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Guys,
Matt Cicero came over to my place yesterday and we played S24 – Sherman Marches West. I set up as the Germans, and after dinner we started play.
Matt pushed very aggressively, but my newbie luck meant that I killed 3 Shermans with Panzerfausts by turn 2. All shots were needing a 5 or less to hit. So that was nice. I reduced a 7-0 of Matt's to a 6+1, who proceeded to chase the squad who ELR-ed him and broke around the map until the end. That was about the sum total of my effect on Matt's infantry. He skillfully reduced my village defense by using Smoke and his Shermans, and this was were his greater experience and skill was most apparent. My Tiger popped two other of his tanks, and the final one was killed trying to run away from my PzIIIN. He did take two hits to kill, however. The most remarkable thing in this game was that all his tanks died on the very first To Hit except for that last one.
I didn't know how HIP worked properly, so my AT Gun set up in one of the VC buildings was useless as I let Matt Advance into it without taking the DFF shot. I thought he would bounce back. Oh, well.
Finally, I badly mauled my own reinforcements with poor strategy. “I don't know what I'm doing” was my assesment of my performance. Oh, well. It was as always a pleasure playing ASL and Matt was an excellent sport, a skilled opponent, and a very generous guest. Thanks for the game and the dinner, Matt!
If anyone else wants to come over to my house for a day or evening of ASL let me know.
-Candice
Candice,
Thanks for the AAR, well done.
Two questions: Did you like the scenario and would you play it again? Any tips on what you'd do differently or what you need to do to win? Ok, maybe that's three questions depending on how you count them…
Jim
Oh, right. Things that would make this a real AAR…
I would play it again, but I'd rather play something new than this again. I would rather take the Russians since as the Germans are highly reactive and I'm not very good at defensive setup. It's a very good scenario with lots of toys and tactical challenges.
As the Germans, I would have been more careful in bringing my reinforcements onto to the board. I was too aggressive and moved too far from a good defensive/rout position. I'd also set the AT gun up a bit more forward, but off to the side. Either that or actually remember to fire it when I have a -2 adjacent shot instead of waiting until I've been advanced onto.
I think aggression as Russians is the way to go. I'm not sure what exactly the Germans need to do, other than preserve their force and try to inflict some casualties not only on Russian tanks like I did, but especially on the Russian infantry. That's the real threat in the scenario.
Thanks Candice, for the write up. I thought I'd post my response here as well.
This scenario is interesting. The Germans get 6 squads, HMG, MMG and a HIP 50L to defend the center of the center of two full boards lying side by side. There are 4 VC buildings and the Russians must take and hold all four to win. On Turn 1, the Germans get a Tiger(L) and the PzIIIN. On turn 3, the Germans get 3×838 and 3×548 assault engineers with a PsK and a FT. The Russians start with 6 sherman II(a)s 4×628 and 10×447 plus 4xlmg. They do get 3 leaders, 9-1, 8-1 and 7-0.
So I set up to VBM freeze her defenders who were spread out a bit to cover all approaches. Of course, I figured out after I started moving that there is no bypass in SK…sigh. I did manage to move up all of my troops and suffered only the ELR of the 7-0. Candice shrugged off all my shots and proceeded to destroy shermans at will. Her Tiger ran on and lined up on one of my Shermans who casually began blasting away. The only decent roll I had to counter my dead Shermans was the snakes to kill roll on the Tiger. Sadly, I had hit the turret armor so instead of needing a 3 to ill, I needed a 0. Loser. Tiger then blew the offending sherman away in the AFPh….with a 5…or a 3…
So Turn two saw me pushing hard with infantry and I managed to clear the right side of the board with some nice shots, breaking two squads. The center was caving a bit, trying to skulk and not managing to avoid all my shots. And the Tiger I had smoked at the beginning of the Turn? Yeah, he flamed the offending sherman…with a 3 or 4 or 5…
I decided that the only way to win would be to take the buildings before the sturmtroopers arrived. So, although I was down to 2 tanks, I hurled them forward. One drove right into a building hoping to freeze the bums. They killed him with a PF…of course. I did manage to get enough guys across the road to move in on that building with my firebase providing fire support from another building. The last sherman ran up into harm's way preparing to distract the german armor so it would not be shooting at my infantry. Meanwhile, my 628s were running up the right flank heading towards the fourth VC building. If you picture a square with a buildings at each corner, I had taken the lower two buildings, the 628s were headed to the upper right through the woods and the main assault was going in on the upper left.
Well by now, the remaining initial german forces had been killed off or sent packing. I had his HMG. And she proceeded to surround my last sherman with both tanks. Fortunately, I popped smoke and went into motion and saved myself for a turn. I also had gotten troops into the upper left building and had moved up ready to assault the upper right.
Onto the board dashed Candice's assault engineers. I managed to pin some and the rest didn't hurt me much and even used my own smoke to move up on me. The Psk blasted a squad out of the building, however…needing a 5 of course. My last tank made a break for it and managed to survive one shot and then die on the IF shot…with another 5. I moved up some squads to assault the offending german armor and began whittling down the assault engineers. I also advanced into the hex with the 50L and locked the crew up in melee.
At this point, I had taken three buildings and lost all the Shermans. I had most of my squads up in the fight…maybe 3 had died, one by rallying with a 12..twice. The germans had both tanks and all of their assault guys. My personal morale had wavered a few times in this fight but I had a growing feeling that if we played just one more turn, things would change.
Well, Turn 4 was interesting. I finally killed the crew and took the fourth building. My prep fire managed to smash a lot of German engineers. The Psk finally broke and the FT died out on the first shot. Incoming fire could not hurt me and I managed to jump that nasty PzIIIN and fry him in CC with a 2. Did I mention that the PzIIIN had malfed both its MA and its CMG? Did I mention that the Tiger malfed its MA? Yep. By the end of Turn 4, there were 2 assault engineers left and a MA-malfd Tiger. I had about 11 active squads. So failing any miracle rallies, we called it after the Turn 5 rally phase.
I very tense game if you press hard as the Russians. But if you dont, it must be near impossible to get the engineers out of the buildings, if they get there first. Keeping shermans alive seems to be secondary to keeping the infantry alive. All in all…it was a very fun evening and I'd be careful about calling Candice a newbie for too much longer.
Now if she'll just put away that SK set and dig in on the Main Course…she already has the sneaky skills to mash people…
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