I just finished a playing of CH11 -Rites of Passage- and I thought being it is a brand new ASL offering others may be interested in an AAR. The scenario depicts the attack of a German village garrison in Russia in 1944 by a horde (16 squads worth!) of partisans. The Germans in the village consist of 4 « second line squads lead by an 8-1, a 7-0 and wielding a LMG and MMG. A relief column from the Grossdeutschland (about a company) has been loaded on some trucks, motorcycles and a fearsome Kubelwagen and are rushing to the rescue. They lack the number of Mgs you would expect from a German force this size but are ably lead by a 10-2. Unfortunately, their path is blocked by a roadblock and a 37L ATG....All in all, quite an interesting situation for both sides.
I setup the Germans feeling that time was the key. Since I needed to garner 10 CVPs more than my opponent and only had seven turns to do so, this seemed a fair assumption. Given that building 3R5 is worth 3 CVPs and that I fully expected the village garrison to be wiped out to a man (another 12 CVPs), the tasked seemed daunting. The garrison was too small to defend the whole perimeter; I fully expected the partisans to get into the village proper by the end of their first turn. I set up in the southern portion of the setup area. This may have been a mistake as it was furthest from the relief column. I was trying to avoid the Partisans wiping the garrison out, getting a gazillion CVPs and running to the south away from the GD dudes. Hopefully if anyone survived, they could block the partisans from beating a hasty retreat after getting enough CVPs to insure a win. The relief force had 3 HS in the Kubelwagen and motorcycles who were to speed down the road and find the roadblock, which they did (it was in F6 facing E6). They duly dismounted. The first two trucks speed after them and disgorged two 468s, two 467s, a couple of HSs, the 8-1 and the 9-1. I knew my opponent was waiting for one of the two remaining trucks before blasting away with that ATG. I pulled the two of them behind a board 18 ridge out of any possible LOS and kept them in motion. I not only wanted to keep my remaining forces out of harms way but also felt that in order to reach the village in time, someone had to stay mounted on the trucks. My opponent had the ATG in 18B6 facing towards the road block 2E Although he hit a truck twice he only immobilized it. My guys wiped out the gun crew in short order and captured the gun (I was toying with the idea of towing into battle - any thoughts?). I cleared the roadblock at the end of my first turn and things were going swimmingly. I pressed on down the road towards the sound of firing.
The village guys were doing fine as well. Although the 7-0 broke, I had inflicted 3 CVPs on the Partisans without any further loss. They did get into the northern outskirts of the village but were between the garrison and the GD boys. On my second turn I may have made a critical error: I had an opportunity to retreat into the T6 building but did not. Figuring I was doing so well holding and had gotten lucky with the ATG/roadblock that I could win easily here. I still had 3 or 4 squads holding on plus the 8-1/Mgs so it seemed doable.....NO! On turn three all resistance collapse and everyone KO'd for the scenario. Worse, my LMG/MMG were now in partisan hands. I was looking at a long way to come back. The only saving grace is a large number of Partisan squads were broken and needed to be rallied in order to flee southward as I anticipated.
The second half of the game saw my 10-2 pummeling the rear guard partisans who were trying to protect their broken brothers. I was hot with the dice at this point; the 10-2 was shredding everyone in sight and a 468 creating two heroes on MCs (cool: heroes German LMGs a higher column). My main attack continued along the eastern board edge although I did send three HS to the west to interdict my opponent=92s movement options. A truck containing a 467/247 died in an attempt to reinforce the western dudes. I felt I had to try and the cs 7 was tempting. He was still having trouble rallying his guys as one of his three SMCs died early and another had the misfortune of running into my sniper. I was still very much in it by my last turn. By turn six I had swept through the woods in the middle of the village and had captured building T3/S3. I was ahead on CVPs by four, so recapturing R5 was a must 2E Here I made my big mistake. Instead of assault moving the 10-2 stack into 3Q5 and disputing the building in CC where I would have taken a 12+1 from 3Q6, I foolishly assaulted into 3R4. Here I took a 6-1 from 3Q6 and worse a 6-2 from the 9-1/337x2/German LMG stack. ARRRRPPGGHHGG! Checkmate and game over man...
Overall? I had a good time and thought the scenario was interesting. I made a number of mistakes but no more than usual! My opponent made a few; he forgot the HIP squad which should have bolstered his ambush initially. My dice were hot and his were cold. We both agreed that it may favor the allied forces; I would consider a p1/p2 bid next time. Still, quite enjoyable and hats off to the Critical Hit crew.
Pooch
This is my first attempt at writing an AAR. Scott Goering and I played this Thursday night. He was going up to MAGECON in Sioux City and wanted to get in a practice playing. He took the Germans and I was the Partisans.
He setup five concealed stacks in the village with one in each hex of building R5 (the building is worth 3 CVP). I sent the 8-0 and six squads in the woods to the west, the 9-1 and six squads in the buildings to the east, and the 7-0 with all but one of the squads on hill 522. I didn't read the setup directions closely enough and mistakenly placed the roadblock on the I4/I5 hexside. During turn one, Scott graciously allowed me to correct this to H5/I5. I put the AT gun in the woods in F6 and one squad with an LMG in the foxhole in D6.
My plan was to attack the village from both sides with the guys on the hill providing some covering fire, hoping to get encirclement on the guys in the fortified building. I intended to kill the first vehicle I saw when it entered E6 with the squad and LMG firing encircling fire on any survivors. As it turned out, I forgot to place the foxhole on the board when he entered C5, which Scott said might have changed his move. (This was my first FTF game in about seven years.)
After Prep firing with the guys on the hill, I moved up into building S5 and the woods in R8 and building S3. It was about this time that I realized how much the rules about no multi-hex FG for partisans stink. The biggest FG I could get was on the 4 chart, since his guys were concealed.
On his first player turn, Scott moved the Kuebelwagen with a HS into my ambush. I forgot that you don't get -2 for being adjacent against a moving target. I managed to immobilize the K-wagen and eventually eliminate it and the HS. This is where I took a little exception to SSR 3. IMHO, it is not restrictive enough against the German. Given the restriction on where the roadblock can be, the German can remove the restriction on dismounting automatically by moving the K-wagen up the road. I think a better SSR would have been to require the reinforcements to use the convoy or platoon movement until they see the roadblock or are fired upon. Anyway, he drove up behind the woods and unloaded lots of stuff in B7 and B8. He also sent another truck around the woods to E10.
The battle moved slowly. This was the first time I'd ever seen anyone skulking, and Scott drove me nuts with it as he moved in and out of R6 every turn. I managed to encircle a squad in S5 and he ELR'd to a broken conscript. But before I could finish him off, he passed two MC and then routed to Q6. Very little happened in the village, although he did open up with his 8-1, 447, and MMG in R5. I managed to break the 447, but he moved another squad in before I could get to the building.
The squad and crew managed to hold up the reinforcements until turn four, but never managed to kill anything else before the crew was eliminated for failure to rout. I managed to kill a squad in CC in the village, and then things turned strange. Through the game I rolled seven snakes and seven boxcars. I turned one squad berserk, made fanatics of two half squads, and got an effective 2+3 attack. I also broke two of my LMG (one repaired and then captured from the HIP squad, the other eliminated). The berserker eventually pinned the guys in R5 and got in, unfortunately, he just missed killing the squad and leader and on the next turn Scott brought in a second squad and they all conspired to kill my valiant partisans.
Things were pretty much downhill from here for me. Scott kept breaking my guys and eliminating them for failure to rout. He got a little overzealous though and I almost got a few more guys in the final CCPh. But, just like happened historically, the Germans overwhelmed the Partisans with overwhelming firepower. I needed to kill some more of his guys with the gun, but the crew just wasn't effective.
All in all, a fun evening with a good opponent.
Steve Eckhart