TOT39 features Gurkhas and Germans in a night melee, with a bunch of Pz III(Fl) tanks heating things up. A real mess, but moreso for the Brits.
Italy, 28 Nov 43
Board 41; all buildings have Cellars (O6). N=row 1
It
is overcast, with Rain; NVR starts at 3.
8 Turns; Germ sets up 1st, Brit
moves 1st.
VC: British win at End if they control 22 buildings {there are 44
on map}
Germans receive 10 467, a "-1", a MMG, and up to 18 "?" Reinforced on Turn 1 by 8 228s, a 9-1 AL, 3 Pz III(Fl), 2 StuG 105/25s, and a StuG 75/18. The German infantry may set up HIP in any terrain. The reinforcements enter within 2 hexes of I1 and/or Q1. The AFVs may not use Armored Assault or Riders, nor voluntarily Abandon.
British receive 17 458s, 2 "-1"s, 3 LtMtrs, 2 PIATs, 4 DCs, 88 OBA, and up to 14 "?". They can set up in non-Cellar Locations on/between R and GG.
I played the Germans this time. Since The Germans own the entire board at start, it's up to the Brits to take and hold half the town. My set-up placed the bulk of the Germans around the Q-S hexrows, especially covering the road from Q1 - where I intended to enter the AFVs - and the Open Ground in the Q hexrow. I placed HIP HSs in BB1, BB8, and EE3. I used the "?", with one real stack, to make the Brits aware that actual units lurked in at least one hex; which one would be up to him to discover. The 3 HIP HS were situated in unobtrusive terrain (Orchards), but near multiple buildings for potential game-end snatching. Being in Orchards turned out to be key. Mike found the HS in the BB8 Woods, but the EE3 Orchard he avoided. Instead of spending 2 MF to enter that hex, he spent 1 MF to bypass the adjacent building hex.
Mike's set-up concentrated his force in the X1-X5-GG5 quarter of the map. His plan was to quickly consolidate that area, then move out into the rest of the town. As I alluded to above, he managed to clear the buildings but never wasted the resources to ferret out the lurkers. By the time he had secured the X6-X10-GG10 area, my armor was positioned along the Stream and or just across the bridge in U5. During the remainder of the game, his PIATs made several attempts on the bridge-guard AFV, but without success. Meanwhile, my crews were harassing him by infiltrating the edges of his perimeter (specifically through the W1/W2 Stream hexes). These moves were defeated, but drew off squads that were then not available to dispose of the bridge-guard or the Dummy stack in W5cellar.
By Turn 7, Mike had pushed a couple of squads through the Stream around V9, and as their reward faced the prospect of entering the R9 building in front of TWO 105/25s. This scenario was effectively over around turn 6, when Mike moved the last of his units away from the EE hexrow, leaving the 2 HIP German units to steal precious buildings on the last two turns.
This scenario presents the British with a real challenge: secure half a mapboard against a foe that be HIP anywhere, while enduring multiple FT AFVs and powerful Assault Guns. If the Brits are going to win this scenario, they have to be really aggressive, and try to bring their CC bonus into play. If they allow themselves to be bottled up, it's probably over; they don't have enough strength to blast through a prepared defense line. The German advantage of using HIP anywhere is very big; the Brits probably have to detail several HS to sweep every conceivable hidey-hole, risking Search casualties if necessary.
Tom Mueller
> This scenario presents the British with a real challenge:
secure
> half a mapboard against a foe that be HIP anywhere, while
enduring multiple
> FT AFVs and powerful Assault Guns. If the Brits are
going to win this
> scenario, they have to be really aggressive, and try
to bring their CC bonus
> into play. If they allow themselves to be
bottled up, it's probably over;
> they don't have enough strength to
blast through a prepared defense line.
> The German advantage of using
HIP anywhere is very big; the Brits probably
> have to detail several HS
to sweep every conceivable hidey-hole, risking
> Search casualties if
necessary.
I think Tom's got it here: also, my setup played right into the hands of his. I think the British need to set up forces on both sides of the stream. If they're all on one side, it's far too easy for the Germans to bottle them up. If they're on both sides, some German effort will have to be expended by chasing them around the map (not easy at night). I like the scenario, and Tom played it well. And I have yet to kill anything with a PIAT! Ugh. One of his PzIII flamers took three(!) PIATs and I bounced them all.
This scenario has quite a bit of replay value, since the setup areas overlap and are secret for the Germans. Our game wasn't as much of a swirling melee as I though it would be, but our setups could have been different...especially mine.
Mike Licari
At the rate of about 1 game completed every two months,(PBEM or IRC), getting around to writing an AAR is really sweet, although if I were playing at an average (?) ftf pace, probably I would skip the following disaster, but, here goes...
Having been utterly trounced twice, by current laddermeister Burnie Fox, at the end of our last match I told him I'd be back for another try only when I'd won 3 out of 4 games. The gods scoffed at this attempt on my part to avoid fronting my lowly Ladder self to further abuse by the Higher-Ups, so naturally what happened was that 1) My/my opponent's dice got wanded, (as in Tinkerbell or somebody) and smashed-up one opponent; 2)whining succeeded in slowing down a Jap commander just enough to let Tinkerbell win my CC's for me, and 3) a retired SLer took the Leap of Faith to ASL, and I got to hurl empty wine bottles and molded cheese down on his newbie New Zealanders, from my perch on Takrouna. (He got revenge later, but the point was I had won those 3 in a row! Too bad only 1 was official!)
So I rang Burnie's PBEM doorbell, and I'm certain that after he had paged his favorite voodoo doctor, (in New Orleans, wasn't it Burnie?), to hex me, [snort!], I was hyp-no-tized to selected TOT 39: "Hot Time in the Old Town", etc, from his scenario list. (Hey! Italy, 1943!) I don't know what came over me. If playing Burnie, I should demand Strayer's Strays, and my side gets Men in Black sw's.
I did not get the neato German flamm tanks in this scenario, of course not. I got the Gurkhas. At night. On a mapboard crowded with buildings just screaming for street fighting. Gurkhas with gammon bombs, a few piats, atr's, dc's, lmgs, commando-stealthy and -1 in CC, against a small German infantry force set up HIP/dummified/Concealed, (options galore), but reinforced by 6 burly AFVs (and some crews on foot) on the first turn. Those HIPsters could end up in Gurkha locations, causing CC/melee before the game even starts!
As is usually my wont, I did not wish to spend a lot of time searching for The Optimal Geometry for setup, (I am light years from being so gifted as to spot Optimals quickly...or even at all, for that matter), and I was too lazy to go AAR hunting, interrogate ASLML, or even read the damn fanzine! So I leaned on knowledge we all gain back around 2nd grade or so, and I counted buildings -- finding that some supposedly wonderful scenario designer had picked a mapboard with 21 buildings on the east side of a shallow stream that roughly bisected the east-west length of the 33 hex map. So since I needed 22 buildings to win, why not just search/fight for/control and hold on to those 21 east of the stream and fight like hell to hold on to a 22nd on the other side of the stream? Made it U3, I think it was -- thinking, I guess, that Burnie would avoid the area and methodically go straight up the middle with the reinforcements -- and I stuffed it with a 9-1/platoon, (make sure and win any opening CC, boys!), and I had the 88mm Arty link behind them, (it never got used--disabled it, of course), and I stuffed some other platoons in spots, too, but of course not in the buildings straddling the bridge entrance, no! Burnie set up in those and held on to them, (actually, he had to counterattack to take the church back, as I'd managed a successful moment with a dc attack), while his armor/crews-on-foot came onboard and immediately made carbon cacca out of the inhabitants of U3 and proceeded to wreak havoc everywhere, just blasting/flamming like crazy. ANd then crossing the bridge without any problem. I killed one flammer with Street Fighting on the opening turn, it was just what the Gurkhas needed to start the game, but alas! Having discovered too late that my attacker was frozen by VBM, the 3DR was in vain! (This was caused by 1st firing a piat in one mailer, and then failing to finish reading the VBMing AFV's VBM move in the following mailer...PBEMers take note! One missed line can kill you!)
Well, shoot, it was all over by Turn 4, when I conceded after continued KIA's. No room for mistakes, here, but Holy SMokes! are those night/motion/etc. DRMs horrendous! I couldn't get anybody to survive long enough to CC a tank, after that above-mentioned mistake, except for a squad that ran into the jelly schnozz of a flamm. In retrospect, I would do as Burnie mentioned, and set up more people to the west side of the stream, hoping that CC/anti-AFV teams would be able to avoid the pre-start melees and come at the armor from different directions.
Paul "where's my Tinkerbell whistle?" Venard