VotG3 Khopra’s Crossing

by on August 9, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Once we both had Valor of the Guards, Patch and I decided to try out the set by playing one of the smaller of the fantastic number of stand-alone scenarios it has. We wanted to try a Stalingrad CG, and would soon enough, but it seemed a good way to get a handle on all the special rules. Starting at the end of June 2008…:

I’m back for more punishment with our latest scenario kicking off tonight on VASL.

Only, Patch is the one getting punished. More on that anon.

Patch got his copy of Valor of the Guards about a week or two before I had to concede the last game. We had already figured that once he had it (I had preordered) we would go on to one of the smaller scenarios to get used to the VotG ruleset before going on to a CG. I probably had thoughts on which ones would be good, but I lost track of that by the time that we actually needed to choose one. So, Patch suggested VotG3, we diced for sides, and I ended up with the defending Russians.

Looking at the situation and the VC, the hardest part was keeping track of who could legally set up where. The Germans can win by exiting a fair chunk of their forces (I note that they have exactly enough squads to win it that way; but they also have two StuGs, a 10/5 and 9 points of leaders), or by clearing the road that goes through the center area. This means I need to defend both flanks and the middle.

The TCs to start the game were okay. I kept concealment on most of the front line, but lost it on 3 out of 4 leaders. The rest of the turn was mostly as expected. He broke the conscripts who’d failed their TC in D44 during Prep and swarmed all over D47. The 447 there put down good fire, despite cowering on the first shot, and Patch’s sniper broke G47 on a FPF (gee, I thought it was the squad doing the firing that was supposed to break). Patch rolled a ’12’ on one of the MCs I generated, reducing the 1st line squad to a broken 2nd line HS. Patch’s sniper: 1 for 2; Mine 0 for 2.


Situation, German Turn 1, AFPh. This is the entire active map.

Given the odds, it wasn’t too surprising that no one rallied for me on my RPh. Patch got his reduced HS back, but also got a ’12’ to CR another squad.

I don’t care to think of the day that karma bill comes due.

My Prep pinned a 9-1, but failed to affect the three squads with him. Movement was accompanied by the realization that conscripts in heavy terrain don’t go far if they want to maintain concealment. Specifically, anyone I wanted to shift out of a foxhole had to exit it in MPh and then move in APh.

The trend towards really low dice I showed during Patch’s turn became more pronounced during this one. I got a 2 on a PTC, but soon followed it up with another on a NMC, turning a 527 into a 628. The real irony there is that the 8-1 there had just failed his, and since the 527 was lower morale at the time, the 628 promptly pinned with a 12 on the 1LLTC. SAN: Russian 0-1, German 0-0.


Situation, Russian Turn 1, after DFPh.

As a preview of turn 2 – I took a shot with an ATR and an interesting question came up: The on-line TK table has a red ATR entry in the ‘6’ column marked, “Russian, Finnish, Japanese, Allied & Axis Minor/Italian (20L only)”, implying that only 20L ATRs get the 6 (instead of the normal 5). However, Patch’s printed copy has a semicolon after “Japanese”, implying that the 20L clause only applies to Allied & Axis Minor & Italian ATRs. My 1st Ed chart just says “Russian, Finnish, Japanese, Italian”, effectively agreeing with Patch’s 2nd Ed chart. It turned out to be a moot point anyway, but I’d like to know for certain, for future shots.
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Two Rounds of Great Plains

by on August 3, 2012 at 11:09 am
Posted In: CC:Ancients

Last week Patch and I had our CC:A the session between ASL games. Got in a set of Grand Plains. Another of the Second Punic War set, the Romans are advantaged with six cards to four and the first move. However, the Carthaginian forces are fairly good, and start in a better formation than the Roman army.

I took Carthage the first time, and had pretty good dice. The cards weren’t bad either. I didn’t get much in the way of ‘special’ cards, but rather lots of Order Two and Order Three, but that meant I kept in motion. Patch pressed in on the right side early on, but I kept the main action of the battle on the left and center most of the time. I managed to get the heavier elements of my line in contact with Scipio and come out ahead on the exchanges, destroying two Roman Med and forcing Scipio to a Hvy (three hexes back…). Scipio got back in action with a Double Time and Line Command.

I was feeling pretty good with a 2-2 score when Patch broke out a Mounted Charge that knocked out three units, and forced Hanno off-board, and completely broke up my right flank, though I did kill a LC on a battle back. His units were still somewhat shredded, and I managed to kill a LC, and then nail Scipio’s Heavy on a First Strike that I had just drawn. He then got a leader on the right to end the game. 5-6

Switching sides, I was less happy with my six-card hand than I had been with the four-card Carthaginian hand. I spent a couple turns deploying the Roman army; thankfully Patch wasn’t nearly as lucky with the Slingers as I had been. An Order Medium (via Counterattack) and a Line Command got our lines into contact on both flanks, and killed a Med on both sides. I played Clash of Shields, and Patch goofed. I hit his HC with a Med, figuring at six dice I’d still have a decent shot when he evaded. Patch forgot about the extra dice, and stayed, and lost the unit and Hanno.

My Med on the other flank muffed its six-die attack, and Patch nailed it the next turn. I decided to stick with bonus die attacks and played Mounted Charge, completely surrounding a Med with my LC, and hitting the right flank with my MC. For once, this worked and I knocked out the Med in exchange for only one block, while I missed on the right. Inspired Right Leadership finished the game when I picked off a one-block unit and and killed an Aux with a combination of archery and a good attack roll. 6-2

Both games just wanted to go very well for me. I was doing pretty well in the first game until that Mounted Charge broke everything open. Patch never really got a chance to get any momentum going in the second game, I was on him pretty fast.

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J88 Escape to Wiltz

by on August 2, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

By the time we finished off the Primosole Bridge campaign, Valor of the Guards had come out, and we wanted to try our hands at that. But before going into something else complicated, we decided to play a regular scenario in May of 2008…:

With the end of the yearlong campaign in Sicily, Patch and I started a new scenario tonight. At one point the plan had been to go right into VotG, but we agreed that it would be nice to get away from HASL maps for a game and cleanse the palate a bit. We also realized that we had never used American 666’s against each other. There’s been a couple with elites, but not any with 1st line troops.

So we started “Escape to Wiltz” from Journal 3 tonight. The Americans are trying to exit the west side of Board 39 after coming on the north side of Board 17 on turns 1 and 2. The Germans come on the east side on turn 1, and another 3 squads come on the south on turn 2. Both sides have a light amount of toys—the Germans get the usual suspects and two PSK, the Americans get the usual suspects plus a M5 Stuart and a M8 Greyhound AC.

Since neither of us showed a particular preference, I rolled randomly and took the Americans. As ROAR shows it 31 to 23 pro-German… and with my record, I took the balance. So Patch went first:


Initial German movement, the American entry area is marked in blue. Green arrows are movement, blue is advance, red is rout.

I had had just enough time to fiddle with the opening before Patch’s move arrived, and he ended up about where I figured. This made figuring out my first move a bit faster, as I already had some thoughts about what I didn’t like in what I saw.

We thought at first I’d lost my initial HS in the intersection, but Patch realized that he’d forgotten CX, which reduced it from a K/1 to a 1MC—which he promptly failed. But, Patch didn’t realize what my plan was yet, and neglected to put down an FL.


Movement in the first American turn.

Patch reacted to my turn about the way I hoped he would. He looked at the firepower that was facing him and went for cover. Sadly, part of his force is marching down the board 39 road, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Thankfully, that’s true in reverse as well.


German movement with their turn 1 forces. I got my first break of the game in W3. 😀

And the turn 2 platoon took the obvious good routes:


German movement with the turn 2 forces. Exit area is marked for reference.

We finished off the evening partway through my turn 2. Patch is getting very worried that he hasn’t been able to stop my movement yet. It’s pretty obvious that the main fight is going to be over the area just in front of the woods covering the exit area.
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F&E Vassal Module 1.3.1

by on July 30, 2012 at 8:22 pm
Posted In: F&E

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

Well, this one is a minor update:

Download it here:
http://www.starfleetgames.com/documents/F&E 1.3.1.zip

Change log:
-Fixed GCEs (copy and delete commands)
-Added R-NHBH and R-FHBH
-Improved Empire reporting on H- & L-shipyards; F-Fighter chits
-Overlays no longer report in the unit summaries
-Updated (603.U) setup to eliminate some minor errors
-Re-worked Battle Mats to have space for BIR/DRMs for each side
-Added CPF and CPX chits to all empires (except Feds)
-Fixed L-Base Module (not reporting fighter factors correctly)
-Fixed stats on L-PF marker
-Fixed F-, K-, R-, Z-, H-MC (no fighter property)
-Fixed T-Base Module art
-Fixed R-4CNV (bad fighter reporting)

The first item was the reason for the new release. It was found that Independent GCE markers could not be deleted. Along the way, I found a number of minor problems that likely no one else has ever seen.

One of the few feature requests left that I can do was for specific CPF and CPX markers (casual PF flotillas from AO), so they’ve been put in. Also, just about all the saved files have been updated to take advantage of the improvements.

I am hopeful that this is everything. All the bugs worth worrying about squashed, all the features that the current module can handle have been added. No need for a 1.3.2 or especially a 1.4.

(Wait, did he say current module…?)

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J94 Kempf at Melikhovo

by on July 26, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

When I advertised on GameSquad for a PBEM game of ASL, I ended up taking on two new games. True to my distractible nature, I let the second one get buried under other things at one point, and dropped the game, only to notice it and get it restarted about a year later. We started in June 2007, and didn’t finish up until August 2008…:

This game has been proceeding slowly for a little while. I picked up a second opponent when I advertised for a game a couple months back. We started up as my game of Gavin Take was winding down. I’ve been a bit distracted, and my opponent, John Bock, just moved, so he’s quite naturally distracted too.

Anyway, he took the Russians and I got the Germans in this little 4 1/2 Turn struggle for three buildings on board 3. With two half-boards, I set up half my force with a Flammpanzer III on board 4 and the other half with a Pz IVH enters the first turn. The main fears for the tanks are running out out of fuel for the flamethrower, getting ambushed by a 45mm ATG, getting ambushed by an ATR, and a KV-I that enters randomly.

My main fear is running out of time. Five turns of movement isn’t much, even with not all that far to go.

As would be expected, my first turn was composed of getting up to the Russians. The PzIV got a CH with the MA, driving in the picket on that flank. Sadly, the Flamethrower was unable to do more than Pin the squad in front of it. I considered going into CC with him, but the likely result would be to tie up my MMG squad in Melee, so I passed on it.


Situation at the end of AFPh German Turn 1, showing movement (green), rout (red), and advance (blue). Red stars are the victory buildings.
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