While contemplating Patch and I’s next game, I remembered a scenario back in the ASL Annuals that featured Ukranian partisans after WWII. So, I proposed that, and Patch accepted, taking the NKVD forces. Looking at the record later, it turned out to be very pro-NKVD, so we went with the Partisan balance, not that it helped.
The scenario takes place in early 1946, as the Soviet Union continues to try and regain control of western territories. The UPA had fought against the Germans after realizing they didn’t even want a puppet government for the region, and then against the USSR as it advanced back west. One sweep across the area came across a training camp in a thickly wooded area. The scenario uses board 34 (cutting off rows A and GG, per errata), with the forest (B13.7) rules, which I think I’ve run into once before. The Russians set up fourteen squads of conscripts and ten elite HS along one side, and the UPA enters, trying to get across the short side of the board (10 hexes) in very dense terrain and break out with at least 14 EVP (12 with the balance). They get twelve partisan squads, 9-2, 8-0, 4 LMGs, and a MTR to do this in six turns.
Of course, the biggest wrinkle in this scenario is both sides are using Russian brown. In FtF play, I assume you just be very rigorous in making sure your counters (and “?” especially) are facing you. On VASL, if you see a stack of “?”, then it’s not yours, and the rest you tell by the type of unit. Still, we tried switching Chinese counters partway through, as they have a good match for the 337s. Annoyingly, their LMG(r) and 50mm MTR(r) have slightly different stats than the actual Russian LMG and MTR. (I had originally thought of it with the idea that the “?” would match, forgetting that Chinese “?” are two-tone just like their units, and don’t “borrow” “?” like the Hungarians—why do this?!? Though that does make using Chinese “?” with the Partisan counters a possible good idea in FtF play.)
Patch set up along the north side of the road, with no real obvious weak points (there’s more than enough units to scatter around, the question is where the good ones are). The wise idea is probably to go for one edge or the other and hug that, forcing the distant units on a long trek. I didn’t like some of the open ground there though, nor the fact that a pair of T-70s enter on either edge on turn 3, and could well be on top of me. So, I tried the next best thing: hugging a stream as an ‘edge’, and interdicting the bridge over the stream.
I worked my way into positions I wanted on turn 1, but I made a serious mistake in not hustling more. I could have gotten another hex in, and didn’t. I will say that I have not dealt much with extensive woods-roads, and was still struggling with LOS questions. (It felt like if you’re adjacent to a woods-road, you can see into it, and then see down the road itself, if it continues in a straight line. This is incorrect, but it took a while to adjust how I was “seeing” the terrain.)
Situation, Partisan Turn 1. “It’s the board 25 version of board 5.”
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