 asl crossroads :
aar central — a b : bloody :
Bloody Harvest - ASL Action Pack
8 The polish get 9 first line squads, MMG, 2 LMG an 8-0 and 8-1, SAN:5 and four trenches. The germans get twelve elite 4-6-8, 9-2,8-1, 8-0, MMG and 3 LMG. For the most part, there are no special rules. Only board 43 is in play. The victory conditions are simple: get rid of any good order polish MMC within two hexes of 43N8. Sounds simple enough until you look at the open ground you have to cross. My opinion, is that the german player has two options:
Based on my game, option one does not seem likely to succeed. By Turn 5 I had three movement phased left, and only one single HS within two hexes of the walled compound with excellent rally terrain and stone buildings for the defenders. In addition, the trenches give great skulking cover. Since I chose plan (1), my opponent chose to wisely screen the tree line with 1.5 squads. They really did not do much except slow me down. It was the ROF 8-1/MMG that got the hits. Doug wisely chose to hit my center units to break up my fire groups, thus I had little firepower against his stone buildings. In addition, he started to creep a HS around my flank to harrass my rout paths. By turn 5 I had lost a single squad to 12's, while he had lost about a squad as well. However, I had several squads broken, leaving my with only a few functioning units to charge the compound. Assuma concealed MMC. In addition, my 9-2 ELR'ed to a 9-1 and my MMG Malf'ed on the first shot and it took my over two turns to repair it. Had I chosen to dare the open ground, things would have been just as bad, as many of his roles were fours, which would have been KIA's with the MMG/8-1 combo. Assuming a german unit doubled timed whenever possible, using road movement rate, it would take it three movement phases without prep firing to get adjacent to the walled compound. Assuming the polish player places a trench and HS in M10, thats another turn just to get there. That leaves three turns of combat, assuming no units are blocking the way in the stone buildings. I dont know what the record is for this scenario, but I would sure like to know what the german player is supposed to do. Brian Abela AAR 2:Yup, Brian Abela and I played BH with the intention of determining if it was balanced or not, so when he offered me the Balance, I declined in order to give our "playtest" a real look. I kept a killstack (9-2, 3x468, MMG, 2xLMG) behind the hedges at 12 hex range from the farm house (just long range of the Pol MMG). This gave me a 12 +1 shot into the stone blgs. I was very aggressive with my elite studs and few of them broke, some were pinned and I lost about 1 1/2 squads due to K/ or KIA results. My 9-2 did his job every PFPh by knocking out at least one position per Ph. Of course Brian did the appropriate tactic and skulked during his MPh and this cut my fire options in half. I made very good progress early and eliminated all of his frontline men and even an 8-0 that scurried from the farm out to help Rally the front line men in retreat. By Turn 3 I had to move from the edge of the board where the woods were into the grain otherwise I would have running at his men in stone blgs while recieving -2 in OG. Brian didn't roll well as I moved through the grain, lots of 9's and 10's, but I think this was negated since he never Cowered during the entire game. I was satisfied with my "charge" through the grain until I had to consider how I was going to break into the farm. Brian kept some of his squads at ground level and was able to put 8-16 FP into the grain hexes infront of his positions (and again, half of that as DFF). Each of these shots would recieve a -1 DRM while my AFPh would receive a +3 DRM (!). At this point I determined that I would need the help of my kill stack and decided that if I couldn't get them into position the scenario would be over. I drew as much fire as I could with some HS moving up to the wall around the farm and saving about 5 468's to threaten Brian to hold his fire when I decided to make my move. The 9-2 turned to his men and shouted, "For Folk and for Fuhrer!" The men sped across the road at doubletime (autobahn) speed. Everyone arrived safely on the otherside and their confidence grew, after all, they were Elite. The Lt. began to herd them into the grain at breakneck speed when suddenly bullets began to rip into the grain...and flesh. The Lt. hit the dirt, pinned, some men fell where stood, others bolted this way and that. Weapons were dropped and the once heroic herd had dribbled into a frightened flock of flamingos running from the sound of a hunters shot... I had fun, but Brian was right, the scenario is a bit off. His MMG had no effect on play other than to tie up my killstack, had he placed it further back in the upper floor of N9, M9 I would not have even been able to shoot at it with any more than 6 FP until I was in normal range of his MMG and 8-1. He fought me for all but 2 turns with only one Leader and he still had enough men to put out walls of residual FP. I never had more than 1 shot during the PFPh since my men were needed in the MPh. My thinking was that it is better to risk several 2 -1 attacks than to hold 4-6 squads back and fire at one squad with a 8-12 FP +3. Even if I do knock out that Pole squad he has succeded in holding up at least 4 of my squads from getting into the farm. I got lucky for the most part by having most of Brian's shot Pin my guys and this slowed me down much less than if they had broken and routed. Chuck Hammond and I did the same thing with THE RING and found it to be way lopsided for the German if he sets up in the same Farm on bd 43 and exits his men asap. Anyway, Brian is a great competitor and is always fun to play with, but I wished he'd gotten ROF more with his LMG so I could hear him make those great "machinegun sounds". ;-) Eddie Z AAR 2:We thought this game favored the Poles based on the ROAR, so we gave the German the balance... The Poles set up with their 457/MMG and 8-1 in O7L1; 3x457 in the center of the adjacent wheatfield; 1x457 in a western woods Trench; 1x457 in a Trench at the southern tip of the wheatfield, with another 457/LMG slightly to the east also in a Trench; another 457 guarded the eastern flank sitting in the P1 building, with a nearby 457/LMG in a Trench in that same big wheatfield with all it's other friends. German Turn 1 (GT1): 2 HS moved on in the East to draw fire, and getting the nearest Pole to open up and break one HS; 3 squads moved on in the West to face the lone Pole there (singly, of course--no moving stacks here!); the 2 'spare' 468 moved forward to lay smoke, and draw fire; finally, the 8-1 and 3x468/LMG moved into some woods near the center while the 9-2 and 468/MMG tried to reach some eastern woods (they didn't make it--the Polish MMG Pinned them...) where they could fire on the Polish MMG at max. range (cutting down on Polish return fire). Polish fire failed to have much effect. German return fire (from the 8-1 kill stack) broke the southernmost (a 10(+1) attack) Polish squad. Polish Turn 1 (PT1): The single broken Pole rallied and created a 7-0 leader! The center-wheatfielders started digging FH... Everyone else pretty much skulked. Still that German 8-1 kill stack now got a 21(+1) shot at the southern Pole--who promptly HOB'ed and Disrupted; the new Polish 7-0 leader broke, but elected to remain in place in hopes of getting the Disrupted 457 back into action. The westernmost lone Polish squad was also broken by a lucky shot. GT2: The Germans moved forward mostly as single-units, with the last HS drawing some fire and breaking. The Germans reached the western and the eastern woods. Polish fire was largely ineffective, as was German return fire. PT2: One Polish squad left off digging FH and moved to cover the western woods while everyone else either skulked or remained in their trenches. German Def. Fire took a heavy toll though--breaking both eastern Polish squads with LMG! GT3: The German kill stacks remained in place and poured fire into both the center of the wheatfield (getting ROF with their LMG) and into the Polish MMG (the German MMG also got ROF)--breaking 3 more Polish squads (including the one manning that Polish MMG) and HOB'ing the poor Polish 8-1 Leader into going Berserk. That western-reinforcing Polish squad was also broken by a 3-squad German FG [12(+1) attack]. PT3: With his forces in full retreat/rout, and with no effective leadership left to rally them, the Polish player surrendered. Hmmm, in looking at this I seem to be missing a turn somewhere (I'm pretty sure we made it to turn 4...). It was fun and tense until the poor Poles got out-diced. I would recommend it as a fast and fun little Infantry only scenario (that makes it an excellent learning scenario!). Anyway, it looks like a fun little scenario--despite the way this playing went. Thoughts: the Polish player either needs to defend more up front to delay the Germans for 2-3 turns and then keep his leaders back to rally brokies as they run back to the victory building, or he needs to stay back and defend just the victory location. German Kill Stacks need to be priority targets--so save that Polish MMG until the DFPh if possible (though, this is a "target-rich" environment for it!)--that way one shot will affect up to 4 enemy units instead of just 1 or 2. It might also be wise to Deploy a squad and have one HS man the MMG with the other HS ADJACENT but out of enemy LOS as a back-up crew. The German really needs to *move* to win this game if he can't quickly break most of the Poles. Generally, the German needs to have most of his forces moving against the weakest part of the Polish defense, while also putting some pressure on elsewhere to prevent the shift/transfer of Polish forces. The German should be able to get 3-1 odds along his chosen attack axis--which will get him in close with usually light casualties (but who can say with that Polish MMG?). Scott/Stonewall Jackson |