Archive for ASL

139 results.
Oct24

FB17 Stalingrad Redux

by Rindis on October 24, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After our adventure in the desert, it was time for Patch and I to return to Budapest one last time. (Well, final return to Buda; I hope to talk him into “End Station Budapest”, which takes place in the other half of the city at some point.) It’s taken far too long, but we’ve finally reached the end of this journey.

The last scenario takes place along the southern edge of the map, with the rail line from the rail station in the last two scenarios right at the edge of the map, and the Bloody Meadow just to the north. The Russians are headed for the Krisztina Kürút, and win if there’s less than one unbroken squad-equivalent within three hexes of the Krisztinaváros Parish Church at the end of five and a half turns, with a 32 CVP cap. I eventually decided I wanted the attacking Russians, largely so I could use an OT-34 flamethrower tank.

The Germans get seven and a half squads (mostly a mix of three different kinds of SS squads, but there’s non-SS as well), some mines, three hexes of wire, a roadblock, a 75mm ATG, and a Panther. They’re all at Ammo Shortage 4, suffering from food shortage, and gas shortage. They get most of the available map to set up in, and Patch made the most of it, centered on the two biggest buildings in the victory area (which had a few hexes knocked down by pre-game rubble checks).

The Russians enter on turn 1 with twelve squads (two of which are assault engineers), plus another three squads of BVR (who don’t count for the CVP cap), with good leadership (the Germans only start with two leaders—this would be important), MGs, a DC, a FT, two T34-85s and the aforementioned OT-34.

Initial rubble blocked some paths in the south, and Patch stymied a lot of potential moves by putting the roadblock in DDD8/EEE9. Worse, most of the west entry area for the Soviets is blocked by rail cars, leaving a bridge over the rail line the main legal offboard vehicle setup hex there. I eventually settled on entering one T-34/85 there, and the other two tanks on the south, with one taking up position behind the roadblock, and the other going east through many twisty alleys, all alike. Hopefully not to be eaten by a panzerfaust.

Once again, both sides get to buy reinforcements for the first few turns from a short schedule of available units. I spent the entire first turn’s lot on OBA. It comes with a 7-0 leader, and that was handy, and if I was going to use it, I needed to get it moved into position as soon as possible. He was put in charge of a couple squads meant to be the ‘second wave’ of the main attack.

The BVR entered as far north as they could on the west side, in the face of a German “?” in AAA13. I finally started moving in with the main west force, and the HS there opened fire, with my squad surviving a PTC, and then pinning to 1MC in the next hex. This left the 9-1+MMG squad to armor assault to take up positions looking down the Márvany utca.

The south didn’t go nearly so well, as the limit of the Russian entry area is a street that I wanted to get east of, and Patch had (what turned out to be) a LMG sighted right along the length of it, over the roadblock. The first probing squad ate a 1KIA, and the rest of that platoon armor assaulted into a 2MC from resid to break my 8-0 and reduce a squad to a HS of broken conscripts; at least the elite squad passed.

…And then my sniper went off, killing his 9-1 in ZZ5h1, and the LLMC reduced the 468 SS squad to a broken 237 SS HS. This also took his MMG out of action.

Things got better during AFPh, when I managed to break the HS in AAA13, since the BVR would be asking for trouble taking them on in CC. Of course, Patch pointed out I couldn’t use the tank FT from behind the roadblock, as it’s a bow-mount (I had kind of been thinking that BBB7h2 being a level up from me would do it, but no; finding a way to use the FT was a bit of a challenge with this set up…).


Situation, Russian Turn 1, showing the full board. North is to the left.
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Sep30

183 The Pouppeville Exit

by Rindis on September 30, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After finishing up “Stand Fast”, a look for shorter ASL scenarios led me to 183 “The Pouppeville Exit” from the current version of Yanks. It has quite a publishing history, originally presented in the General as ‘quick-play’ SL/COI scenario F, then becoming tournament scenario T5 for ASL about a decade later in the General, reprinted in ASL Classic, and now appearing in Yanks. It would fit in with the Paratrooper scenarios, taking place on June 6th as part of the 101st Airborne secure the town of Pouppeville, which lies at the end of one of the exits to Utah beach.

As a comparatively early scenario, it features a very rare fixed defensive setup (the only other one I can think of offhand is “Buchholz Station”, where both sides have a fixed setup). The Germans have seven squads (mixed conscripts and second line), plus a kubelwagen with AAMG and two 37mm AA guns. The Americans have six 747 squads, a MMG, BAZ, and DC, and need to take two (out of three) of the multi-hex stone buildings on board 3, and knock out the AA Guns (which can’t be moved, and merely breaking crew counts). Play ends at the end of any Player Turn where this is true, and the Americans have eight turns to work with.

All the action in on board 3, but but board 5 is also part of the scenario, and the Americans can either set up on the road leading to town on board three, or on the road on the other side of the gully on board 5. Mark took the board 3 option and headed for the hill overlooking the village.

This meant there was no contact, and I was free to move about to establish a defense on my first turn. It also meant that everyone gained concealment, as there was no LOS.


Situation, American Turn 1, showing the full board, and the American start areas. Also, my turn 1 moves are shown in paler arrows. Note that the east hills are swamps, and the building that would normally be in I10 is removed.
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Aug13

AP160 Carrier Hill

by Rindis on August 13, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After the latest Budapest adventure, Patch and I decided to try a desert scenario from the latest Action Pack. From the Land Down Under has an interesting spread of scenarios including a desert one, and one for Hatten in Flames. “Carrier Hill” features Italians defending an exceptionally large hillock against an Australian force. The British need to take five summit hexes and control the Locations of three 75mm guns (or eliminate them; normal malfunction cannot eliminate them by SSR).

The Italians have sixteen squads, a HMG, three LMGs, two MTRs, the three ART and two 20mm AA guns. The ART must start in sangars (which Patch, who had the Italians, promptly started moving them out of, as it makes them really vulnerable to overruns), while everything else can (and did) start in a sangar. Naturally, this was all one big gray blob on the hillock; or a tan one with all the sangar counters on top. The British enter six bren carriers (two each of the three main types) and to Matilda IIs on the first turn, and then get nine-and-a-half squads on turn 2 with good leadership, three LMGs, an ATR, and a MTR. Conditions are dry with no wind (and no wind change DRs—whoops—we missed that), and there is a dawn LV hindrance equivalent to the normal mist rules (must be pre-sunrise, as there’s no sun-blindness); perfect vehicle dust weather.

The full area is three desert boards, and the turn 1 vehicles enter from the south. My major concern going into this was time. The scenario is six turns long, the infantry doesn’t arrive until turn 2, and will take at least two turns to get up to the Italian positions, where they can take Control of the objectives. Frankly, just getting them in the fight will be two turns. That leaves three turns to knock out three guns and take four hexes. So, the Matildas made their best speed north, and the carriers entered into two platoons trying arrange for some vehicle dust benefit. Patch didn’t fire until DFPh, and immediately hit and killed a carrier with an AA, who then got two possible shocks against a second one (both passed), while other guns changed CA in preparation for his turn.


Situation, British Turn 1, showing the full board, and not bothering to show movement. The hillock overlays combine to be one big hillock, which is outlined in brown.
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Jul20

AP146 Absolut Markajarvi

by Rindis on July 20, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After finishing “Taking the Left Tit“, Martin proposed trying a scenario from the recent Swedish Volunteers pack. I had kind of planned to delay until the MMP-style counters got into VASL, but agreed, and went with one of Martin’s proposals: Absolut Markajarvi.

The Swedes are holding part of the line late in the Winter War (about three days before it ended), and are attacked while some engineers are busy laying wire in front of the line. The Swedes get five squads, a HMG, and an 81mm MTR to defend the board 52 woods, with another two (green) squads, 6+1, and two hexes of wire out in front. On turn two, two squads and a 9-2 enter by the road on either end of board 52. The Russians have twelve squads, HMG, and OBA on board 50. Another squad and a half is out front on board 44 (with three overlays that open things up a bit more by replacing one farm with brush, another with orchards and woods, and the third is out of play), having just run into the engineers. The Russians have five and a half turns to get 10 VP worth of units into the board 52 woods (note, it doesn’t matter what shape they’re in… they just have to be in the woods…).

I took the Swedes, and had the challenge of setting up across most of a board to prevent the Russians from just running in. I put the MTR towards one edge, and the HMG towards the other, and the wire went near some of the only cover on board 44. The forward Russians set up on either side of the engineers, and encircled them first thing (though without result). Then, Martin went for a human wave.

A logical enough move, but I hadn’t really thought of it, so it rattled me a bit. It also took a bit of re-reading, and checking of the basic concepts. Thankfully, deep snow helped slow them down, and I had little I could fire. The engineers actually got a 1MC as the HW ended, but the squad passed. I revealed my MTR, but missed a second stand of trees for the shot to be blocked. His advancing fire broke the 6+1 and one squad of the engineers, and pinned the other, wasting some later rolls that generated PTCs.


Situation, Russian Turn 1, not showing the full board (but showing the full width), nor the mass of human wave movement. North is to the left, deep snow and extreme winter are in effect.
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Jun10

U42 Stand Fast

by Rindis on June 10, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Looking for small, simple, ASL scenarios to give Mark a chance to concentrate on the general flow and maneuvering a few squads, I came across a tiny scenario from Rivers to the Reich. It was originally Squad Leader/GI scenario 302 from the Series 300 pack, and uses a couple large overlays to mess with the very familiar board 3.

The Germans are defending the board 3 village (that doesn’t change) in early December ’44 with two 838 squads, two 9-1s and two LMGs. The Americans are attacking with five 747s, two leaders, a MMG, and a pair of DCs. They have six turns to find two ammo caches that are HIP in buildings inside the road loop and destroy them (which takes going TI for a turn—note by the wording of the SSR, this seems be either player’s turn…), or make sure there’s no unbroken German units at the end. The Germans set up entirely inside the road loop, and can only go one hex outside that area (including to rout, though berserkers are allowed to go wherever they need). Both sides can freely Deploy, and the Americans enter from any one board edge. The overlays are oddly positioned, as they don’t line up with other terrain, but they do cover the hills with woods and a little open ground, and Wd3 eliminates the only three-hex building in N1 on the board.

I took the Germans, and only deployed one squad as I didn’t see a lot of point to having a pair of LMGs if the only real point to them was a 1 ROF (and longer range in a short-range scenario), and put my three stacks looking down the three roads going into the loop. Mark entered in the SW, where there’s a nice line of wooden buildings as cover. This was also where the full-squad was, so I had good firepower, but Mark was generally content to stay to cover, but final fire broke a squad and HS.

Mark moved them back to T0, safely out of sight, but didn’t rally them for my turn. I stuck around for a prep fire shot at T1, but had no effect. Thankfully, his return fire did no better, and I backed off in APh.

He got both units back for his turn 2, and moved into the village proper. My squad took a shot at S3 and the LMG at T3, netting me 1 1/2 broken squads, a broken 9-2 and a pinned squad adjacent to me. His advancing fire had one success, pinning my leader in T4.


Situation, American Turn 2, showing the entire board. North is to the left.
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May17

FB16 Crossing the Bloody Meadow

by Rindis on May 17, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Patch and I returned to Budapest for our latest ASL game. We’re approaching the end of the set, and dealing with the final desperate days for the Axis defenders. In fact, this one is something of a direct sequel to FB15, with the final Soviet attempt to take the Central Rail Station. This time, the German defenders are completely cut off, and all the way down to ammo shortage level 5. However, there’s a relieving force on the way, that needs to cross a large, open, park to get there.

This is one of the more prominent features of the FB map, and we’re just now getting to see it used. The Germans (SS) in the Rail Station set up first (five squads, three guns, a single wounded leader, and wire, mines, fortified Locations), with the Russians setting up in two groups around it. Five squads set up in the area directly east of it (with eight “?” as well, which made it look a lot tougher to me), and another ten squads (with all the heavy weapons, including a FT and two T-34/85s) set up to the west. The Axis gets to set up the rest of their forces after them, with three SS squads (each with a MG) setting up SE of the action, and other ten squads (some German, some Hungarian, and including three Hungarian assault engineer squads) get a more extensive set up area that includes the area east of the Field of Blood. These guys are only at ammo shortage level 3. And on turn 1 a Hungarian StuG enters. The Russians need to take all but one Location in the Station in six turns, but the Axis can trump that by getting one or more of the squads from the Station out and off the east edge of the map by the end of the game.

I had a hard time figuring out a defense… or what Patch’s offense was going to look like, so I completely muffed my initial set up. I was more worried about the guys in back than the ones with the heavy weapons, and all my guns were pointed the wrong way. The wire was set to slow down an attack up the rail line, which Patch promptly didn’t do (to be fair, I think that was generally a good idea, as letting him get close under the cover of rail cars would be nasty. The fortified Locations were on the north and south ends of the building, and probably should have been grouped (possibly 3 in one corner and then the fourth separated just to force a split of attention). Most of the mines were visible in SS16/TT15, and it wasn’t until we started that placing them in the exterior building hexes occurred to me. As it was, it helped channel things, but mining the front side of the building would have been a lot smarter.

Patch set up a platoon under the turntable in NN14 (just barely in his area, and I didn’t think of that either). And a special assault force in UU16 with the FT, a DC, and a T-34 to cross the visible mines. All the last set of Germans went in close contact with the eastern Russian force to try and stop them and advance on the Station, while the Hungarians all set up to cross the Vermezo with cover from shellholes, gliders (from a resupply effort), and smoke grenades.

Patch’s first shot was a 8FP ‘2’ to reveal a dummy and ELR/reduce a 658 when they rolled 12. The FT also did well to reveal and break the other 658. Then the T-34 rolled across the mines and broke through the fortified Location and bogged in the hex now that its job was done. The rest of movement was him creeping forward, and I didn’t bother to respond to  most of it, but a squad moved into the open street, and I revealed a 20mm AA to break them.

To my surprise, most of the big stack under the turntable stayed in place, but Patch wanted to know more before committing them. Final Fire did nothing other than put my AA under a Low Ammo counter. Advancing Fire didn’t do anything, but he revealed PP14 as fortified in advance, and got into CC with the AA crew, killing them easily.


Situation, Russian Turn 1, showing the full board, and hidden elements.
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Mar30

14 Silence That Gun

by Rindis on March 30, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Mark and I have dedicated Monday nights to ASL, as he tries to come to grips with the system as a whole (he’s an old SL veteran). Part of the plan is to play through some of the old Paratrooper scenarios with him, since they tend to be good for the introductory side. This time was “Silence That Gun” which is a nice small infantry scenario with a single titular ordnance piece. There were a couple of prominent errors, so this isn’t a completely ‘textbook’ playing, but it was instructive.

Mark took the Germans, who are defending part of the board 3 village with ten squads (mix of 2nd line and conscript), the usual MGs a 75mm AT, and one fortified building; and need to preserve the Gun and keep the fortified building (they have a choice of five buildings to secretly fortify), or at least maintain a CVP total equal to or better than the Americans. He didn’t set up his HIP properly, so I ended up knowing which building was fortified (3N2), which is a heck of of thing to try to mentally ignore. The Gun was next door (which makes for usefully concentrated defense), and a loose line was established across board 3, with one conscript squad all the way out on the edge of board 2. I looked at the setup, and suggested that having someone at the upper level of 3N2 would be handy, as it could do a lot to inhibit initial American moves—completely forgetting that SSR1 limits that building (alone) to just a ground level. And we’ll see just how good an idea it was….

I lined up at the limit of my setup area, with seven squads and a hero, giving the latter a DC, and deployed one squad, prepared to move into the rest of the middle loop, and use BAZ against buildings from open ground Locations such as O6, and of course start driving on the main concentration of Germans. Mostly, there wasn’t a lot he could do, but an attempt to Dash to P2 ended in tragedy as a 1KIA killed a squad and broke my 9-1. Final Fire at a HS malfunctioned a LMG.


Situation, American Turn 1, showing the full board. Yes, all hills are marsh, and north is to the left.
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Mar14

20 Taking the Left Tit

by Rindis on March 14, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After The Marketplace at Wormhoudt, Martin and I went back to checking off various early scenarios, and up this time was 20 “Taking the Left Tit” from Yanks. This is the first night scenario done for ASL, and features an American attack on a hill in Italy.

Patch commented to me that he’s never seen a German win in the scenario, but we played the updated version from 2nd Edition Yanks, which adds a 9-1, two squads and four mine factors to the German OB (this is nearly a 1/3 increase in forces). One wonders if early playtesters had trouble figuring out how to do a night attack. Or maybe the cloaking rules changed late in development…?

Martin took the German defenders, and scattered “?” across the board 2 hills, with two up front in the brush leading to the slopes (all woods are brush in this scenario). With eight 467 squads, and 5 MGs of various types, he gets to set up three squads HIP and, and eight Dummies, as well as being entrenched. The Americans get fifteen 666 squads, three leaders, a HMG, two MMGs, three BAZ (nearly worthless with only a handful of buildings and walls around), and two light MTRs. The goal is to exit four squads off the far (mid-board) edge of board 2, and have more good order squad-equivalents at level 2 than the Germans do after 7.5 turns.

Contrary to normal practice, the Americans set up on board 18, but is still considered the Scenario Attacker. This does mean they have some low hills to set up some of those support weapons on (after assembling them…), and I set up a big double line of Cloaking markers at the edge of my area. I concentrated big stacks into a couple of them so I’d have some Dummies, and had a general plan of swinging west around the hills away from the (presumably defended) road, with the big stacks and SW on that side, and Dummies and just enough force to keep his attention on the other side.

On my first move, a Dummy Cloak moved into NVR of the forward outposts, who immediately sent up a starshell, ending the entire ‘before the first starshell’ phase right there, and then put up a second that illuminated about the entire front, forcing me to slow down. Martin took one shot at a Dummy with a HS as it crested low hill, but did nothing, and then took a shot from 2CC6 during DFPh that got a PTC to eliminate Dummy Cloak C. One turn, and I was down a Dummy, and getting behind schedule, thanks to an early starshell.


Situation, American Turn 1, showing the full board. North is to the left. My units are in place to give an idea of how the Cloaking is distributed.
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Feb18

95 Descent Into Hell

by Rindis on February 18, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After finishing the first two of a three-set of scenarios on Crete from For King and Country (and originally from ASL Annual ’89), Tracey and I went for the third, after swapping sides. So this time I’m the invading Germans, and I need to take the bridge from the first scenario, and take out the AA guns from the second one.

This version gives me some interesting extra decisions.  It’s a nine-turn scenario (longer than either of the originals), and the Germans arrive in two waves of gliders, on turns 1 and 4. It’s fairly obvious that the first wave came in on the guns, and the second on the bridge ‘historically’, but there is nothing that demands that here, as the gliders can come in anywhere you want in the three-board play area. The British on the other hand, are limited to setting up in accordance to their original areas in the first two scenarios.

His setup around the bridge was not dissimilar to mine (though definitely different), while the AA Guns were parked at the ends of the runways and facing outward, with everyone else in nice easy reach of them. (That kind of invites just landing on the runways as the AA has to change CA to fire on them at all, but the Germans will probably take some point-blank -1 shots as they get out, which certainly scared me off.)

After some debate, I opted for going after the guns first, and possibly bringing on the second wave to help with that, and then everyone can rush the bridge in the extended time at the end (our play of “Tavonritis Bridge” showed just how fast that defense can collapse). So I concentrated on the southmost gun, with a few landings on the long board-11 hill to keep the NW busy. The AA fire was completely ineffective (common, and helped by the same beginning-of-game dust as “Bofors Bashing”), just leaving me a couple of landing DRs for my more ‘daring’ placements. Naturally, I rolled 6-6 for the main one, causing it to go long, and land past the woods it was supposed to land in front of (and on top of a British unit!). Another one in that set landed one hex short, putting it in a sunken road, but both did well on the crash drs. In the other main group, a couple went a bit long, putting one in brush, and one on top of another glider, and one was a hex short, but all of those landed fine as well.

Tracey’s only DFPh fire was at the glider that landed on top of him, and even TPBF was unable to harm the glider. Similarly, my only fire was in the same hex, and couldn’t do anything to him. An old Gamesquad thread wonders if there’s a CC counter immediately placed from my guys emerging on top of his, but it never came to a solid conclusion. We played it as ‘no’, which allowed me to advance out of the hex (the British were still concealed from me having no units on board when they fired, and I didn’t want to accept a likely Ambush).


Situation, German Turn 1, showing the full board. North is to the left. I need to clear the British from between the blue lines on board 8, and destroy the three AA guns. There is Moderate Dust for the first two turns, and Light Dust for the third. As most of the action was on board 14, any time I don’t give a board with a hex number, that’s where it is.
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Feb02

AP19 Winter of Their Discontent

by Rindis on February 2, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After our last adventure in Korea, Patch and I decided to return to Action Pack 3 for our next ASL game. It’s a couple of weeks after the previous scenarios in that package, and the main part of Gruppo Nord is still encircled, and holding out for rescue as the Soviets launch an attack to wipe them out.

The scenario uses half of boards 22 and 49, and as ever with this set, has some interestingly different bits. There’s a base Italian line up for defense, and then an number of Italian and German reinforcements that can be bought with VPs, and the the Axis player must spend at least 15 VPs (decided before setup). The Russians have a fairly nice force that sets up on board, and can spend VPs to enter some of them from the flank. In addition, both sides track CVP, and get one VP per building hex they control at the end of turn 7. Oh yes, there’s ground snow, and everyone other than non-elite Italians have winter camouflage.

Patch took the Axis defenders, and spent the minimum 15 VP, giving him twelve Italian squads (ranging from elite to conscript), an Italian 75mm AA, and two German 50mm AT (all standard setup), plus a pair of Pz IVF2s on turn 2 (spending another VP to get them a turn early), and a platoon of 467s with MMG & 8-1 entering on turn 3. His initial ‘anchor’ turned out to be the 49W9 (partially rubbled) stone building, with more on both flanks, and a second line on board 22.

The Russians get fifteen squads (mostly 447s, with some 458s), a few SW (including a DC, and 2xATR—oh, and the Italians have two Russian ATRs), two T-70s, and three T-34s. I set up 3×447, 9-2 (best leader), and an ATR to enter from the north (4 VPs for four units). They were to head into his flank forces, with a tank heading over to provide cover, and everything else lined up at the limit of my area, with a south group somewhat detached from the rest (largely thanks to terrain). The initial goal was to seize some forward locations, and then have a few spare squads sweep through taking building hexes; something that caused more trouble than I had hoped.

Patch didn’t interfere at all with my movement (“Just going to it out there: My setup needs work.”), but Patch had noted all the long LOS alleys in the map, and had set up guns for them. A 50mm AT was in 22F6, and immediately hit and killed a T-70 during DFPh. Z9 turned out to be the Italian HMG nest (as I had figured), which failed to do anything with its shot. AFPh teased me with a ‘2’ for an Unlikely Hit on the HMG… which turned out to be no hit at all (subsequent 6).


Situation, Russian Turn 1 showing the full board. North is to the left; note two buildings are factories, and a few hexes start rubbled.
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