This is an exit victory point scenario, with the Germans attacking Yugoslavian reservists/cavalry. My opponent took the Germans. The attractive features of this scenario include cavalry, interesting exit victory conditions that guarantee a fight, motorcycles, AC's, and good early war tanks, namely the Panzer 38 (t).
The Slavs:
The Yugoslavian force consists of green squads, first line cavalry, and a few poor quality leaders with NO SW/GUNS/VEHICLES whatsoever. The green squads have ELR of one, while everyone else has ELR 2, so when you begin play get out plenty of green squads and green half-squads, and also plenty of disruption counters, because you will need them as your forces are replaced and/or become disrupted. Troop quality, squad to leader ratios, leader quality, replacement, and range are all disadvantages. The Slav.. player has the advantages of hordes of troops, decent defensive terrain, and to a certain extent, time. He also has good mobility in his cavalry troops, and can suffer tremendous casualties and still win the game.
The Germans:
The German force responds with mobility and quality as its fortes, but make no mistake, the EVP victory conditions are tough on the Germans. Turn one brings on his motorcycle infantry force, while turn two brings in the AC's and turn three the panzers.
Terrain:
Boards two, three, and eleven are used, with the Slavs defending on board three and the Germans arriving on board two, crossing board 11, and exiting across a narrow slice of board three. 45 EVP are needed for the German to win, with Slav. casualties reducing the required German EVP somewhat.
Slav. Setup/Tactics:
I decided to use my green squads as a frontline screening/delaying force, the first line cavalry squads as a mobile reserve, and the other first line squads stacked with leaders also as a mobile reaction force. I had stacks of infantry heavily on the north end of board three, with about 20% of my forces situated in the area of the board three village. I set up the latter forces with street fighting in mind, one of the only effective anti armor tactics that the Slav. can employ in this scenario. In hindsight, I would suggest that a better setup would be to place about 30% of the Slav. forces in the board three village. I had the cavalry hidden away in the northwest corner of board three, behind a hill and woods, waiting for such time as the Germans had committed to a direction for their main thrust.
Gameplay:
The German decided to attack through the board three village, where I had the fewest troops, but also where I could enjoy excellent defensive terrain, street fighting, and ample opportunities to get into CC with his vehicles if he got his armor too close. Turns one and two saw the arrival of his motorcycle infantry and their dismounting into some of the buildings/woods surrounding the village. On turns three through five, various infantry firefights occurred, most of them around the village. One of his armored cars strayed too close to several stacks of infantry of mine at the north end of board three. I moved no fewer than about nine squads up adjacent to his AC, braving his defensive fire, and having moved in the open, in order to make sure that I would have at least three who survived and passed their PAATC to get into CC. His defensive fire did break/kill about three of my squads, but I did get three of my own into CC with his armored car, and since it was a PSW 222 (open topped), it was destroyed easily in CC. Scratch one armored car and five possible EVP. Meanwhile, my infantry was taking a beating from his infantry in and around the village, with many of my squads disrupting, which is exactly what I expected. On about turn three an opening occurred through which he could exit his surviving two AC's without risking street fighting or bog, and he took the opportunity to do so. By this time I had moved most of my cavalry reserves to cover the village, but kept the north end of board three strongly guarded. One disastrous mistake was to move some cavalry up out of LOS in the village roads, but not dismount them. He promptly overran them with his armored cars on his way off the board, killing all of the horses and breaking or killing most of their riders. I had forgotten that cavalry while mounted ALWAYS gets a -2 DRM, and combined with the -1 DRM for an overrun, his armored cars got a whopping 15 -3 overrun attack. Needless to say that I learned my lesson there. To add insult to injury, I had also forgotten how much mobility those German AC's have, and in some cases he overran me TWICE before he exited them. Ouch! A lesson that I hope I will never have to learn again. However, despite the success of his overruns, I have to question his having actually exited these two AC's so early in the game, for their firepower would have helped his infantry clear the village free of my squads, which he never did completely. Turns four and five saw the continuation of the infantry firefight around the village, which he was generally winning, despite me bringing up reserve infantry, most of the cavalry, and later in the game, shifting all of my northern infantry forces into the village. By about turn five or six his tanks were in on the fight for the village. He brought them up too close to my infantry again as he was nearing the exit area, apparently more concerned with exiting his tank points while a gap existed, and once again he paid the price for it as I swarmed him in CC with my infantry. I got one of the panzers as a result. By turn seven of eight total he had exited about 35 points of motorcyclists, armored cars, and panzers. He had about another fifteen points of armor, infantry, and motorcycles that were still on board, and due to my own casualties, his required EVP total had dropped to 41, so victory was well within reach for him. Fortunately I was able to maneuver my remaining forces to react to his anticipated last infantry/ motorcyclist moves, and I was the victor in a long standing infantry melee, with the end result that during the DFPh of German turn eight he conceded defeat, after having exited 37 of the required 41 EVP. Close game. About 40% of my Slav. forces were destroyed in the course of the game.
Comments:
This scenario is enjoyable for both sides to play. The Germans get a very mobile quality force, while the Slavs can counterattack almost without regard to their own casualties. Perhaps the main attractions are the Slav. cavalry and the nature of the fighting that the exit area will ensure. I would say that it was closely balanced, but perhaps a bit pro German, despite having won as the Slav. side. I say this because if the German is careful, he should not loose any of his armor, and should be able to exit all of it. If he is able to exit all of his armor, he will have gotten 40 of the required 45 EVP, which means that only a token infantry force need exit. Given all of that, it seems that while the burden is on the German player, if he is careful with his armor, he will be very difficult to beat. However, this is a frustrating scenario to play as the Slavs, because there are only two ways to stop the German armor, CC and reaction fire, with street fighting as a subvariant of both. Also it is frustrating to deal with such a low quality force. You won't get much worse infantry than unsupported green allied minor squads with ELR 1 in the game system! Overall, while I enjoyed playing this scenario once, and while I feel it is fairly well balanced, I don't feel that it has a lot of replay potential.
War stories:
A broken squad of mine rolled HOB and went Berserk, charging towards a woods hex containing one squad of his and a LMG two hexes away. They made it across an open ground hex having survived his point blank subsequent first fire attack (the squad/LMG had already shot at another stack of mine that I moved up adjacent as bait). They also braved the full firepower of a PSW 231 when they moved in the open ground hex. They then entered the woods hex and survived the mandatory FPF attack of his. He then shot at the hex with another stack of infantry of his, about two squads and an 8-1 leader, and once again they passed their morale check. He then shot at me with three more FPF attacks with his squad in the woods hex, and I passed every morale check, while on their last shot the German squad broke. Overall I figure that squad survived about a couple of platoon's equivalent in total firepower. Unfortunately their own TPBF attack in the advancing fire phase did not cause a result against the German squad, and he was able to rout away in the advance phase. In their next turn they got KIA'ed by his prep fire. :-(
While I was charging towards the armored car of his that had strayed too close to my lines with about a company of troops, one of my stacks consisting of a platoon of infantry and a leader got hit with defensive first fire causing a morale check, which they promptly all broke/ disrupted/pinned, except for one squad which HOB'ed and went berserk. :-) However, the AC had either retained ROF or decided to use the IFE as a subsequent first fire shot (which upon reflection may not be allowed since it is not a SW), I cannot remember which, and KIA'ed the berserk squad as it entered the hex in the movement phase. :-( However the rest of my company of forces adjacent to his armored car witnessed this atrocity and this furthered their own resolve to pass their PAATC's and go into CC with the AC. They were so enraged by their comrades being killed that they promptly turned the AC into a burning wreck in the CC phase. :-) My sniper never took a shot in the game, despite a couple hundred dice rolls!
One of my squads adjacent to him at some point broke and he refused their surrender, invoking no quarter. Later in the game he had taken several shots at stacks containing broken squads. Several times they HOB'ed, and once or twice they rolled high enough to require surrender, which thanks to his evoking no quarter, resulted in them going berserk instead. Nice. Other squads rolled HOB during rally attempts, and battle hardened, one of them into an elite squad. The only HOB result that never happened in the game was hero creation, and surrender, but only because of his evoking no quarter. Incidently, while I can find no rules quote to back up the fact that no quarter invokes HOB surrender results to become berserk results instead, the ASL GAP program indicated that no quarter is an exception to HOB surrender just as Japanese, Gurkhas, partisans, etc. Makes me wonder a bit.
Later in the game, one of his squads was forced to surrender to one of mine, and I did not invoke no quarter, and accepted their surrender. That squad remained a prisoner for the rest of the game, despite their guarding unit getting into a CC melee.
In fact, in the above melee, which lasted for a good two turns, the situation developed along these lines. Two of his squads advanced up next to a building of mine, one of his squads having a LMG also. My defensive fire broke one of his squads. The advancing fire of the other squad pinned one of my squads in the building. In the rout phase his broken squad surrendered and was accepted by the pinned unit. He then advanced into CC with me with his squad. Despite both of my squads being lax and one being pinned, a total ambush drm of +2, I actually ambushed him in CC. He rolled a six and I rolled a one, resulting in my ambushing him. A rather ironic event because this was the only combination of ambush dr's in which I would ambush him. My attack did nothing, and his attack did nothing, so a melee began. Later on he used one of his panzers to bounding first fire into the melee, which sort of delighted me, since his own prisoners were in the hex, and since at the time I had two squads to his one, I started drooling over the possibilities. His prisoner squad failing a morale check and getting CR'ed. His squad breaking and forced to withdraw from CC. His getting a KIA and killing everyone. Unfortunately, his point blank bounding first fire MG shot didn't cause a result, the one shot in the game where I was hoping he would roll low! Later on I reinforced the melee with yet another squad, and finally killed his bothersome squad with no loss to my forces and keeping his prisoner squad. Unfortunately this melee opened an avenue for which he could skirt by me with his armor without risking street fighting, and so overall it was a good move by my opponent to get his squad into CC with mine, especially considering that he had the advantage in the ambush drm and he could have liberated the prisoner squad of his, which he certainly would have welcomed. It just didn't turn out for him. Such is the way of the nature of warfare as simulated by the king of tactical games of world war two, and the reason why you are reading this,
Mike Clay
> To add insult to injury, I had also forgotten how much
>
mobility those German AC's have, and in some cases he
> overran me TWICE
before he exited them.
From the above I can't tell if this was mis-played,
but in order to perform a second OVR, the vehicle has to exit the hex and
re-enter it [D7.14]. This means that it is very difficult for a vehicle to OVR
the same Location twice, although it is possible, especially for ACs.
> However, the AC had either retained ROF or decided to use
> the
IFE as a subsequent first fire shot (which upon
> reflection may not be
allowed since it is not a SW)
Small Arms, MG and IFE can use subsequent
first fire [A8.3 '87]. IFE will suffer sustained fire penalties [A9.3, C2.29].
JR