Posts Tagged Annual 89

5 results.
Mar22

DA1 L’Ecole Normale

by Rindis on March 22, 2022 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

The aftermath for “The Liberation of Tulle” mentions there were a few major buildings the Germans still held at the end of the day; among them was L’Ecole Normale, which made me say, ‘I know that name…’. And indeed, scenario DA1 from ASL Annual ’89 is about the Maquisards assaulting that building the next day in Tulle. So this sequel became the next stop in Mark and I’s play of ASL scenarios.

This time, I had the defending Germans, who have five squads, three machine guns, ten “?” and set up on deluxe board c. The partisans get ten squads (two of which are 527s) and a pair of LMGs, and have seven turns in which to render building cK4 aflame (in this case, having two blaze counters in the building—and they do have MOL capability), or for there to be no unbroken German MMC in the building.

Setup is simultaneous, and I deployed two squads (the Germans can deploy everything by SSR), one of which was my allowed HIP squad-equivalent, which went in cI3 with a LMG to halt any advances towards the east side of the building, and the other was buried in cK3h1 to force a search/mop-up once the obvious defenders were taken care of. The west side had a dummy and the other LMG+HS with the 7-0 leader. Sadly, there’s almost nowhere to set up north of the building so that relied on a squad and a half, and more dummies, with the MMG centrally located in L3.

Mark mostly set up in a rough line to the north on board b, with three squads and his 7-0 to the west largely on the board e hill. Prep did nothing, and Mark did a limited advance under cover of smoke (by SSR, partisans have a Smoke exponent of 2, and he rolled well), with my only fire being to break a 527 after the smoke went away.


Situation, Partisan turn 1, showing my HIP. This is not the full board, but is all the important parts, and stone building cI3 is actually woods. Only buildings with printed stairwells have a level 1 (and there’s no level 2 Locations).
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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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May20

94 Bofors Bashing

by Rindis on May 20, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

After invading Crete in Tavronitis Bridge, Tracey went and did it all over again with “Bofors Bashing”. This is a companion scenario that originally appeared in Annual ’89, and was reprinted in For King and Country, depicting the main glider landings at the nearby Maleme airfield.

This time the Germans get thirteen elite squads with decent leadership, LMGs, and a couple small MTRs. The British are defending the board 14 airfield with three 20mm AA guns, and the Germans need all three to be eliminated to win (a blown repair roll is good enough, so the Brits can end up eliminating guns for the Germans, especially with IF). Beyond the guns and their crews (which set up in the open unconcealed), the Brits have nine squads, a trench, three foxholes, and six wire (note: none of these can set up on a road), and three light MTR. The wind is blowing down the longer runway of the airfield, and the first two turns have moderate dust, going down to light on turn 3 before going away entirely.

I had the defenders again, and played around with a few ideas. My eventual defense had the AA guns on three sides of the airfield, pointing towards it, and my troops were disposed so that there were some defenders available for each gun. Since even the reprinted version was showing a tendency to British wins, we played with the German balance, which has the British player break three of his MMC before the game begins.

One AA went in 14G8, with the trench in 14H7, with a squad, and another squad in building I7. Also, a MTR team was in F9, and a foxhole+squad in H10. All this should do a good job of protecting the main runway if the Germans felt like landing directly on it, and made a good screen for the north end of the field. the second one was in M9, with the 9-1+LMG squad in a foxhole in N10, with wire stretching from there to 11J2. A broken HS was in N9 and a 8-0 and broken squad in J10. All of this protected the west side, where the Germans have a lot of room for a landing and coordinated charge. The third was in K5, to protect the second runway, with a (broken) MTR HS in K3, a LMG foxhole (w/8-1) in M4 and a MTR squad was in O4. This was generally to protect from the east, with the tree-line keeping anyone else from seeing out there. The south was relatively unprotected, but the last two wire were in O6 & O7.

Tracey didn’t land directly on the airfield, but seven gliders coming in south of the field, with one more coming in near the west tree line at 11M2, and four landing at the north end, and the last one going for the hill in 11B2. With three light AA Guns already in AA mode, things started looking bad for the Germans… until I remembered the dust rolls. My first two rolls killed a glider and damaged a second, but the dust lowered that to no effect and an evade. Despite some good ROF, I was unable to get any other results (lots of +3 dust). All the gliders came down safely, with the evading one going long from O7 to J9.

DFPh wasn’t any better. I managed to put some ACQ down with my MTRs, but couldn’t hit, or get any results against the gliders, despite all the shots available. Of course, Advancing Fire was just as hopeless.


Situation, German turn 1, showing the entire play area. North is to the left, and orchards are olive groves.
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Mar14

93 Tavronitis Bridge

by Rindis on March 14, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

When I asked Tracey what he might like to do next, he mentioned an upcoming date at Pegasus Bridge, and asked for something with gliders. My thoughts immediately went to the first few scenarios of Annual ’89, which were reprinted in For King and Country. They’ve long been on my general ‘to play’ list, so arranging for the first one was no problem, and Tracey took the assaulting Germans.

The eponymous bridge stretches across the board 8 river, which here is a dry Level -1 valley. The British (actually New Zealanders) sets up within three hex rows of the bridge, but the Germans win after 5.5 turns if there is no Good Order British Infantry (not MMC…) within two hexrows of the bridge. They get five elite squads, with two LMGs and three foxholes to defend the bridge, and given the record (even of the revised scenario), we used the German balance that says I can only set up one MMC in the valley. So, I concentrated my defense around the one large building (R9), with a squad+LMG up on the O8 promontory, and the other LMG squad down in R7, while another two were in/near the the building. The last squad was Deployed and guarded the other end of the bridge. I was a little nervous leaving them out there with no support, but hoped they could tie up more than a squad for long enough to be critical in this short scenario.

The Germans get ten elite squads, with 3xLMG and 2xlight mortars, which all come in by glider on turn one. The initial wind is coming from the northwest (the board ID # corner), so the gliders have the entire central stretch of the riverbed to land in (assuming no initial wind changes). Tracey landed in two groups, with six gliders landing to the north, and the remaining four to the south, hard up against the cliffs that surround the hexrow Y road.

The Brits have nothing on board that can provide Light AA fire against the gliders as they come down, but an SSR gives them two 4FP AA attacks from other nearby AA, which did nothing for me. No one in the northern group had any obstacles on their approach, and came down fine. The southern group had potential problems: W4 had an obstacle in the form of the level 0 river bank five hexes before the landing hex, and landed safely. Z4 only had three streambed hexes behind it, and there was a building on the stream bank, to add another level of obstacle, but only undershot the ILH by two, landing safely in the middle of the streambed (probably a heck of a downdraft). AA5 had a similar building problem, but four clear hexes between that and the ILH, and also landed two hexes short. BB5 was like W4: four clear hexes, and the Level 0 stream bank in the fifth. It rolled double-6 to land two hexes long, in Z6, which… really should mean the glider smashes into the base of the three-level cliff (it’d just be coming in way too low), but instead wrecked from landing in the blind hex of building AA6.

I didn’t know it at the time, but this was about the worst possible thing that could have happened, since the wrecked glider was carrying a squad and his 9-2.

However, I didn’t have any great shots at the downed gliders, and everyone else was able to disembark without trouble.


Situation, German Turn 1, landing in gliders. North is to the left, orchards are olive groves.
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Oct31

A4 Beyond the Blue Beach

by Rindis on October 31, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

A while back, I proposed the first Annual scenario to have not been reprinted as my next game with Tom Arnold, but we went with the much shorter 195 “Rocket’s Red Glare” instead, as there was limited time before he was unavailable for a few months. We went back to A4 “Beyond the Blue Beach” after the break. With its record on ROAR, the original intent was to play it with the American balance, but that plan got lost in the delays.

Tom took the Americans, who are defending the Salerno landings against a German counterattack. They get fourteen first-line squads with pairs of HMG, MMG, and MTR, and four BAZ 43, with two 105 ART arriving by truck on the first turn. The Germans have six first-line squads with a HMG, two MMG, and three LMG (one MG per squad!), with four Pz IV Hs with an AL entering on turn 1. The Germans have 10 turns in which to exit two tanks off the opposite edge (or exit one and generate more CVP than the Americans). The area is three boards, with Americans setting up in the west on board 19, and the Germans setting up in the east on board 4. The catch is that any time a tank is eliminated, the AL must make a TC, or the surviving tanks must go back to board 4 to regroup before they can try again. Presumably the long time limit assumes that there may be one or two false starts on the German offensive.

The main American problem is that they have to guard an entire long board edge. They can concentrate once the Germans are underway, but have to be wary of the tanks using their good speed to try to just get around them. That and the fact that the ART has no AP and HEAT 6 means that killing tanks is going to be hard. I initially looked at advancing near the center, where board 16 has some walls and buildings to take as cover before pushing into a thin line of woods near the board 16/19 join. But Tom’s main defense seemed to be in that area (and if he’d had the American balance of three foxholes, where I’d expect some of them to be), so I eventually went for a north-edge approach. There was less immediate cover, but some woods and brush between his setup and mine, and I could use the long Y/Z wall to cut off LOS to my advance from most of the rest of the board. Both sides get some “?”, and I used mine to create a Dummy as well as cover everyone, but then I never had anything to do with the Dummy with all the open ground around.

I sent a squad and two HS forward as fast as I could, and sent a MMG squad forward, but two squads and the lesser of my two leaders stayed back to see how it went. On the edge of the board, the HMG and 8-1 moved forward to a woods half-hex, where it could see through some of the gap as Tom moved up. This last move was the only one to draw fire, a range 16 MMG shot that did nothing. The tanks entered as a group, and it was only after I started that I realized I should probably have set up CE to gain some distance from the initial road; I did put the last one CE so he could catch up (going BU during APh). The first tank halted to provide covering fire, while the others stayed in Motion to gain some distance (the AL was in the second tank entered, who ended up in the middle of the Motion group).

Tom’s DFPh had one effect: he malfunctioned the 60mm MTR in 19CC5 on its second shot; it had been trying to shell the stopped tank in 16AA10 (which could have turned into a problem, immobilizing tanks is a mission kill in this scenario with only four of them).


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