After finishing “Lost Opportunities” with Mark, I took him back to the beginning. The first scenario for ASL, 1 “Fighting Withdrawal”, is a very strong one that really does show off maneuver and firepower. Set in the initial Finnish thrust towards Leningrad at the start of the Continuation War, both sides are trying to exit off the far edge of board 21, while fires rage behind the Russian lines.
I played it with my then-current roommate when I first got the game around ’96. As I recall, I came up just shy as the Finns as I could match, but not beat, the Russian exit points, and the Finns need to exit more off the far edge of board 21 than the Russians. I can still remember one squad generating heroes on back-to-back morale checks, and Colin was asking, “Why am I even shooting at these guys?”
I had the defending Russians this time, who have a six column setup area (V–AA), with 14 squads, three leaders and MGs, and 8 OB-given “?”. They also get two HIP squads, but I forgot about that during setup. They suffer from ammo shortage, but also have a SAN of 7 versus 2 for the Finns. The MMG went in the back behind a wall, concealed squads went in the rear of each flank, and a mostly concealed line went up front, with leaders on each flank, and the 7-0 in the rear to help catch anyone routing back. The dense buildings make for easy initial routing, though it can become a problem later.
The Finns have 16 of the ‘super’ squads (648, spraying fire, assault fire, self-rally, and they’re not even elite!), with three leaders, and one more MG than the Russians. Across a ten hex frontage, that’s about where you want to double up and put the MGs. Mark avoided stacking, and had a fair amount slightly in the rear.
Mark opened by firing everything with an LOS, and broke and ELRed one of the visible squads, while pinning the other, and revealing and pinning the 8-0 and the LMG squad with him. Movement was minimal, other than one squad shifting flanks.
Situation, Finnish Turn 1. North is to the left, and the goal is to get off the south side.
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