From: George Bates
Date: Sunday, April 04, 2004 10:38 AM
Dong-Il and I had another 3 hours free, so I evened my record against him
with this quickie. This is an old General SL scenario converted to ASL in
the tournament series that includes "Gavin Take" and numerous other
light
classics. It also would make a great ASL SK scenario except for the dmMMG,
German OB "?" and lack of L1 and L2 buildings. To allow Grasshopper
to join
in the fun using the rules he knows, give the US an assembled MMG, but
forbid them to double-time on T1, and give the squareheads an 8-1 & LMG.
Restricting the area in play to the A - Z hexrows might also be in order.
This is the swiftly-wielded, elite American paratrooper hot knife against
soft, low-grade German butter. However, the US gets just 4 turns to get at
least 12VP across the 10 hexes of the board 6 manor house grounds. That's 6
of his 8 squads, with 3 more VP worth of leaders. Since the US will be able
to concentrate his firepower at a single entry point to force his way
through, as the German I understood that I could guarantee myself a loss
with a bad setup. Most of this AAR will focus on that problem.
A couple of obvious things first. A 467 each in N5L2 & M6L2 can cover
nearly the entire board and deny a lot of open ground. The next to
worthless conscripts are more useful in their role of speedbumps in when in
HS form. Better to be fanned-out if you only have 3MF, so the pre-game
German deployments created four 236 blockers to cover more ground and
hopefully delay US units until the spread-out defense can collapse on the
paras' point of attack. Although the German doesn't have too much ground to
give, it doesn't pay to set up any nearer than hexes numbered 7, or the
wicked US player will simply run around you, fill you full of nassssty
assault fire and capture you when you rout, thus neatly solving his exit VP
problem. The only exception might be K8 at the back of the 3-hex building
to keep the paras honest.
One other little German advantage that I pretty much spaced was their
inherent SW. Not a single LMG to be found in this bunch of re-treads, but
get a dr of 1 or 2 and you can put a rocket through the window of any
building the Amis want to hide in or make them feel less safe behind a wall.
Even the foreign "Freiwilliger" and old men & boys of the Volksies
can use
these babies w/o penalty. Just be sure you fire your IFP first, because a
PF check dr of 6 will pin you. Always nice to have options.
With these things in mind I dropped a 447 in the woods line in front of the
grain on the far left, and a 467 at the head of the rear string of woods on
the left side of the road to cover what N5L2 couldn't reach. Another 447
went behind the wall at the end of the orchard to supplement coverage on the
far right. I scattered the remaining units to cover lines of approach
between, trying to create some depth and interlocking fields of fire.
Probably the one thing I could have done better was to create a "mobile
reserve" that would be located in the center rear and rushed to the point
of
attacked. Dong-Il's post-game recommendation was a 467 & leader around T3
and a 447 & leader near N3. I think he's right. As it was, with a bit of
luck my positioning was good enough to delay the paras and pull out a
victory.
Dong-Il picked the enclosed orchard which dominates the German right as his
crossing point, which is where I would have gone, too, since it cuts FFMO
and provides hindrances against FFNAM at the cost of only 1 MF per hex. In
retrospect, I was actually a little light on my right side because of the
two 467s I had invested in the manor house. Fortunately, there were no big
holes torn in my line in T1(A), and I kept concealment except for one brokie
who routed to the K4 outbuilding near a leader I hoped could get him up in
time for the next US rush. My half of the first turn had everything in the
orchard slowly dropping back to the rear wall to organize a defense line.
Probably most of the units on the far left would not make it into play, but
nevertheless I rushed them all pell-mell toward the back side of the manor
house. A few units center forward slowly advanced to good DFF positions on
the US right flank.
The game was decided in T2(A). First, Dong-Il pushed his HSs into me to
strip concealment from my 447, dummy stack and 236 in the orchard and along
the wall . I held fire to see where the squads were going, but my first
shots failed to yield results. Then Dong-Il got greedy. He walked two 747s
and an 8-1 out of the J8 building into the LoS of a concealed 447 on the
hedge in front of the manor house. These Volksgrenadiers dropped their camo
and put down a wicked 4FP+0 shot that mortally wounded the 8-1 when Dong-Il
boxed the MC. 4 DRs later and the two squads were back in J8, upside down
and squealing under a blue and white counter. 6VP stopped in their tracks,
2 permanently. I felt better after having suffered through an uncanny
number of twos, threes and fours on DFF shots in the previous game.
Dong-Il's luck did not get better in CC. He hopped a number of HSs into
both the 447 and 236 hexes but failed to get kills. When we got around to
the T2(G) rally phase and his 8-0 failed to raise either pile of quivering
paratrooper jelly, Dong-Il looked at the number of VP he had tied-up, then
counted the hexes to where my cavalry would be (not just toward the exits,
but also those who could advance in to the J8 building) at the end of the
turn, decided his chances had slipped away and threw in the towel.
I imagine that a lot of playings of this scenario never make it to the final
turn (there are only four) because one side or the other makes a mistake
from which it is impossible to recover. Some might say there's too much
riding on a single roll of the dice, but my feeling is that in a game like
this you want to minimize the number of times you have to leave things to
chance, and when you do venture to risk something make sure the odds are
heavily in your favor. Like golf or tennis, if you want to drink for free
afterward, make fewer errors than your opponent does.
Well, I hope this generates some list activity. Been far too little traffic
the past several days and some of that was less than grown-up. Look forward
to seeing what happens after you guys in later time zones get done with
coffee and the funny papers. Good night!
George Bates
Yokohama, Japan
This page last updated 4/26/04
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