A33 Tettau’s Attack

by on October 4, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Continuing our tour of Market-Garden, Patch and I went to the second scenario in June 2009…:

This one may be very short….

Patch and I have played this one FtF before, but I can’t really remember anything of it. But, it’s the second scenario in the A’91 Market-Garden set which we’re going through, so here we are again. I lost last time as the Brits when Patch managed to nail my feet to the floor at get past me. So this time I’m the Germans.

Both of us look at this one and wonder just how the British are supposed to win, with the German advantage in numbers, and 11 turns to exit a mere 3 EVP.

Poor German dice look to help a lot.

I set up with a couple of sacrificial squad and a half groups on either flank. Their main job was to keep him honest as he’d have to make sure both board edges were adequately covered or risk one group getting through and beelining for the exit. The rest clumped near the center, looking to see a way forward. Patch put the 9-2 and MMG in the center of the village at Q4, with a backup force nearby and more off to the north in S7/R6.

His first shot was the MMG at my northern flankers, and broke the MMG on a ’12’.

Past that, he spent time developing his flanks.


Situation, DFPh, British turn 1.

My movement started out fine, other than a HS eating a 2KIA, but that’s what he’s for. Then Patch nailed the north flank. The squad that started out all the way to the north broke, and being a conscript squad, disrupted. The 7-0, squad and LMG meant to really hold that flank down broke, with the squad being reduced on a ’12’. Then, on a later shot, I rolled a ‘2’, and Patch’s sniper activated and wounded the 7-0.

Holding together that flank could get complicated….

And after surviving the rest of his First Fire, he got a 1KIA in DFPh to kill another squad and it’s LMG.


Situation, end of MPh, German turn 1.

The second turn started poorly with Patch getting his MMG back, and went downhill from there. He actually prepped everything he had (except the unit at P2, which has to be his 8-0), and got some sort of result on every shot. My lowest roll was a 5, and my average was 9.75, with three 11s and a 12 in there. At the end of it, I had 2 squads, 2 HS, and my 8-0 intact. The ELR of 2 is being very punishing with quality reductions all over the place, and my 8-1 leader reduced to an 8-0, eliminating the only negative modifier I had.


The disaster, British turn 2.

My plan no longer exists….
↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , ,
2 Comments

R vs B Alliance Turn 9 in Review

by on September 27, 2012 at 9:19 pm
Posted In: BvR - The Wind

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG

The Kzinti continue to recover, with their economy up to 78.2 this turn (plus 24.6 treasury, thanks to the Feds). They built a full schedule and replaced a PDU on 1502 (which had been reduced to 1), as well as converting a CVL to a full CV. Cycling the repairs is continuing, and the end of the backlog is in sight.

On the other hand, the Hydrans lost another three economy in the Capital grid, reducing it to 13 EP. Seeing the writing on the wall, I repaired another SIDS, built a TR, a pair of CUs (and a third at the off-map SB), and repaired a spare AH to bring the UH group up to full (overstuffed) strength, leaving 0 EP left in the treasury. The Old Colonies didn’t have much to do, and is now sitting on 58 EP.

I considered attacking a broad swath of northern Klingon space, mostly to keep some of the Coalition reserves out of the way, but ended up sticking with the main plan: I hit a few other targets to try and sweep the Klingons out of the 13-15 columns, and then sent the Home Fleet in to 1202 to try and retake the last Klingon-held planet in Kzinti space. He reacted out a sizable force to hold some of the fleet away, and then sent in the Lyrans from 1001.

Meanwhile, available Federation forces that I haven’t actually moved into Kzinti space have moved closer to the Klingon border, and in range of a few bases in Klingon space.

The Hydrans contented themselves with kicking the Klingons off of 0519 with overwhelming force (I was expecting the Lyran reserve to come in and force me to take damage, but nothing doing), which was about all they could do without the nearby Klingon forces reacting in.


Kzinti front.


Hydran front.

Combats:
1106: Klingons: crip F5
1107: Klingons: crip D5; Kzinti: crip 2xMEC
1305: Klingons: dest D5
1505: SSC: Klingons: dest D5; Federation: crip FF, retreat
1202: Klingons: PDU; Lyrans: crip BC, CA, 2xCW; Kzinti: dest SF, capture planet
1303: Klingons: crip F5S
1302: Klingons: dest D6M; Kzinti: crip BC, MEC, dest CLE
0519: Klingons: dest F5L; Hydrans: capture planet
1807: Klingons: dest F5, BATS

I was expecting to see a hard fight for 1202. The Kzinti fleet is getting pretty impressive, but it was fighting over Coalition defenses for a change, and he needs to start slowing the Kzinti down.

Belirahc has been shooting SFs every chance he gets, and I am feeling the effects. I’m going to have to start building MSCs just to make it more expensive (though most of the CMs are still going to escorts…).

This marks the end of the second scenario of the General War, “The Tempest”. Here’s how the Victory Conditions break down:

For any level of victory, the Coalition must have more ships than the Alliance (only counting Federation ships in released fleets):
Lyrans: 109; Klingons: 276; Total: 385
Kzinti: 150; Hydrans: 63; Federation: 61; Total: 274 Check
(The totals are adjusted for three Klingon ships that have been captured, which I forgot last turn.)

For a Tactical Victory:
A) The Alliance must have a total economy of 250 or less: 281.95 EP X
B) The Coalition has destroyed 35 Alliance Battle Stations: 29 X
(see the Turn 6 wrap up for how bases are calculated)

Even with the Federation economy at 75%, it counts for 165.75 EPs. The other two are only going to be under 84.25 if the Coalition has used the opportunity to really lock up Hydran and Kzinti space. And generally if it can do that, there will be a invasion of the Federation to cut it down to size before its build schedule kicks in.

Again, the 35 bases is going to be hard to do without invading the Federation (which should make that total easy). It’s still possible, as the bases left in the Marquis zone, which I’ve concentrated on keeping him out of, are worth another five. Combine that with fewer losses on the Coalition side, or more new bases built in Alliance territory, it’s not hard. And that’s not even considering the SBs in the two Alliance capitals.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

A32 Zon With the Wind

by on September 27, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

“Zon With the Wind” always looked like an interesting scenario to me. Actually, it always made me think that it’d be at home among the Paratrooper set, except for being set well after Normandy. At any rate, it turned into one of our bigger projects, as we went through the entire Market-Garden set from Annual 91, though we didn’t formally make a ‘campaign’ of it. We stepped off in June 2009…:

Okay, I still need to finish off the tale of our last game. But I’m going to try to pick at that while keeping up with this one.

After some hemming and hawing, Patch decided upon the Germans in “Zon With the Wind” (from a list of suggestions from me). I’m thinking we may very well go through the whole A’91 Market-Garden set, though I don’t know if we’ll do the ‘CG’ bit, or even stick to the same sides each time.

I have to say, tonight is not anything I’m going to celebrate as wonderful tactical acumen from me. While thinking through the scenario, I remembered the fact that I could deploy, and had good smoke capability (which certainly was not true last game). But I forgot both of them until turn 2. It sure would have helped on turn 1.

So, I went in with no scouting HS, and no smoke. Thankfully, the dice weren’t too kind to Patch, and one squad walked through a couple shots unhurt. My leader stack was going to head to J2, a nice, safe point from which to overlook the battlefield. Patch put down a FL, which did nothing. Then he revealed R4, which I get the idea he wanted to still be concealed for turn 2. He got a K/1 on a long-range shot and managed to wound the leader and break the squad. All things considered, not too bad a price for the muff. And as a last bit of luck, a squad in H2 managed to get ‘?’ while out of LOS, but not in concealment terrain.


Situation, end of American Turn 1 MPh.

The German turn 2 got exciting. R4 fired on M2 to no effect. Patch then got aggressive with his east flank, sending one stack to the edge of the American turn 2 entry area, and another stack shifting position into its former location. One thing you’ve got to give Patch: he makes a wonderful German small-unit commander—he’s as aggressive on the counter-attack as the Wehrmacht could hope for.

He next tried to empty out building M4, but that was the entire reason why I had two adjacent squads of paratroopers across the way. With some hot dice, I broke both squads as they tried to move, and a ’12’ caused the 7-0 to ELR to a wounded 6+1. The dice are definitely trying to make up for my blunders. He also sent his west-flank force into Crest Status at H4, which complicated what I wanted to do.


Situation, end of German Turn 1 MPh.

I took some time to figure out how I wanted to arrange my turn 2 forces. I also recalled that he had 5 dummy ‘?’. I realized that the T1 stack was probably a bluff as was one of his two flanking forces.

My broken squad came back, setting me up for a fairly active turn. The first thing was to send a HS into T1, which, indeed, was empty. My first attempt to press into his broken troops was repulsed when Patch revealed L6 and broke my squad in Bypass of K5. Suspecting that Patch hadn’t put all his Dummies on the same side, I advanced the recovered squad to the rear-side of his Crest Status counter, and then advanced my concealed squad up a hex. When he refused to even strip concealment, I was as sure as I could get.

My attempt to push in the center didn’t go so well. I smoked Q1 from off-board (planning to Advance in if the roll went badly), but fire from R4 still broke my leader, though it didn’t affect the squad.

My last move was not so good. I moved from O0 (offboard) to P0 and promptly got fired on by the first 88, which broke the squad. I was trying to save the extra 0.5 from O1, even though it wouldn’t have mattered. Bleh. 😛

I advanced a squad, leader, and dm MMG into N2h1, where it should prove an annoyance to Patch. My concealed squad in the west found that indeed there was no one home. And my main forces were well into the hole I’d blasted in Patch’s defenses and re-DMing everything in sight.


Situation, end of American Turn 2 MPh.
↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , ,
1 Comment

E Hill 621

by on September 20, 2012 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

“Hill 621” is a classic scenario from the original Squad Leader game, and is much enjoyed in both the original and ASL formats even now. Like all the original scenarios, it’s not very historical, but it has a great ‘feel’. Both Patch and I had played it before, but not in ages, and not against each other. We got going at the end of March 2009…:

Well, Patch and I started our newest game last night. We’d talked over various possibilities while the previous game was wrapping up, and we eventually decided to visit an old classic, even if it will take a bit longer than the last couple games.

We’ve both technically played it before, but it’s been a decade or so for Patch, and the last I played it, it was SL scenario 5.

Neither of us had a strong affinity for a side, so we rolled off and I got the Russians.

With 48 squads… it was hard to come up with much operational subtlety, so I mostly lined up at the edge of board 3, and am trying to keep everyone out each other’s way until attrition shakes out a few bodies.

The pre-game MC broke two German squads, which promptly rallied in the RPh. The Germans set up near the west edge of board 4, in three stacks. With his middle stack, he made a mistake bypassing some woods 15 hexes away from the leaderless MMG I had set up in 3N1h2. The resulting 1MC was passed by the -2 leader and the first squad. However, the latter activated the Sniper who promptly Pinned that squad. The remaining two squads seeing their comrades hit the dirt pinned and broke, effectively halting the entire stack before they could get to the board 2 hills.


Situation, German Turn 1.

The broken German squad promptly rallied in my RPh. My only Prep was the MMG again, which pinned the squad that had advanced up to AA4.

Thanks to his middle group being out of position, I had a lot of freedom to move. They tried to fire a couple times with tricky LOS, but they were blocked. Overall, I had four squads broken, one by the Sniper. Not bad at all….


Situation, Russian Turn 1 after MPh.
↓ Read the rest of this entry…

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Second Wind Coalition Turn 3

by on September 19, 2012 at 10:18 pm
Posted In: Second Wind

Crossposted from the SFU blog on BGG.

With everything moved up to—and past—the borders, turn 3 tends to be a bit simpler for the Coalition. Also, I knew that the Duke’s SB was weaker than it ordinarily should be, as he was out of carrier escorts there. I contemplated a raid into the capital, hoping to devastate a few planets while the fleet was elsewhere, but it just too easy for major elements to get intercepted on the way, so I settled for a more normal ‘sweep the Kzinti off the map’ approach.

Builds:
Lyrans: BC, CA, 4xCW, 2xDW, DWS, 3xFF, PDU, CL->BC, 3xFF->DW, MB->BATS
Klingons: D7C, D7, D6M, 7xD5, LTT, D5S, F5L, 4xF5, FV, E4, E4A, E4R, Activate 2xD6, 3xF5, 3xE4, D6->D6S, D6->D6D, CapDD->K-DD

Converting smaller captured ships to your service is somewhat expensive, but I figure it’s less expensive than overbuilding the equivalent ship, so I’m still EPs ahead. Also, I’m planning on converting the DD to a DDE, though I’m still waiting for an answer as to whether the Klingons get to use it as a light or heavy escort. If the latter, it is a poor heavy escort, but serves as an extra for a second-line group as I get all the AD5s in place. If I can use it as a light escort, it’ll be the best one I can have for quite a while.

Combat:
1001: Kzinti: dest MON; Lyrans: crip CL, FF, capture planet
1202: Kzinti: dest MON; Lyrans: crip CW, capture planet; Klingons: crip E4
1502: Kzinti: dest BC, EFF; Klingons: crip D6M, F5, dest D7A
1504: Kzinti: dest 3xEFF, 2xPDU; Klingons: crip D6, 2xD5, 4xF5, dest F5L, F5, E4
1304: Kzinti: dest SB, CC; Klingons: D7C, D6M; Lyrans: crip 2xCA
0902: Kzinti: dest FKE, FFE, wound PT; Lyrans: crip CL, 3xCW, dest CC, DW

As you can see, I’m doing a lot of directing. In fact, my general plan is to try and wear the Kzinti fleet out. The early schedule is sparse, and there’s not a lot of spare ships available. In fact, he had no real light escorts for his carriers at the Duke’s SB battle at all (1304), which led to it being a single-round affair.

One of the additions of Combined Operations are troop ships and marine assaults on bases. Many people don’t care too much for them, and largely ignore them. I don’t have enough experience to have a real opinion of them. But the idea is that you can use them to attack ground bases (or regular bases) and do extra damage—if you can roll well. You can also lose your ground troops for no gain, though they get replaced for free like fighters. The main cost is that troop ships have a lower offensive ComPot, so you’re doing less direct damage.

Against regular bases, they can cause an extra SIDS of damage, which can make them very useful in a hotly contested SB battle. If you need to direct SIDS to get the SB, this can speed the process up, if the defender is voluntarily taking SIDS, he may find it getting unexpectedly crippled by the ground troops. The problem is the odds aren’t too good of making it work, and a SB inherently has a defending marine unit (‘G’) that must be killed before damage can be done.

Naturally, I rolled two 12s in a row to actually do a SIDS to 1304 with a single D6G.

Overall, the turn went very well for me. SB 0902 is still there, but I took the entire ‘second line’ of planets (1001, 1202, 1504), and got SB 1304, all for minimal losses. Sadly, I didn’t parse the situation with the Marquis area correctly, and that’s still on the main grid. Cutting it off will certainly be a priority for next turn.

But now the Hydrans are about to join in, and I have some strategic decisions to make…. Right now, I’m splitting my attention (and new builds) between the two and where I go next will likely depend on how his turn 3 goes.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment