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Patch and I have been wanting to do more with the French lately, and still want to see more of the good ol’ American 666, so we decided upon trying OA24 “Buying Time” from Out of the Attic 2, which we’d both gotten relatively recently. Patch took the defending Americans and had a hard time working out a setup.

It’s Morocco in late ’42, and the Americans are trying to keep the French from getting at the beaches where troops are still off-loading with six squads (mix of 666 and 546), two BAZ, a MTR and a MMG. The French enter in the middle of board 19 with ten squads, all in trucks or on motorcycles and three AMD 50 AM armored cars, and have to get 12 EVP off the middle of board 19 (just under one full board length total) in 6.5 turns (and the three ACs could win it themselves). There’s two overlays to get rid of a couple buildings on the already fairly open board 19.

The Americans can set up on three quarters of the available area, but Patch’s line was fairly far back, with only one stack actually on board 17 at all. After fixing a goof where I forgot about the ACs being radioless during setup, they, and a chunk of motorcycle infantry entered on the east edge, where the main continuous road is, and the rest entered near the center, with the plan of possibly deploying in the grain, and/or continuing towards the east, hopping over to the other road.

My second move blundered right into the MMG’s boresighted hex (19I1), which killed a motorcycle squad on a 1MC break and ’12′ Bail Out roll, while setting up a FL. The AC platoon went down the edge-road, towards the outpost in E3, while Patch panicked (You’re usually not this aggressive!), and I hoped the BAZ was not part of the stack. But, I figured it could only kill one of the three before the other two, and approaching infantry support got him where he couldn’t rout. If he was real…. Sadly, there’s no off-board road on the edge by the rules, and with Platoon Movement, it was all I could do to stop in his hex with the lead AC.

The east motorcycle force detoured around the FL by taking a route through a gap in the tree-line and offloaded, in the hopes of getting the MMG up and in action. I also unloaded one squad in the grain, where it would remain concealed and could advance to the hedgeline and try to keep an eye out for American movements. (Note, all the French trucks are Recalled as soon as they’re no longer carrying infantry).

As it turned out, 19I1 was Dummies, which was a relief… and a disappointment. The line ahead of me was just as solid as it looked, and there was a HIP squad out there somewhere.

Situation, French Turn 1. North is to the left, the American setup area started at 19H, and the eventual goal is to exit off of 17R; Orchards are Olive Groves.
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Patch mentioned recently that he wanted to see the Americans in action again. I figured since we were still wanting to do some DASL, and I’ve been trying to go through more of the early scenarios, there should be something in Hedgerow Hell. Looking them over, we decided to give the first scenario from there, “Ripe Pickings”, a try, and Patch picked the Americans. Then I looked on ROAR and noted that the record is 15-49 in the German’s favor….

Hedgerow Hell suffers from the same oversized scenario problem as Streets of Fire, but D11 is small. The Germans have a nearly fixed setup (some minor CA choices can be made) with four Pz IVs and seven elite squads near a roadblock in the middle of three hedgerow-crowded DASL boards. The Americans get to set up a Sherman and four squads in a group nearby, having accidentally arrived in the German’s rear the preceding night. The Americans win by getting 20 CVP (normally 22, but we went with the American balance) in five turns, or by controlling the location of the roadblock at the end of the scenario. The Germans also have the problem of limited movement: they can only move as many MMC+vehicles as double the current turn number.

Patch set up in what has to be one of the more popular sites for the Americans, with a good view of the rear of two of the Pz IVs, and opened up with everything he had. The Sherman burned the Pz IV in H3, and a BAZ shot burned the one in I3. He rolled my SAN a couple of times in that, and as a small favor it went off once to pin a squad that hadn’t fired yet. The rest of his fire was at my squads in H2, but only pinned one of them on a pair of NMCs. Patch buttoned up the Sherman with an active Sniper nearby, but stayed put for my (limited) reaction.

Full scenario map, Turn 1. Plenty of room for a running fight.
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“…and that’s it. This is the latest ASL scenario I’ve finished.”

And so Patch gets a good die roll to end our current game the day after I said that. One last weekly post:

A little while back, Patch and I volunteered to help playtest further Festung Budapest scenarios. We ended up starting with a Saturday FtF session where neither of us was adequately prepared. In fact, I wasn’t able to get the counters all pulled before Patch arrived. So I left Patch to start planning the Russian defense while I pulled out the Germans.

It is January 25th, and the Germans and Hungarians are counterattacking to take Hill 259 on the outskirts of Buda. This dominates the west edge of the FB maps, rising to level 7 at the top. The scenario is reasonably large, space-wise, being 15 x 26 hexes, covering from level 2 to the top of the hill. In version 4, which we played, the Germans enter in two groups, with six squads, two tanks (Pz IV and Panther), and two halftracks (one with a 20mm AA cannon) in the north of the east edge, nine SS squads (of varying quality), with two halftracks (one is a flamethrower 251/16) entering in the middle, while the Hungarians get nine squads (including three assault engineer squads), and a Zrinyi II assault gun with 9-1 AL in the south, and along part of the south edge.

The Russians have fifteen squads… and six crew-served guns (two 82mm MTR, two 76.2mm ART, and two 122mm ART). Four of the guns have to set up on or near the top of the hill, but everything else gets the run of most of the map. There’s also six hexes of buildings to rubble (with the usual FB chances of creating falling rubble or debris), and the first thing Patch realized was that it was theoretically possible to cut the main German armor off from the rest of the map with the rubble. It would take some falling rubble or debris, but it would force bog checks on the tanks, and be impassible to the two halftracks. I pointed out that A2.5 would allow the vehicles to enter a turn later, having gone around the obstacles (assuming that debris counts, even though A2.5 only mentions Blaze/rubble, but that’s pretty obviously within the intent of the rule, as debris doesn’t exist outside of HASL).

On the other hand, it’s still a way to choke off paths into the rest of the board, and Patch did a modified version of this scheme, leveling buildings to get better LOS into that corner from the hill. He only got falling debris once, scattering it into T27, T28, S29. This left S26 as a VBM path out of the NE corner, and W24 at the edge of the set up area, but I forgot about that when I set up. For the rest, Patch found that despite a fair number of units, he had a lot of area to cover, and went with a ‘shell’ defense that would fall back during the game.

Victory features the common idea (in FB) of the attackers needing to get four out of six objectives. More than half of them feature the top of the hill, with the Axis needed to get 9 buildings at level 5, elim/capture two of the four guns that set up at level 5 or higher, getting three AFV with functioning MA at level 5 or higher, and/or getting two squads up to level 7. The remaining two objectives are to capture all the stone buildings and getting 22 CVP. Ground snow is present (making going up those crest lines even harder…) and the Axis is at Ammo Shortage level 2.

I concentrated the SS troops towards the north end of their area, planning on one big mass mostly aimed at the X27 area. The Hungarians set up entirely along the south edge, planning on concentrating on the three stacks there, and bypassing/flanking two more that were covering the east edge part of the Hungarian set up area.

I started off the game with the southern area, flooding the Russian defenders with Magyar hordes. I managed to press in fairly hard, and keep a concealed reserve, which proved to be somewhat superfluous when his forward stack turned out to be a Dummy. Elsewhere, I was much more cautious with my entry, not liking some of the terrain I had to cross. The FT halftrack parked in AA25, two hexes away from two Russian stacks, and revealed both of them with the FTs, but didn’t manage to do anything to them. And then late in the turn we had our only Sniper activation, which hit the HT and Recalled it.

The initial assault, German sector.

Initial assault, Hungarian side.
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Patch came over today, and we took the chance to use my French and Allied Minor counters in anger for the first time. (I’ve had Croix de Guerre for over 15 years by this point, and I’ve played with both nationalities before, but only on Vassal, so it was the first time using the actual counters.)

We picked out J45 “The Last Roadblock” from Journal 3, an interesting little fight between the Germans and the French Foreign Legion with support from the Norwegian Army. It uses half of boards 18 and 9 (which I don’t see enough of), with Mud and Alpine terrain. The Germans start with six squads (elite and 2nd line) versus twelve French elite squads (with underlined morale and broken morale increased to 8), and eight Allied Minor squads (elite and 1st line). Both sides have one 81mm MTR. Technically, the Allies are attacking, since they need to take half of the level three and four hexes in western hill of board 9 (the one completely on board) in six turns. However, the Germans move first and get eight elite squads on the east edge, and win immediately if they get 25 CVP. Finally, the Allies get some 70+mm OBA and a elite squad on the north edge on turn 3.

I took the Allies, as they set up first, though a lot of the setup is fairly restricted for both sides. The general idea for me was to press forward with the French (who start near the goal, with the Norwegians splitting between moving east to guard the MTR against the German reinforcements, and the rest headed for the hill. Patch effectively split his reinforcements between boards 18 and 9. Things started out poorly for me as I could not roll under an ’8′ for a Morale Check for… oh, about the first turn and a half. Since Patch kept rolling 1MCs, French troops started breaking fast. However, my MTR got a ROF tear on my turn 1, and really pounded his troops up on the shoulder of the second big hill, breaking a couple units, and killing a squad.

Situation, Allied Turn 1. North is to the left in this shot. Grain is open ground, roads actually exist to negate mud penalties, but do not confer movement bonuses.
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Around the middle of last year, Patch and I played a couple FtF games of “Siesta Time” from Festung Budapest, only to realize late in the day, we had gotten the directions ninety degrees off. So we decided to play a third game purely via email while continuing our regular games, running from November 2012 to February 2013.

I took the defending Hungarians again, and set up specifically to make sure the N31 victory building could hold out the required three turns, while positioning squads to be able to try and break and run for the east edge to claim the exit victory. In the face of Soviet firepower (including a DC and two FTs), I had no confidence in actually holding building N31 for 6.5 turns. Figuring that a fortified location was of no help against a FT, I actually fortified the rear of the building (N30), my one hex of wire went in P32 to keep him from advancing on the south face of the victory building down the road, and set my one hex worth of mines (6 factors) in Q30, as it looked like a likely jumping off point for the Russian pursuit of my forces in the second half of the game. The one hidden squad went in the cellar of N31 with the DC.

Patch entered over half his forces up on the hill, which is slightly surprising given that ground snow demands one extra MF going up or down a slope. He ran into fire from my outpost in O34 on his second move for a 2MC which he passed. Worse, the squad had cowered, undercutting my plans for lots of residual coverage. Another squad moved adjacent, and FPF could only manage a PTC, which he also passed (at least my squad did not break…). My MMG and 7-0 were in L33h1, which opened up when his second FT showed up in K35 with a FFNAM/FFMO shot, which generated a PTC (which he passed) and malfunctioned the MMG (darn ammo shortage).

Patch unloaded on what he could see, starting with the FT in K35 breaking the leader and squad in L33h1. His main line could only get a NMC against O34, which they passed, and then Patch lost his second FT when he turned that on O34. This left O34 to get piled upon by two squads while L33 fled across the way into the victory building (leaving the MMG, sadly). Luckily, Patch rolled a ’12′, allowing me to withdraw out to O33.

Situation, Russian Turn 1. Red hexes are ‘offboard’ Russian entry hexes, or Hungarian exit (depending on the side of the board). Weather is ground snow, with heavy falling snow.
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Patch and I both like DASL, and always mean to play more of the big hex scenarios than we do. Combined with my efforts to actually play more of the early scenarios, we ended up looking over the set from Streets of Fire. Patch suggested a couple, headlining with D8 “The Schoolhouse”, and I agreed, and ended up with the defending Russians. We got started in October 2012, and didn’t finish until January, so get ready for a long tale….

It’s a big scenario. Set during the Battle of Kursk, it’s about three DASL boards in physical scope (all of b and d, and just under half of a and c), the Germans start with twenty-six squads (mostly 467s, but with some elite 468s and and 838s mixed in), a bunch of toys, and four Elefants (PzJg Tigers). The Russians get twenty-three squads (mostly 447s with some 458s) and four smaller AT Guns. They also get fifteen more squads and six KV-1S tanks as variable-entry reinforcements.

This last is actually a fairly nice touch. The entry is the usual ‘roll a die and get under a target number which gets better each turn’ that shows up in a fair number of scenarios. However, the German VP goal (mostly measured in stone building hexes) is equal to three times the turn the reinforcements enter. Also, the scenario ends five turns after the reinforcements arrive (well, ROAR shows the scenario unbalanced towards the Russians, so we used the German balance, which shortens that to four turns). Tying the victory conditions and game end to the reinforcements is something I haven’t seen elsewhere, and I think it’s a very neat idea and needs to be picked up by other designers.

In addition to 1VP for each stone building hex on boards b and d, building bI3 is the titular Schoolhouse, and is worth another 3VP if the Germans can hold both hexes, building bE2 is the Tractor Station, and is worth an extra 5VP for holding all five hexes, and dF3/G3/G4 is the Crossroads, worth 7VP for holding all the building hexes adjacent to it (only two of which are also stone; they’re outlined in yellow in our maps). This is a maximum of 52VP, if the Germans held everything at the game end, out of a maximum needed 27 VP if the reinforcements enter on the last possible turn (9). The terrain is a little less ‘urban’ than normal, since rowhouses don’t exist (and infantry Bypass is allowed along the black bars), and buildings are restricted to two levels (0 and 1), with inherent stairwells for every multi-hex building. Also, hex dL3 is considered to have a ‘water tower’ inside the roundabout which blocks LOS and causes all movement in the hex to be Bypass only, and all infantry in the hex to be occupying a particular vertex.

I set up hoping to delay Patch for the first couple turns and fall back (of course), with the final line of defense being the various ‘bonus’ buildings, notably the the Schoolhouse itself, which got two of my fortified building locations, and the Crossroads got my last fortified location. With everyone needed to slow the approach to these locations, I only had one unit in the three fortified locations, and I was a bit worried that a disaster could see Patch get into one for free, and then I’d have to dig him out of the fortified location. Two of the AT guns went in the rear where there was plenty of long LOS down the roads, one went on a flank in the hopes that he’d drive by, and one went in the brush in the center, where it could contest his inevitable advance away from the open roads.

Patch’s first shot revealed my 9-1 and a squad in aA1 on a PTC, and he kept firing on them until they both broke. This had been a worry, but I had hoped the nearer stacks would absorb the shots and let me get off a -1 shot during his MPh. Both of our Snipers were active, with mine breaking a squad in the street, and his pinning one of mine. Thanks to some aggressive movement and searching, Patch revealed a couple of Dummies well before I had hoped, and he escaped any harm from Search Casualties on ’6′s. Much of my defensive fire was ineffective (Cowering abounded), pinning four units, though I got one HS on a K/1 that activated his Sniper and nearly wounded my 8-1, pinning the squad with him instead.

DFPh was better, though Patch passed a couple of 1MCs in aD3, only for one squad there to pin from my Sniper when it activated later in the phase (we were both two-for-tw0 on Sniper activations this turn), and I managed to break the squad and a half that got into cC4. Patch’s AFPh was much more effective, breaking three squads, and reducing two of them, though he could not manage to break the two squads in aC3, and between that and the pin, he had to avoid going into CC there. In fact, the east flank was proceeding substantially more slowly than the center, or especially the west, where he was already racing onto board d.

Situation, German Turn 1, showing the full map and my setup. North is to the left.
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After our short (very short!) foray back to Valor of the Guards, Patch and I decided to switch back to the western front, and try J137 “No Mercy in Burcy” from Journal 9, which I had just gotten, most of a year after it came out. We were both surprised to see that ROAR had it in favor of the Brits so far, since they have to protect a fair amount of ground, and the Germans have a lot of tools with which to do the job. I got the attacking Germans, while Patch figured out a defense for the Germans.

It’s August ’44, and the Brits are defending near Burcy in hedgerow country (about three-quarters of board 55 here) with ten squads, five Shermans, and a mix of LMGs and airborne MTRs, and 80mm OBA. The Germans get nine squads of 838 assault engineers, some MGs, and two flamethrowers, which enter between hexrows G and M on the south side, while another three squads with three halftracks enter anywhere on the south edge on turn 4 of a 5.5 turn scenario. The Germans need to either exit 24 VP off the north edge road hexes, or by controlling two of the three stone buildings on the board.

Patch sent me a view of the actual area, looking down my presumed route of attack, that he looked up in Google Earth:

The British set up area is defined by a diagonal down the board that runs right behind one of the major roads on the board and through a gully. One of the stone buildings is off by itself in P8, while another is in H5 with a steeple location (Level 1, but can only take a HS), and the third is outside the main set up area in J3, but is also allowed for the Brits to set up in, and is fortified. Thanks to that diagonal, the west end of the board has a very thin area for the British defense, and Patch set up heavily in that area. I decided to go east, use the FTs to take J3 early, and try to get across/around the gully to either take H5 or work around Patch for the exit.

One of the attractions of the scenario is that it was our first chance to try out the new hedgerow boards that came  in Action Pack 5. I haven’t done enough with hedgerows, and nothing else recently, so I had an initial surprise with just how hard it could be to get anywhere…. I also didn’t quite think through my entry correctly, as I started with a HS down the I1 road (well, in the orchards on either side), and Patch fired on it to leave residual for later.

I probably should have been a bit more daring with my first turn entry, but all those tan ‘?’ across the way had me a bit jittery, and staying at the very edge behind the bocage allowed me to keep some of my own concealment. He broke one squad and pinned a HS during movement, and killed a HS during DFPh. His last shot was at the pinned HS, which generated a Hero.

Situation, German Turn 1.
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With all the time we were starting to put into Festung Budapest, I mentioned to Patch that maybe we should look at doing more VotG scenarios. Patch immediately mentioned the very odd VotG23 “Heroes of the Soviet Union” from Journal 9. I had been thinking more in terms of going through them systematically, like the FB scenarios, but what the hey…. We started in July 2012:

Five and a half turns on a tiny corner of the VotG map at night. The Germans get a horrible little force of five leaders and 3 vehicle crews (1-2-7), with three machine guns and 24 factors of mines. On turn 1 they get three HS that have to patrol along the roads. Once the action starts, they can act normally, and the Germans get another HS+leader. Oh, and all the German leaders get 1 FP with range four. (Like a hero, but without the Heroic DRM.)

The Russians have… six men. Four wounded heroes, a wounded heroic 9-2 and a heroic 7-0. They need to get 8 VP (exit off the east side, or casualty, as long as at least one VP is from exit).

It’s the tiniest scenario I’ve ever seen, and I doubt anything will ever break that record.

Patch wanted the Germans, though he forgot to check the VotG SSRs, and missed that he didn’t actually get any HIP. I looked at his cordon, and set out for the north-east corner, where things were thinnest. I quickly ran into trouble because roofless buildings cost 3MF, and my Cloaks only have 4MF to begin with (reduced from the normal 6 by SSR), which kept me out on the streets more than I liked.

With no known units out there, all Patch had to do was enter his patrolling HSes and send them down the streets. The only die roll all turn was the Wind Change DR, which promptly lowered the NVR to 1.

Situation, Turn 1, including the routes of the entering German infantry.
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Patch and I continued our playthrough of Festung Budapest scenarios on Vassal with FB3 “Furor Hungaricus”, a combined Hungarian/German counterattack on Soviet positions on the outskirts of the city. We’re mostly doing these FtF, but Vassal has some nice tools for night scenarios, so we went over to Vassal for this one in June 2012.

It’s roughly the same area as the previous scenario, with another three hexes added to the east for the Hungarians to cross. For the first time, the Russians are defending, meaning that most of the lessons of how to attack this section have to be tossed out, as the advance is in the opposite direction.

I had the defending Russians, and felt entirely inadequate to the task, with visions of everyone being slaughtered in place. Patch’s comments indicated he wasn’t feeling much better….

The Russians are actually in pretty good shape, with 11 squads (mostly elite), four leaders, a 57mm AT Gun, an OT-34, as well as a few support weapons, mines and wire. However, not only do they have the normal No Move restrictions of a night defender, but they are not allowed to set up more than one MMC per hex. Per Location would have been fine, but no more than a squad per hex really kept me from establishing the concentration around the main victory area that I wanted. Meanwhile the Axis comes in in three groups: The Hungarians get 12 squads, up to half of which can set up HIP on board in building L29 and on the roof of E29 (that last option gave me lots of consternation), and the rest enter on the east (top) edge along with a Bergepanzer III (which has to be SSRed to heck for the stats—why didn’t they provide an actual counter for this?) and Flakpanzer IV. The Germans enter in the north with another six squads, while a couple Hungarian assault guns (Zrinyi IIs, one of which has its MA replaced with a MG) enter on the east or south.

Like FB2, the scenario has six victory conditions, and the Axis needs to satisfy four of them. Two them are for control of buildings C30 and E29, one for controlling hexes F32, F35, and I32 (which all have foxholes with burnt-out wrecks on top of them), one for controlling 10 of 16 building hexes inside a road loop that occupies most of the board (three hexes start under Axis control), one for killing the OT-34, and the last is for getting 25 CVP.

Our first session was slow as we struggled to remember what we’ve forgotten. Both of us had minor setup goofs (quickly fixed). The early tactical goofs went to Patch. He obviously had a nice plan for getting up close before I could do anything, and then partially spoiled it by forgetting and driving a tank into view (you can see [hear] tracked vehicles at twice the range of other units). My two units that could see it couldn’t get a starshell off, and I didn’t think to fire on it before it turned around and got back out of range, but a couple units were free of No Move.

Over on the north side, my setup area actually intersects the edge of the German entry area. I had a hidden unit in there, and he managed to walk right into him, getting revealed and bounced out to his entry hex. I fired (which removed my restrictions on using starshells) and broke the HS+PSK in that Cloak counter. Final Fire also got a 1MC on Cloak F, which turned out to be a Dummy. Then Patch revealed Cloak E as 2 squads+LMG+MMG+8-1 (a third of his north-side force), and the resulting 2MC broke my squad, but also activated my Sniper, who eliminated Cloak K.

Situation, Axis Turn 1, showing full board in play. Also note that at least one unit in E30 is a Dummy.
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Patch had already played the rest of the scenarios in Beyond Valor, so I decided to continue my tour of the early core modules with Paratrooper. Patch has already played all of them, but I’ve only played two of the eight. I picked scenario 16, “No Better Spot to Die”, and we started in April 2012.

ROAR has it at about 3:2 in favor of the Germans, so I took them (my track record is abysmal…) with the American balance. It’s June 7, ’44, and and I’m trying to get into La Fiere on the way to Ste. Mere-Eglise. The Americans have 6 paratrooper squads, a AT Gun, and some support weapons to hold me off for nine turns. I have 13 squads, and four French Renault tanks, the usual bevy of MGs, and a couple 50mm MTRs with which to get into board 24 (with no valley) and take four building hexes (three without the balance).

The two sides set up with nine hexes between them; I’m sure a modern scenario would say only half of board 3 is in play, as there’s no point to most of the area, but the scenario setup says to use the full board.

Patch seemed slightly surprised when I declared a Op Fire on both my MMGs and then went straight to movement on the first turn, but I wanted to get into better range and not have a couple of woods blocking LOS. When Patch realized that the initial fire fight was going to be in my normal range, and his long range, he started regretting his set up.

With a lot of movement options out there, and using the board-edge woods and grain for cover, Patch didn’t fire until my last infantry move, where he went for a leader-led stack with a 4 -2 shot, but only broke the leader on a 2MC.

The general plan was to concentrate on the south side, and get a few units into the gully, where they could advance up to the defenses out of sight while the rest of my forces softened them up for the gully force. This developed a problem when Patch revealed the AT Gun in K8 and opened up on the lead tank. Thankfully, he lost rate and and ‘?’ on his first shot, but he still hit and immobilized it with an ’11′ TK. My AF didn’t do much, but did reveal F1 to be a Dummy (apparently, I really was headed into the teeth of his defense…).

Situation, German Turn 1. The wreck in E6 is actually from the previous day’s fighting.
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