December 29th Special Game Day at Apex AAR

We had 11 members at our Special ASL Game Day at Apex Fasteners on Saturday:

Dave Kocot's Russians defeated Mike Soffa's Germans in “Fiery Finale”.

And because they had extra time they re-paired for “Per L'Onore Di Roma”, with Dave's Russians defeating Mike's Italians.

Matt Cicero's Romanians defeated Sal Pelaez' Russians in “En Force!”.

Bryan Earll's Americans defeated Gerard Unterreiner's Germans in “Silence that Gun”.

Fen Yan's French defeated Jim Svette's Germans in the DASL scenario “The Mailed Fist”. This is a very fun scenario, but shows heavily pro-French on ROAR. They both wanted to give it a try, so they gave the Germans the balance (which removed the casualty cap). Both thought it was still a somewhat pro-French, but removing the CVP cap at least gave the Germans a chance to win.

And Dan Plachta and John Leggat took the attacking Americans against my Germans in the big ESG scenario “Stop Gap”. The Americans get a company of 7-4-7 assault engineers, backed by 6 Shermans attacking from one side of a town, with another reinforced infantry company (including a 10-2 and .50 Cal) backed by Stuarts, Greyhounds, and a couple of .50 cal armed halftracks attacking from another direction. The Germans get a mixed quality reinforced company of infantry with a couple of MMG's. They are supported by 8 Italian manufactured assault guns (only one of which has a 75L Gun), and a couple of 150 Infantry Guns. The Americans can win by either capturing 3 of 4 victory buildings or clearing a board edge exit area.

The 7-4-7's can set up adjacent to one of the victory buildings, so I chose to set up only dummies in it. The other forward-most building is a large factory, and I decided to defend that in strength (both 5-4-8's with LMG's, a platoon of 4-4-7's, plus a 9-1 leader. I backed that with a secondary position behind it, with most of my remaining infantry, a PSK and a couple of light mortars. The two 150's went on the far right rear, where they had good fields of fire if John brought his paratroops around to get in my rear. I also put one 8-1 led MMG in the far left, where it could set up a firelane in front of the left approach to the factory. The defender moves first in this scenario, and the German armor enters on turn 1. I moved my weaker StuG's into the far left corner, where they could threaten the Stuarts and Greyhounds, and put my better StuGs (one armed with a 75L and another with a 105) on the far right, where they could hopefully check the Shermans when they arrived.

The problem with all of this was, frankly, the Americans just have too much firepower, and the Italian StuG's are barely a match for the Stuarts, and completely out-classed by the Shermans. On turn one Dan's left side force tore up my factory position defenders with a .50 cal rate tear, then bum's rushed the building and broke in. Luckily for me, he couldn't quite surround it. I had to invoke what we call the 'Fretlohr Principle': “If you think you can hold the building for one more turn, GET OUT NOW.” So on turn 2 I abandoned the factory, and managed to just barely get all of my infantry back to my secondary position. But on turns 2 and 3, with John's 7-4-7's and Shermans menacing me from the right, Dan swung around my left to bypass my secondary line with the Stuarts and Greyhounds and head into my backfield. I responded by counter-attacking with my StuG's from the left, but it was a Hail Mary attempt. The StuG's have B11 guns and 3 armor. The Stuarts were able to turn and kill them off in short order. With my position nearly surrounded and little hope of holding both of the remaining buildings, we called this an American win on turn 4.

This is a fun scenario, but I think all that American firepower in the hands of a competent attacker makes it pretty unwinnable for the Germans.

John had to clear out at that point. But because it was still early Dan and I set up the RB classic scenario “Bread Factory #2”. Now Dan and I (and I'm not exaggerating here) probably have a thousand hours of RB experience between us. We got 2 turns into the scenario when we realized we forgot that most of the good 1st level positions in the Russian set-up area didn't exist because the buildings were actually factories. At that point, because the last of the other games was nearly complete, we decided to pack it in.

We had a great lunch at the nearby Mexican Restaurant. Most of us were still too full by closing to contemplate a late dinner, and we called it a day around 8:30 PM. As always, it was a great day of ASL at Apex! Thank you Matt and Bryan for hosting us once again.