steve's blog

Played an ASL scenario with Paul this afternoon S16 “Legio Patrian Nostra” – French versus Germans.

Paul won the game although the final result was down to the four CCs that took place in the last turn!

Played scenario 4 from The Witches’ Cauldron tonight. I took the Germans attacking into Oosterbeek which was defended by Paul and the British.

AS very close games, although I took a couple of big risks engaging Paul in CCs that I won.

The highlight of the game was one of my StuG’s taking 5 hits whilst stationary at a range of three hexes and all of them failing to penetrate!

Played a game of ASL with Paul today. My first ASL game in four years, so my grasp of the rules was very rusty although I was surprised how much seemed familiar.

Anyway, I was defending as the Russian’s against Paul’s Finns. Paul very efficiently took out my defenses and engaged them in close combat – amazingly we ended up with three multi-turn melees with him outnumbering me in all.

Good game, but I’m not sure I really want to get back into ASL in a bog way – the rules are too complex….

Played Typical German Reponse from the new ASL Journal this afternoon against Paul I won. It was a very enjable scenario and pretty close. Would certainly recommend it.

I’ve just lost a game of Backs to the Seas to Andy. He took the Germans and I defended with the Americans. My setup was maybe a bit too spread out and Andy advanced all his units down my left flank which forced me to attempt to move most of my units across a large open area. Andy was able to build a killer stack with three 447, three MMGs and a 9-1 leader which obliterated most of my units.

By turn four I was down to 2 squads left and Andy had a dozen units in to the victory area (he only needed eight!). It was all over.

Played “Acts of Defiance” from the 1995 ASL Annual with Paultoday. I took the Russians defending a built up area of Breslau in 1945. Paultook the Germans attacking into the area.

The first turn started well for both sides with Paul usinghis Goliaths to remotely drop one of the two bridges over the canal. Ultimatelythis action, combined with a strong infantry force overlooking the otherbridge, was to delay my reinforcements by a couple of turns.

The Russians had a hidden artillery observer well placed tosee most of the initial front line between the Russians and Germans. TheGermans advanced in two main clusters of troops from the north and made ripeartillery targets. The Russians were able to call the artillery in from thefirst turn and accurately hit one of the German infantry clusters for aboutthree turns, but unluckily no significant losses were inflicted. Finallybattery access was lost and the Germans were able to locate and kill thespotter before the artillery was able to be called in again on two ripe clustersof troops.

The German were able to gather a couple of good fire groupsand were able to reveal most Russian units by about turn three. It was thenjust a matter of concentrating fire groups to break the Russian stacks and thenkeep them DMed tp prevent rallying. Despite some effective skulking the Germanwas able to shepard the Russian troops together, keep them broken, then advanceadjacent and cause the loss of Russian troops through failure to route.

Towards the end of the game the Germans were able toposition their Brumbar assault gun and keep the pressure on the scattered,nearly all broken Russian defenders. Paul made a silly mistake and a couple ofbroken units were nearly able to route and remain in the victory area, but thisonly delayed the inevitable by a turn and they were surrounded and destroyed. Atthe same time I made some desperate dashes into the victory area by someremaining squads, but again they were surrounded and broken.

A well deserved German victory for Paul. The die appeared tofavour Paul with a couple of 1,1 IFT shots and at least three 1 snipers thatbroke a number of key defenders! My AFVs were pretty ineffective and sniper wasnever once activated although I did have three cases of Heat of Battle.

A few years ago I wrote a review of Critical Hit #3 that was published in Peter Philip’s View From The Trenches ASL magazine. You can find the review at http://www.vftt.co.uk/ch3.htm.

I played six games of ASL in 2004 compared to 23 in 2003. Of the six I beat Ian twice for no losses and went 2:2 against Paul.

Over time my win:loss ratio has been improving after a couple of pretty dire years when I started to play…

Played “Across the Aisne and Into Freineux” from Front Line Publication’s “Baraque de Fraiture” ASL module with Paul today. It was reprinted in Out of the Attic and is set in the Ardennes in 1944.

I took some mixed US infantry/armour forces defending an area of the board. Paul took the Germans consisting of five squads and seven Panther Gs. The Germans had to end the game with at least one squad in a building on the southern half of the map to win.

Initially Paul advanced his forces into the village area – with infantry riding his tanks; the only way his forces could move fast enough to reach the victory areas in town. My Stuarts overran a couple of German half squads that we advancing across an open area of the map. By turn two it was obvious where the fight was going to develop – a tight wooded/building area on map 24. There was a fierce fight between my armour and Paul’s resulting in about eight burning wrecks – one Panther was surrounded on three sides by three burning allied tanks it had taken out on turn three!

During turn four I was able to advance my infantry across the board and combined with some tanks shorts at the Paul’s squads and a final advance into CC I was able to dispatch all Paul’s squads.

Paul’s die rolling seemed particularly bad and I had a couple of very lucky low-odds shots that took out his squads. By the end of turn four of seven Paul had lost all five squads and thus had no way of making his victory conditions.

So, a US win for me.

After play we checked ROAR, which shows the scenario as 6 US, wins to 2 German. Not particularly well balanced!

Not a very enjoyable game. Neither Paul or I enjoyed it – I can’t recommend this scenario at all.

Played “Cat Scratching” from the “Tigers to the Front” module with Paul today.

The scenario was set in the USSR in June ’44 involving a fight for a fortified hilltop. The Soviets started with a couple of squads hidden on the top of the hill and had to hang onto at least three of four building or rubble locations. The Germans started with five Tiger tanks on the hill top and the Soviets started with a half a dozen T-34 and ISU-152 supported by a couple of artillery pieces, some infantry and some OBA on one map edge and the German got some infantry and an additional Tiger on the opposite map edge.

I took the Soviets and Paul took the Germans.

Turn one started well for the Soviets with a barrage of fire from my artillery and tanks killing the two Tigers that Paul had placed on the hill top in sight – in hindsight Paul says this was a mistake. The remaining Tigers pinned my infantry at the bottom of the hill and it took a couple of turns to move more armour to the hill top to deal with them. The ensuing dogfight left the hill littered with burning tanks from both sides. About half way through the scenario the weather took a turn for the worse with heavy rain starting – this made movement difficult and Paul ended up with some infantry unable to get out of a gully and up the hill.

The last turn saw Paul controlling three of the four victory hexes. During my movement phase I moved as much infantry into place to assault two of the buildings. I also drove three T-34s into buildings in an attempt to overrun the Germans inside – this was less than successful.

It all came down to the last two close combats of the last turn. I won them both and won the scenario.