FB19 Waffenbrüderschaft – test run

by on March 14, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

“…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.

FB19 1A
The initial assault, German sector.
FB19 1Ah
Initial assault, Hungarian side.
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Two Rounds of Hippacritae

by on March 12, 2013 at 10:53 pm
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Well, with a very long ASL game, and then another one that we needed to continue when that was done, it’s been a while since Patch and I have done any CC:A. So, tonight we played the battle of Hipparcritae from the Truceless War pack.

I had the Carthaginians first, and lead off with an Out Flanked to put the cavalry on both sides in motion. I had a couple Left Flank cards and figured to keep peppering him with archery there. The Med Cav on my right picked on a Light Cav that couldn’t evade, and picked it off for no losses. I then drew a second Out Flanked, and made the mistake of abandoning the plan and trying it again. This time the MC picked on an Aux, who battled back for two banners that killed the first unit (I lost a block on his turn), and the second lost two blocks, all for doing one block to him.

Patch played Line Command, which nearly surrounded the remaining MC, and killed it despite evading. In addition, archery took out a block on my right flank elephants. I moved my Med Inf up to fill out a line, and advanced my elephants to get them into range. Patch moved up with Inspired Leadership and killed the elephants. I moved up two of my Med Inf and took out a unit of Warriors in exchange for two blocks. The second unit had Hamilcar, who advanced and tried to take out his remaining Warriors, trading two for one (I thought I’d gotten away clear with two banners, but I’d forgotten that the fresh Warriors could ignore one along with a second for his leader).

Both of us re-dressed our center lines at that point, then Patch used a Double Time to go charging into my line. It cost me five blocks across two units, while he lost two. With the end of my line of Med Inf down to one block, I gambled on a Rally, but only got one block back. Patch got his heavies into contact with it to get the two hits and win. 2-5

Flipping sides, Patch led off with Order Two Right to get the elephants in motion, and take out three blocks on my Light Slingers. I got a banner on the battle back, and he finished them off with the trample. I mostly had Right cards, and started trying to develop that flank when a Move-Fire-Move knocked my LC back to the base line and reduced it to one block. He then moved the other two units of elephants up and reduced both of my Heavies to two blocks and forced them to retreat.

I Ordered Heavy to kill an elephant and force the other to retreat. He brought them back up with an Order Three Right (along with ordering two LC), and forced one Heavy to retreat again. I decided to take a chance, and blocked the retreat of the other unit to pull them out of range of further archery. He killed one block, and I got the elephants on battle back.

I dressed my line, and Patch brought in the remaining elephants to kill a Warrior unit (two swords->two triangles), and kill two blocks on the other with momentum. I Ordered Light to deploy my left flank (was was short of left cards all game). The elephants came in again, finishing off the Warriors (forcing Autartas to evade) and reducing an Aux to two blocks before succumbing to battle back.

The elephants were finally gone, but I was seriously short of units in good shape, while Patch had only taken one other block. My plan at that moment was to move Autartas into the middle of the left line where he might still do some good with a couple Aux, but I managed to forget that by the time I played the card and getting him to the line took an extra turn. Patch moved up on the right, and killed one Heavy, reduced the other to one block, and then nearly killed it when the last archery die came up red, but he’d fired on the LC stuck at the base line instead.

I could have taken a turn to try and move my two one block units on the right out of the way, but I figured either he didn’t have any cards for that flank, or the LC would catch up to anything I could do anyway, and shored up the center. Patch played Darken the Sky to knock out the LC and win. 3-5

Not my best play or dice in either game. Patch had good luck with the elephants for once, which really hurt in the second game.

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J45 The Last Roadblock

by on March 10, 2013 at 10:35 pm
Posted In: ASL

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.

J45 1F
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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FB5 Siesta Time

by on March 7, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

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.

FB5-3 1R
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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How Rome Fell

by on March 4, 2013 at 9:14 pm
Posted In: Books

As of about AD 200, the Roman Empire was by far the most powerful state within its known world, and had been for over two hundred years. Three hundred years later, the western half of the Empire had ceased to exist, and the remaining part, while still powerful, no longer held the clear advantage over its neighbors that the earlier empire had. Adrian Goldworthy’s How Rome Fell is technically a re-examination of how this came about.

However, while this thesis is talked about at the beginning of the book, and then discussed at the end of the book, there’s no real reference to it during the book. Instead, it is just a general history of those three hundred plus years. However, it is a very good history of the period, and I think this would be a great place to start for someone wanting to study Late Antiquity. Not only is it generally well-written, but it spends a fair amount of time showing how little we truly know (about the population, economy, actual size of the Roman army in many periods…), and exploding old certainties.

The concluding chapter is also short on certainties, but long on thoughtful commentary about the various ills of the Empire. The main conclusion is that the Empire weakened itself through interminable civil wars. Worse, the reaction to these civil wars was to attempt to remodel the Empire to protect emperors from assassination and rivals, and fail. One of the points that Goldsworthy proposes as key, is the removal of the vestiges of political power and importance from the Senate. When senators stopped being the primary pool to get new emperors from (when the chancy business of dynastic succession fails), the pool of candidates actually became larger, more dispersed, and impossible to control.

His thoughts on the separate fates of the Western and Eastern Empires mostly come down to geography. Among other effects, the various tribal leaders to cross the frontiers had nowhere else to go than the Western Empire. There were no comparable threats to most of the Eastern frontier, and that part that did have power tribal confederations was the Danube. Thrace and Greece were not places they could get very far in, they couldn’t cross the Bosphorus to Asia Minor, and that left… the Western Empire. In addition, most of the rebellions and usurpers came from the western provinces, why is not clear, but it may just be success breeding more attempts.

And then there is the quasi-subtitle (only seen on the title page): Death of a Superpower. Goldsworthy equates Rome as a superpower in that there was no other entity that could come close to matching it’s size, wealth, manpower, or ability to project power. (Well, China would be an exception, but since it had no way of getting at the Empire, or any of its neighbors, it is ignored.) The final epilogue (and much of the introduction) talks about the inevitable parallels people try to draw between the Roman Empire and the United States, and dismisses many of them. But he does meditate a bit on the problems of bureaucracy, and the dangers of any institution forgetting what its primary purpose is.

Circling back to the content of the bulk of the book, it is a well done survey of the period, and an excellent place to start if you are not well aware of the history of those three to four hundred years. It is less useful to those who have studied the period (I found most of the book familiar ground), but it is still a good single reference book, and there will be some new touches for most people.

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