Posts Tagged General

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Feb18

G17 Hakkaa Paalle

by Rindis on February 18, 2015 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

Last year, Patch and I decided to celebrate the upcoming release of Hakkaa Päälle by playing scenario G17 “Hakaa Paalle” from Volume 29, Issue 2 of the General (pity that neither of us can afford the module right now). It’s January 1940, when a running firefight starts between the Finns and Russians. There’s Deep Snow, Extreme Winter, Drifts, skis, and winter camouflage.

The Russians enter first with 20 628s and 6 LMGs, followed by 12 squads of 838 Finn supermen (assault fire, spraying fire, no cowering, underlined morale, stealthy, and can declare HtH CC) with 4 LMGs. The Finns need to have at least 10 more CVP than the Russians at the end of ten turns, and the Russians can exit off the west edge without penalty (both sides enter from the east). The map is a board and a half (longwise) east-west (so 50 hexes for the Russians to get away), and two tall, with all the buildings, walls and hedges removed.

Patch took the Russians, who have already spent 2 MP before entering, so his first turn was occupied by ducking around the woods near his entry area, and got backed up a bit. The Finns entered, and moved laterally towards a group of woods near the board edges, trying to find a way to get into range before the Russians could get past. Patch managed to pin two squads with a long-range shot from a pair of LMGs to slow me down slightly.

G17-1
Full map, showing both sides first turn movement. Stacks are taller than usual thanks to all the skis.

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Jan03

G5 Six Came Back

by Rindis on January 3, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: ASL

About the time we were playing “Merzenhausen Zoo”, I got Barbarossa: Crimea, and Patch and I tried it out in a FtF day. The Odessa scenario is quite long, and we continued it via Vassal for the next few months. After that, I offered Patch the choice of anything he wanted to play in ASL. He took the Germans in “Six Came Back”, an old scenario from the Avalon Hill General, and we got going in May of 2011.

It’s January ’44 in Italy, and a Ranger unit has gotten in trouble. The supporting attacks are stalled, and they’re all alone in front of a lot of Germans. The Germans set up 16 squads with 2 81mm MTRs w/crews, three unarmored AA halftracks (including a 7/1 with the quad 20mm/20 IFE), three StuGs and two Tiger Is, as well as 20 ‘?'(!) on board 12. The Americans get to set up 17 squads with some support weapons on a four hex strip of board 17 (south of board 12). South of that is board 16. The Germans need to score 25 CVP in nine turns, and ensure that they score twice as many CVP as the Americans. The Americans can also freely exit off the east half of board 16.

Just running for it, and not letting the Germans get to 25 CVP is certainly tempting, but that does mean crossing board 16, which is very open. Board 17 isn’t all that built up either, and over half the buildings are out of the initial setup area. There is some help in the fact that all unpaved roads are treated as having ditches, which act as shellholes who’s MP costs are associated with non-road movement. A final complication is that every American unit rolls a die and is broken and DM at the start of the game on a ‘6’.

I set up with most everyone in the available buildings and woods from P through BB, with one stack in the ditch (and a building immediately behind them), and another (U4) in the open, that I hoped to get into cover before Patch could get him. The pre-game drs broke 3 1/2 squads on average die rolls, though it spoiled my plan to fire at his unarmored AA HT on the 12 column from W2. But the leaders were untouched. This gave me three rally attempts to open the game with, but naturally none of them worked.

Patch opened the game with a ’12’ to malf a MMG in his main fire base in 12S9h2, but otherwise had a decent Prep, breaking two squads, pinning another, and getting ELR and CR on a double-break in 17BB4. In movement, a lot charged forward, and Patch put one of his Tigers behind my flank. I had worried about it, but couldn’t find much to do about it, as the set up area restricted me to being far too close to prevent it.

My DF only managed to reveal and pin a HS. My 6FP shot on the star Vehicle line at his HT in 12W7 failed, but would have killed it if the second squad hadn’t broken on the pregame dr.


Situation, German Turn 1.
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