For a long time, I posted session reports of my Vassal ASL games (mostly with Patch) over on the GameSquad forums. These were written while the games were still ongoing, instead of trying to remember just what happened months later as the game finished up, so they were the ‘AAR in Progress’ series. However, I changed domain names recently, and the threads are all old enough that I can’t edit the posts to change the image links, so I’m starting an effort to repost them (with Patch’s comments) with the images intact.
As of 2006, my experience with ASL was still pretty minimal. I’d played a few games against other people over the course of about a decade, and three FtF games with Patch (which I barely remember at all), and then two games with him via VASL, 19 Backs to the Sea and HA2 The Commissar’s House. So in August 2006, we wanted more action on the RB map…:
To give the RB map a bit more of a workout, we’ve decided to try Fire on the Volga from Annual ’91. ROAR reports 10-2 in the Russian’s favor, so I (the less experienced one) get the Russkies, and we used the German balance.
Looking at the forces and the VC, I have to say it sure looks tough on the Germans. They need to either exit a fair amount of their MG firepower or get them into Level 1 Locations within Normal Range of the East side of the board, and are attacking with about an equivalent strength to the defenders.
Once I started setting up, my opinion changed a bit. The nature of the SE corner of the RB map isn’t what I was expecting. There’s a couple of ways the Germans can go about his attack, and an alert German could bull through a defense that leaves one too weak. I think it favors the Russians, just not quite as much as first glance, and ROAR, suggest.
Patch set up his attack to go down the slightly more predictable straight-East route through the densely-packed wooden buildings. The first fire phase didn’t go so well for them. His SR fell short almost on top of his own troops. His first fire attack woke the Sniper, so we both got a broken HS from it, and a HMG broke.
But it certainly isn’t all going my way. The initial perimeter has been overrun (could not hit an adjacent HS…), the HMG is repaired, and my ordnance has yet to do much. Got a rate tear on the 50mm MTR, NE. The 81mm has had one shot (spotted and CA change – miss, forgot to set the CA when I set up). The INF has taken two shots, both on blocked LOS and is broken (I think the crew bent the barrel trying to get it to fire around a corner).
I also probably set up with a little too much on the north side (of course, I wouldn’t think that I he went that way), and am still figuring out how to hustle units back over. My fall back is going the way I’d like [EXC: rolling a ’12’ on a 4MC; break, ELR, CR]. Overall, die luck is probably a little high for both of us at the moment.
Situation at the beginning of the second turn.
New (for me) rules:
Non-small MTR ordnance
Emplaced Guns
Minefields
Roadblocks
Rule lessons (i.e., my mistakes):
B23.912 must Fortify every level of a building below the one you want to fortify.
A4.72 Advance into Difficult Terrain is all MF or >=4
C5.11 Case A TH DRM doubled in rubble
[This was an idea I wish I had managed to continue. Thankfully, the list of mistakes is much shorter these days, though the amount of rule questions might still be just as high….]
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