to fire with them or was I holding them back...? The answer was honestly in between... I intended neither but as a courtesy I should have been more precise in my language with Paul and explicitly said what I was NOT firing with I guess. I was a LOT more precise after that. You have to be if you're in a competitive situation -- amongst friends it's a different story.

7. HMGS still rock.

8. Seeing as I hadn't played an ASL game in anger since the last VASLeague round I was a bit rusty at first but I really had no problem getting right back into the swing of things by game's end. I was almost taking a "mini-break" from the game. There's no question it's still in the top echelon of games I've ever enjoyed and this match really reinforced that. I may dabble in Memoir '44 or SCS or Ancients or whatever but I think that ASL is still in that sweetspot of complexity, scale, and sheer nervous excitement over every single die roll.

On to Round Three!

VASLeague Round 2 - AAR Part 3

Axis Turn Two - Start of the RPh

The Axis second turn was quite eventful. Scratch that -- every turn was eventful -- that's why I love ASL goshdarnit.

As would be the case for much of the match, Prep Fire on units in buildings was pretty fruitless. Esser's trimmed down stack and his personal LMG did nothing to the units holding the Bread Factory proper.

Little would happen until my Movement Phase when things started to develop. I pushed my 7-0 stack to the R-column of buildings south of the AT Gun and followed up with an advancing line of 4-6-7s onto the P-column. Seeing the danger Paul swivelled his Gun CA to O5/O6 where he could still keep N3 under fire and address the German first-liners threatening him directly. His TH roll was ineffective.

In DFPh, the Russians firegrouped the squads and MGs in the Bread Factory on Esser in N3 and promptly rolled boxcars -- malfing the MMG by random selection. Esser was earning his nickname of Sgt. Luckypants McRabbitfoot. The dice gods evidently favoured me this night because my 12FP+3 shot in the AFPh on the 9-1 stack of broken Russians promptly snaked for a double CR result. Maybe I should have been calling myself McRabbitfoot.

I recall now that Paul and I, at the end of the session, remarked that the dice in the game were weirdly all over the place. The funny thing was that under the VASL Analyzer at aslscenarioarchive.com we averaged close to 7 on our DRs.

Axis Turn Two - DFPh

As we pressed to the Advance Phase I thought I was sitting very pretty. Though the Russians still held the Bread Factory I had maneuvered a nice assault force into a kind of right hook envelopment. I was making inroads on the Factory and the Gun was just not doing its part. Of course, I suddenly realized that I hadn't yet moved my reinforcements onto the board. Paul quickly checked the rulebook and told me I had only a one turn window to move OR advance them onto the board... whew... I advanced them to L5 to support another base of fire with the HMG closer to the Factory. DON'T FORGET YOUR REINFORCEMENTS KIDS!

Allies Turn 3 - Start of RPh (I think!)

The Allied half of the second turn was full of close calls. Yet another conscript unit fell to the wrath of the Commissar and Prep Firing across the streets yielded scary shots but no effect in the end. Of note was a German firegroup rolling snakes (cowering!) and their targets passing nasty 2MCs.

Though I was able to break the Gun crew (twice in the game too), it was becoming pretty clear to me that I wasn't going to attrit the Russians fast enough this way and I'd better be pushing men into the Factory soon... To make sure I got the message the fresh Russian reinforcements moved onto the board (Paul is not as dumb as I) from the east mapedge. The only thing that made me a little less stressed was the quality of the reinforcements. They were mostly crummy 4-2-6 conscript MMCs who I really could ignore for a half-turn or so til they brought their FP to bear.

Axis Turn Four

Here's how things looked around the start of turn four. We had called it a night after turn three and another 2+ hour session. When we reconvened I was ready to start "The Push"...

Axis Turn Four - MPh

I think that screenshot above says it all. It was masterfully executed if I do say so myself... or at least the Prep Fire finally broke both Bread Factory stacks... Cue the Elite squad with DC hanging out with Esser in N3... The 30 FP DC attack CRed two squads in that stack and the rout was on.

I'm not quite sure what happened in this turn to cause it but I think Paul was a little flustered from the advance when he shot from R1 to P2 before I had taken the hex. Luckily he missed (and really, I wasn't going to make it stand if it did) and we had our quote of the match.

Allies Turn 4 - Start of the RPh

This is the incredibly ugly situation facing Paul at the start of his turn. In (A) I had taken the Bread Factory with Esser and another stack in P2 and P3. At (B), my reinforced HMG stack with 9-2 was looming over the scene. Both (C) and (D) held stacks of 4-6-7s and LMGs, only differing in leadership. The latter two stacks were now turning the tables on the Russians, covering every close approach to the Bread Factory and near enough to support if things even got close to CC. Every Russian squad of note in the area was DM and low crawling away or a turn away and conscripts. The Commissar wasn't going to win this himself... I was in a very strong position but ASL is such a nailbiting game I was far from overconfidence. The victory condition was both Bread Factory hexes and I could easily foresee some last turn CC win by the Russians ruining my plans...

Next up, the conclusion!

VASLeague Round 2 - AAR Part 2

Axis Turn 1 - DFPh

With just around 2 weeks to go 'til the deadline, Paul and I set-up and played turn one. It was a two and a half hour session: grueling and nervewracking.

My number one concern was the MMG and squad in P3. They were (1) elite, (2) armed with a nasty SW, (3) occupying a victory hex with a full field of fire on my incoming troops. The very first roll of the game was my Prep Fire from Sgt. Esser's group into that building for a 16FP + 2 shot.... If they failed to break the target there'd be some nasty retaliation. The final DR was an 8 for a 1MC and whew! I broke the unit. No MMG return fire (for now) and I started drawing up plans to advance on the factory. My first gamble of the game.

I moved a nice kill stack with a HMG and 9-2 leader to L5, advancing them to M5 later. This stack proved to be a nasty piece of work, mowing down units the entire game. I've said it before and I'll say it again... HMGs are awesome. That 7FP and 3 ROF for the German version is, in the words of my students, "sick".

After pushing a bunch of 4-6-7s into buildings across the street south of the factory I played a few nervous smoke games farther down with stacks of my slighty better troops, led by a 7-0. They were to roll up the left flank of the Russians in the south with the intent of getting some better sightlines to the factory itself -- and hopefully, trip over the HIP gun.

As luck would have it, Sgt. Esser's large stack in the N3 building was way too juicy a target. Paul unHIPed and laid into Esser's stack. The Gun turned out to be in R5 zeroed in on the N3 building. The Gun hit and a MMC broke. For the next couple of turns, the 45L Gun laid waste to the hex and was waxing squads up and down. But Sgt. Esser passed every MC and even picked up a dropped LMG later to wield it himself.

The only other thing I noted early was the nice defensive set-up in the north. The Commissar waited in R2 for the inevitable routing squads where he could easily rally them...

Allies Turn 1 - Start of the RPh

Of course, we went to the second half of the first turn where the Commissar promptly claimed his first victim. He ELRed the broken Russian squad when they refused to listen to his wonderful rhetoric. My "elite" Germans did no better in N3, refusing to budge under Sgt. Esser's tender ministrations. Ah well.

Prep Fire was both "hit and miss". (In fact, if there's a general lesson that has to be made known to new players it is this: Don't depend on Prep Fire!) Paul's squad in O7 took a PB shot at my 7-0 and three squad stack and missed. Whew again from me. Then his whole line in the neighbourhood started shooting across the street -- no effect! But his newly unveiled Gun popped a few rounds (thanks ROF!) and literally popped the head off a unit (thanks Critical Hit!) and broke the other squad. Esser was left, again, with a bunch of headless corpses under his command.

Allies Turn 1 - MPh

I think Paul sought, immediately to take advantage of Esser's very precarious position. He moved in two different squads from his immediate reserves to try and CC N3 (I think -- Paul's offered to write up an AAR from his side and I'll post it when he's finished it). Alas, I had a leader-led (9-2) HMG in M5 with LOS to N2 and O3, both hexes he would need to get to if he wanted to advance into N3 and take out Esser.

In both instances the HMG (and supporting squad at first) chewed up the Russian advance. I kept a LOT of rate. Now, my memory of this is hazy as I didn't pay attention to it at the time but Paul mentioned it later when we convened for Turn Two onwards -- Defensive First Fire where you keep ROF in your SW is not carte blanche to keep blasting away -- the key limiter is the MF expended to get to the hex. So, in at least two instances, I think, I kept ROF and fired a second/subsequent time on the same squad moving into the open ground hexes of N2 and O3. Having expended only 1MF to get to the hex I was allowed only ONE shot. Was this game changing? I'm not sure. I do recall that both squads who tried this ended up very dead. I apologized to Paul, I think some of my enthusiasm with the HMG might have "jedi mind tricked" him... To be fair we were both tired from the long turn and it was a Sunday night before a work day (and I certainly didn't do it on purpose!).

Regardless, in the end Paul couldn't get his guys into CC with Esser in N3. He would maintain a bastion of German fire from that building until his advance midgame.

The rest of the turn saw my 7-0 stack rout the guys next door in DFPh and my HMG, still maintaining ROF rout the other squads on the O-line buildings. Things were starting to get ugly...

Axis Turn Two - Start of RPh

We concluded the session by doing Turn Two's Rally Phase -- we'd know what we had going into the next turn and would have time to think about it. Here you can see that the routed O-line squads were backed up with the 9-1 into hex P5. The squad in R3 had run up into the Bread Factory and taken up the MMG left behind by the others. While the Gun was still threatening N3 with a nasty -2 acquisition counter my guys on the M-line and the 7-0 stack in O8 were making noises on the Russian flanks.

It was turning out to be a very interesting game...

VASLeague Round 2 - AAR Part 1

Welcome to Part One of the VASLeague Round 2 AAR I'm writing. At least I'm pretty sure it's going to be more than one part given that all my other AARs are. Let's get to it!

My second round opponent was LTC Paul who is a reservist in the United States and has a PhD to boot. Given that we were in the same time zone I thought it would be a breeze to hook up and finish the match. Alas, it wasn't until last Wednesday when we were finally able to conclude things due to a protracted game of computer tag. I'm just glad that we had the two months to be able to play. When real life rears its ugly head wargames get shoved in the corner.

We decided on S18 - Baking Bread (available originally in MMP's Operations magazine but now downloadable here). Baking Bread is an allusion to the tense firefight for Bread Factory #2 (those crazy Soviet names!) during the battle of Stalingrad in October of 1942. The scenario was adaptable, presumably, from Red Barricades, the HASL module that many consider the best ASL experience, bar none.

Compared to the other ASLSK scenario set in Stalingrad (S2 War of the Rats), Baking Bread is a claustrophobic, dense, urban nightmare. Scenario rules make all non-building terrain "Rubble" -- that is, chunky +3 TEM, 3 MF piles of broken stuff representing the detritus of intense urban street fighting. No nice trees and orchards here. VASL was able to show this with Rubble counters over the affected hexes (see pic above). Other than an ambush modifier for Russian squads (probably representing their inherent fanaticism in defense of their once-lovely city) the scenario also gives ASLSK players their first glimpse at the Soviet Commissar leader.

The Commissar, for those who don't know their Russian history, was a very nice fellow who followed the rank and file troops around and thanks to Stalin's visionary leadership shared command of the units with the military officer. He really was a useless adjutant except that he had the authority to perform summary executions for the political good. In ASL, this means the 6+1 leader is really a 10-0 fanatic who, thanks to his scary powers, rallies broken squads with ease. The problem being that he ELRs then Casualty Reduces anyone who fails to toe the party line. Like I said, very fun at "parties". Haha.

Here's a shot of the map with some crazy markings on it. At first I was quite surprised at the size. It's a fraction of a full map, condensing a lot of urban terrain in one. If War of the Rats was anything to go by, this map with MORE units and a Gun would be quite unpleasant.

According to the historical notes, Sgt. Esser, observing the carnage around him charged his small band of Wehrmacht soldiers into the Bread Factory (marked by "V" overlays on the map). This is represented by the open blue arrow from the top left. Esser's band sets up in sight of the Bread Factory filled with Russian troops and back up by the "X" where the commissar is polishing his pistol.

Another small group of squads is in the buildings below, making the crossing into the street a (hopefully) fatal activity.

Given that I had only six turns as the Germans to take and hold the two victory hexes I couldn't be dawdling. My plan was to sweep the reinforcements from the left edge through the streets below and threaten the units on top in an aggressive advance. A subsequent reinforcement on turn 2 would support whatever position needed it. For the Russians, they would receive a mediocre stack of conscripts from the right edge on turn 3. I felt confident that they wouldn't be much of a threat if I took the factory asap.

The main problem? The Russians had a 45L anti-tank gun HIPped (hidden-initial-placement). Paul was honourable enough to email me an encrypted Word file with the Gun's HIP and CA -- to be shared when he unleashed hell on my troops. Neat eh? Not to spoil things but I gave him such a juicy target on the first turn he was blasting away with it immediately from the position marked with a "?". The Gun had Q5 and R4 in a covered arc.

Here's the first turn, set-up and ready to go:

[I have no idea what the red ringed halo is...]

The game begins in Part 2 later!

VASLeague Round Two Completed!

Woot! Let's just say it was another barn burner. More details and AAR soonish.

In the meantime, here's the Quote of the Match:

scrub - dude, im not sure why you fired on your own men...
LTC Paul - Because they SUCK!!! LOL!
scrub - OMG LOL

LOL indeed. It was another great scenario and a gracious and awesome opponent -- sorry for being such a sloppy player (though I think I improved by game's end).

More from VASLeague 2...

We finally caught each other in a big match of Computer Tag. Tonight we ripped through 2 turns in almost 3 hours.

Highlights?

1. Turns out we may have royally screwed up the HMG last week. Units that expend only 1MF get shot at only once in the MPh. I may have shot more than once with the HMG of Doom last week. It's ok, I think it had ROF once tonight. Damn you dice gods!!!

2. Speaking of dice, the ASL Scenario Archive has an awesome VASL Analyzer. It's at http://davidramsey.no-ip.info/asl/analyser.php and rocks. Now you can definitively prove your dice were crapola. For what it's worth I was averaging 6.3 and opponent was 6.9 (4 snakes and 1 boxcar for me, 1/3 for him) if I remember correctly. I do NOT want to play tomorrow night when I will regress to the mean... if you know what I mean? Haha, I'm funny.

3. Prep Fire has demonstrated to us that it SUCKS in terms of getting people to move out of houses. But I think we knew that.

4. I almost forgot my reinforcements in turn 2. The SK and full ASL has rules for this! Unlike other games (I'm thinking SCS and whatnot) if you do not put the guys on the board on that turn you LOSE THEM! [Check 3.3] Wow, luckily I forgot them in MPh but was able to Advance them in APh. Lucky lucky boy...

5. If you know S18 - Baking Bread, Sgt. Esser, who leads the first squads nearest the "Bread Factory" has now been renamed in our game, Sgt. Luckypants McRabbitfoot. Nothing phases him. NOTHING. Now he has a machine gun...

6. The Commissar ate his first victim today, some schleps from the Ukrainian steppes refused to stop peeing their pants so he perferated them. Nice. His name is Ivan actually. Awesome at parties...

Remember, roll LO....

VASLeague 2 OR HMGs -- I love them!

It's been a while since I've played some ASL(SK) so I was a bit rusty tonight versus Paul, my opponent in the VASLeague.

Yep, we just started our game in the last 10 days of the two months we had. I laughed -- LAUGHED -- when I heard the VASLeague gave 2 months a round. Now I know why. If it wasn't me then it was my opponent who couldn't scrap together the time. I think that face-to-face play is less likely to be disrupted but for some reason, as soon as ASL moves online all bets are off.

So, we decided at the last moment to play S18 - Baking Bread. (MMP has the map here. ) It's set in my favourite of hotspots, Stalingrad. To make things even crazier, the map is a fraction of the whole in an intense built up area. What is more, special scenario rules put every non-building terrain hex as rubble (+3 TEM, inherent terrain, breaks LOS etc. etc.). So the map is pretty busy. Here's a shot from the middle of the action:

So far it seems pretty even; the balance seems to see-saw between the two of us (I'm German). The HIP Russian gun tore me a new one but my HMG seems to be handled by some German Davey Crockett -- first Allied turn he eliminated two units, CRed a third and, broke two more. That's what I call a severe beating.

eASLSK3 Progress & VASLeague Round 2

Sorry of the lack of news recently. I've been busy playing games other than ASL (double sorry!) and real-life (exploding dryer!) + week before March Break means mucho work for me.

Just wanted to update that I'm still plugging away at the e-version of my ASLSK3 manual when I get the chance and inclination to type.

Again, I can't help but be impressed how much I actually learn when I read and re-type each section. One of the additional benefits is space. MMP seems to have had some sections badly paragraphed and I've had the luxury of reformatting them where they make sense -- adding a lot to readability. Another benefit is that I've been able to add in third-party player aids: in particular, the neat two-pager IFT charts by Ole Bøe available here. Here's a screenshot of the so-far compiled eASLSK3 opened to the IFT page:

Here's another page from the eASLSK3, the latest completed section, the Rout Phase:

I guesstimate that given a good chunk of effort the eASLSK3 will be completed in a month. There's only half the Close Combat phase, the Guns section and half the Vehicles left to go. All the pictures and diagrams are all done.

Fun story: I keep mistyping Guns as Funs. Nothing like rules on Machine Funs and Funshields!

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Lastly, I've made contact with my second round opponent in the VASLeague -- he's got a doctorate in Math -- I'm DEAD! He's agreed to post some after-action stuff once we're done. We're still in the preliminary stages of choosing a scenario. Anyone with a suggestion that's not S1, S2, S4 or S28?

AAR - VASLeague Game 1 - S4 Welcome Back! Part 3

I'm going to make this post short and just some small thoughts about my first VASLeague -- read that: first competitive game. No offense intended to Prawn but a game between friends, no matter how competitive, for me, is a slightly different beast.


1. COMPETITION. If you're new to the whole ASL hobby and are not adverse to it, nothing beats competitive stress to help you learn and learn FAST. It really magnifies even very small play sequences into titanic struggles. For example, the S4 SSRs have a simple DR at the start of every turn to determine environmental conditions (I think I've got the real ASL term for it) as to whether it's snowing or not. This die roll was crucial in the middle turns as firefights erupted over longer distances and the +1 hindrance involved became a factor.


Another example I can give is when I first started playing Magic: The Gathering competitively in tournaments for "real". It was a far cry from casual play with buddies. I remember my hands shaking in nervousness as I laid my first land down as if it was the end of times... I wasn't that good but darn if I wasn't a much tighter (better) player afterwards, quickly outstripping my local play group and friends.


What is more, I've read countless posts by players of ASL who became, for lack of a better term, "inbred" in their rules knowledge and gameplay. That is, when you play with only a small circle of friends, or with only a single f2f opponent or solo exclusively, you're bound to be getting something wrong and/or are getting into a rut with your tactics and strategy. It's hard to surprise yourself in solitaire play or if your only opponent always preps and never skulks or whatever. Mixing it up in something like a VASLeague seems a great way to beat this "inbreeding" problem.



2. COUNTER DISCIPLINE. This is sort of linked to the first point. Playing with the Prawn, we get very very lazy about counter placement, especially the Residual Fire counters and occasionally the Defensive Fire ones. Play amongst friends leads to this lack of discipline which is clearly not OK in a competitive situation. Reminder/informational counters in VASL are a click away and seeing as some games could take extended breaks in the middle of a scenario you have to clearly mark everything. Does this make you a better player? You bet.



3. NEVER GIVE UP. I was positive I was going to lose on the first half player turn when gwaedin went waaaay left. To be honest, I joined the league to learn first, win second. But you can't help but be a bit crestfallen when it appears your opponent is going to smoke you on the first turn. I've been reading some stuff on the GameSquad forums recently about the "Personal Morale Check" PMC. Failing the PMC basically gives your opponent the game. Luckily I passed -- mainly because I remembered I was there to have fun and learn and making the best of a seemingly bad situation was the best learning to be had. Stay positive and have fun. You'd be surprised what happens sometimes.



4. THE DICE. I'm not really going to complain about the dice because, as I have said before on this blog, I long ago made peace with the Gods of Dice in boardgames and the Random Number Generator in electronic games. Never complain about the dice. You'll lose sleep over something that you cannot control. If it bothers you that much play a diceless wargame like Napoleon's Triumph (amazing btw) or *gasp* Euros! Part of the fun of ASL is in the extremes of dice results anyways. Nothing makes for a better story than those times only two boxcars would save your opponent -- and you roll 12 then... 11! Whew!



5. SKULKING. Long before I started playing ASL I had heard about "skulking" -- the act of Assault Moving your stacks in defense back out of sight in the MPh then Advancing them later back to where they started. If you try and justify this in real-life terms you'll just go crazy. It's definitely a "gamey" tactic -- something that implies unsporting behaviour. I have news for you. If you want realism in a game you're asking for something that will never exist. By its very nature games are an abstraction of "reality" and blah blah blah. It's a stupid argument. I've now embraced skulking as part of my ASL toolkit. So should you.



6. HMGs. Holy crap. Wow. Here's the counter that really helped me win my game:

Let's do a little in-depth counter talk shall we? I think it represents the M2 Browning or something very similar. 8FP all by it's lonesome. On a simple DR of 7 it's already resulting in a 1MC. On snakes it's a KIA/1. It's (unseen) B# is 12 so it's normal, no more brittle than the typical MG. The range is 16 (underscored here is not used in SK-level but I think it means it can spray fire, ie. area fire on two adjacent hexes in one burst) which is pretty well any LOS on the SK maps, especially the "urban" settings. Crossing a field in front of it must be absolute murder. (DR of 7 -1 FFNAM, -1 FFMO = 2MC).


But of course, the most "fun" thing about the .50 HMG in the American arsenal is the 3 ROF. Fully HALF the time you fire, you'll be firing AGAIN, hit or miss. Given that the coloured die at 3 results in a DR of 9 at worst, that's still a PTC on the IFT! So if you do hit and keep ROF it's terribly effective. No wonder I was vapourizing Germans in that last MPh. (Remember, the HMG was stacked with a 10-2 leader so... 8FP, -2 leader, -1 FFNAM, -1 FFMO = average DRs of 7 are now 3s and K/2 results on the IFT. That's "average".)


Drawbacks? It's 5PP to haul around so make sure you put it somewhere you want to keep in place. And as gwaedin mentions, the covered arc of the thing when it's in a building in full-ASL is limited. No crazy Star Wars laser turret shenanigans.

The HMG definitely made me look smart!

7. FTs AND SET-UP. Did I make a mistake putting my FT on a non-elite unit? I know it goes against convention but I knew that out of all my SWs, the FT would have drawn the most attention to start (HMG too). I certainly didn't think they would last long but I don't think I truly appreciated just how bad it is in the hands of the 2nd liners who wielded one. They had a very good chance of breaking it but to be fair, I intended them solely as major threats to try and funnel gwaedin's advance. Or maybe I'm just stupid. It bears a bit more study.

S4, as I mentioned previously, is really the first time you have to get very very careful with set-up in SK1 (provided you play them in order). Not only do you have to put the right pieces in the right places with the obvious consideration of the Victory Conditions but you have to put the right squads with the right SWs and leaders. I have no doubt that I could have easily blown this scenario even before the first turn with a more sub-optimal set-up. There's a lot of replay value in this scenario alone.

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Did I say this was "short"? Man, I'm chatty. Anyways, hope this series of AARs on my first VASLeague was informative. I'm adding another couple of LEARNING TIPS:

TIP #5: PLAY ASL "COMPETITIVELY" IN A LEAGUE OR TOURNAMENT.

And:

TIP #6: REVIEW YOUR PLAY AND LOOK FOR WAYS TO IMPROVE.

Thanks for reading!

Heck, one more:

TIP#7: NEVER GIVE UP. PASS YOUR PERSONAL MORALE CHECK!

AAR - VASLeague Game 1 - S4 Welcome Back! Part 2

Everybody, please welcome guest poster gwaedin (a.k.a. Luca Andena) who I played in my first VASLeague game. I've just copied and reformatted his post from the last update so it was easier to access and read here. My reactions, which I promised earlier, will be up shortly -- I hope!

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Very well, I wanted to first make an AAR myself on the Italian ASL forum but it seems that the arms of the mighty gods pounding the RL hammer on me do not get CX.

My AAR will have to wait but this wonderful opponent and his blog deserve a comment on my part. I'm just putting things in as they come.

Intensity. Absolutely true. I don't have that much experience with ASL (and wargames in general) and for me playing live and pbem is VERY different. While with pbem you have all the time you need to think every possible move, that's not the case while you play "live" on VASL or FtF... even if your opponent is kind enough to allow you a lot of time to think your moves without complaining. That pushes you towards making errors and some of them I made.

I decided to concentrate my troops on the left side because I knew that a single squad had only a very limited number of fire options. Scrub actually managed DF quite well by retaining it and denying me the possibility of bypassing his defenders very early. That could have made a huge difference and it was worth trying to lure him into such a (very naive) trap. On the other hand his Defensive Fire was quite uneffective and that was good news for the krauts.

I think at that point I made my biggest tactical mistake, related to the presence of the FT-toting 546 squad. I should have moved my two killer stacks right: this way scrub would have been faced with the choice of closing the door on my other units OR slowing down the stacks. Instead I went left and had a good chance of putting the squad off his legs.

A couple of good reasons for me to do that: using a FT with a non-elite squad gives you a B#8, meaning that a DR of 8 or more will end up fuel; the squad also had only 6 morale, no leaders around, and the FT gives a -1DRM bonus on anybody who attacks them.

Nevertheless, I couldn't take them off my way and the costed me a LOT of time. If I had moved both my stacks right at the beginning (instead of moving first left, then right) that would have given me a chance to stop his upcoming units in any case. I still tried to do it but a casual shot from his 10-2/667/HMG, firing and something moving in the snow, behind the trees, in a building, actually completely broke one of the two stacks. Scrub was already finishing his defensive fire phase when he saw that shot and wrote "let's try"... good choice!

Another error has been during a seemingly harmless advancing phase, when I was moving my units by only one hex in the woods. I should have kept a squad controlling the road, denying the 546 a chance to fall back further. I immediately realized that and told scrub "I made a mistake"... too late. That's something I wouldn't have done in a pbem game!These seem minor mistakes but they are the reason for which I can't complain about the outcome of the scenario. After that I still had a chance to win, especially when I finally broke his 747 squad near the exit (after 2 turns!). I could have allowed for the '11' shot mentioned by scrub before, you can't think every attack goes well even when you got a lot of firepower. However, i wasn't expecting that his troops would immediately rally even if desperate!

At that time I didn't have any more time to work on softening the defenders and I had to run. Some big-time luck needed to get away with that and you don't deserve to win games by luck when you make mistakes... that's why the obscene carnage set down by ROF of his HMG seems only fair to me.

A note on that: this is a scenario in which application of full ASL rules would have changed things quite a bit (surely making it unbalanced). Two rules worth being pointed out, one obvious and one less obvious:

1) bypass, which allow infantry to skirt the edges of buildings or woods without "entering" them, thus speeding up movement

2) fixed CA for heavy MGs positioned in buildings. Heavy weapons such as guns have a Covered Arc in which they can fire. MMGs and HMGs do not but if they are in a building (or similar hampering terrain) they receive it for any phase in which they shoot - i.e. and HMG cannot fire at a target north and then at another west or south in the same phase. In our case, the HMGs mowed down the poor Germans in every direction...These are just thoughts coming to me without going through the details of the scenario... when I complete my turn-by-turn AAR I will let you know if there's anything else!

In the meanwhile, thanks a lot for a very nice and relaxed game. The six-hours time difference doesn't make it easy for scrub and me to get playing together but I hope pbem will help us finding more gaming opportunities!

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Again, thanks very much to gwaedin for posting his thoughts about our game. It was a very enjoyable experience and I very much appreciate his sportsmanship. I hope readers get a good sense about what happened in the game and it's always interesting to hear about things from the other side of the table.

[EDIT: Luca has sent me a link to his complete AAR posted here:
http://freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8267085&a=1
Of course, the hitch is it's in Italian so you might need this if you're really keen but the pictures are excellent!]