Steve Petras responded to my cri de coeur for someone to come play ASL while I babysat for a friend's 1-year-old. We selected this Paddington Bears/CH product, which in case you aren't familiar with it is a Korean War item.
Specifically, the North Koreans, represented by Russians with Dare-Death squads, have five squads, a small quantity of mines, and a couple T34/85s to hold off a US force of mixed infantry with halftracks and M26 Pershing tanks. Mid-game, they get a few more squads and a couple more tanks as reinforcements. The US gets earlier reinforcements in the form of a few more squads, halftracks, and M4A3(76)W tanks. Half of Board 16 and half of 17 are used.
Victory conditions are stiff for the US -- they must exit 22 CVP worth of their forces from the NKPA's mapedge AND control ALL the buildings on Board 17, which not coincidentally is where the NKPA sets up. Needless to say, I mined two of the 8 building hexes.
I took the Koreans to practice my defensive tactics and found it to be fairly demoralizing going at first, despite the dice generally favoring me over Steve. He had far more malfunctions and missed "sure thing" shots than I did.
However, the firepower and technology advantage is very much in favor of the US; in particular, the T34/85s proved next to useless, as even with their generous APCR allowance, at the 3-6 hex range where most of our shots took place, they'll only kill a Pershing on a front hull hit if you roll a 2; the Pershing's inferior turret armor ups that to a 6. Deliberate immobilization might have been a decent option; the problem was that you normally didn't get a chance to make a second or third shot, since the Pershing's 90L gun will kill a T34/85 on an 8 with AP at the same range. And there are only three hexes, all adjacent to one another, where you can set up a T34 hull down. Does anyone have any tips on how to handle wildly outclassed armor?
I did get lucky fairly early on with my AT mines. One 2-factor minefield immobilized a Sherman and the other burned a halftrack with a full squad, a demo charge, and a leader. However, Steve was systematic, methodical, and paced himself to destroy each and every Korean unit in detail to eliminate the possibility of a last-player-turn counterattack, so he soon pushed me back to the last few buildings at the end of the board.
Having already had to take numerous Diaper Change TCs I almost failed my Personal MC at this point, and even tried to teach the baby to roll dice. This was a near-disaster, as she at first wouldn't hold them, and then refused to release the second one into the glass. She was much more interested in reaching out and pulling the two boards asunder. D'oh! I let her go back to tormenting the dog.
But then it got interesting. I finally started rolling ROF with my HMG, and I bagged a HT and squad that had stopped to Bounding Fire with a nice rear hit from my ATR. Fearing that he had little time to control all those buildings, eliminate all counterattacks, and exit enough forces, Steve made a couple of risky moves with his infantry that didn't work out, and his attack almost appeared to stall. However, he quickly recovered, OVRed a couple of units in the last hexrow on his way off, and maneuvered his troops into positions where the capture of the buildings was ensured.
I thought this was a well-balanced scenario, as Steve and I have been fairly evenly matched in the past and neither of us has played enough lately. What was interesting about the balance was that while the US force is far superior and has plenty of time (8 turns) to do its thing, the VC are so tough (especially since the NKPA can get the last laugh if he keeps a single MMC alive to counterattack) that it comes out balanced. The US really has to be methodical and careful and use all that firepower and mobility to wipe out the NKPA force to the last man.
Related rules comments/questions:
John Frazer