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We were scheduled to play at The Guild House in Bellflower on Saturday… at least that was the plan. Unfortunately, the store was having a big event that precluded us from playing. Evidently, they tried to let us know, but their contact information was incomplete, and they weren't able to contact us in advance. (We have since upgraded our information with them.) Lucky for us, Stance and Cheryl Nixon made their home available to us for the day. We gathered our troops at the store, and headed south to Chez Nixon. We had a total of 9 members in attendance.
Blair Bellamy's Nationalists defeated the Republicans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, led by Stance Nixon and Scott Thompson, in the Spanish Civil War scenario “Stairway to Heaven”.
Jim Svette's Germans defeated Fen Yan's Russians in the Deluxe scenario “Into the Caudron”.
Peter Strand's Germans defeated Eric Visnowski's Russians in “Forced Crossing”.
I wanted to try another Red October scenario, and Dan Plachta was up for the challenge. We chose “Blood on the Tracks”. The dice gave me the attacking Germans. This scenario shows 8/2 pro-Russian, so we gave the Germans the balance (add three 4-6-8's.) The Germans get fourteen 4-6-7's plus eight 4-6-8's (including the balance). They have to cross a mixture of open areas and wood buildings/rubble and capture one building east of the rail line. The Germans get a platoon of assault engineers, a 100 OBA, Stukas, and two StuGIII B's in support. The Russians get 19 squads of well-led and heavily armed Guards troops, plus two 45LL AT Guns, and plenty of fortifications. They also get another 8 squads of Factory Militia led by a pair of Commissars as reinforcements. Dan is a great player on the attack, but perhaps even more so on defense. With all those fortifications and ten MG's to work with, I knew I was in for a tough fight.
Dan put his wire on the Russian right along hexrow K, and had built a strong-point around building J33 on his left. We both recognized this building as the key to the Russian defense. The Germans cannot cross the rail line until that position has been neutralized. With a total of 22 at-start rifle squads attacking across a 10 hex wide front, I decided to just spread out and run. I wanted to close quickly and maximize the time I'd have to suppress Dan's primary position. I knew I'd give up a few -2 shots, but the risk of a KIA and/or a few broken squads was worth it. Unfortunately for me, I risked too much too early, and Dan's dice were red-hot at the start. That translated into a frightful 4.5 squads of KIA'd squads in just the first turn. I continued to push, and eventually got a couple of powerful fire-bases in position where they could do some damage. But my losses continued to mount, and by the end of turn 3 there were 8.5 German squads in the dirt cup. Dan discovered my radio operator and wounded him. I managed to get a spotting round down before he was killed. I lost one StuG on turn 3 to Street Fighting on turn 3, and the other to an AT Gun on turn 4. My Stukas had some effect, but were out of the game on turn 3. By turn 5 I still had most of my leaders and all of my MG's and 8-3-8's. But 1/3 of my infantry was dead, the Radio was out of position and the StuG's and Stukas were gone. It was obvious that I no longer had the hitting power or the time to cross the tracks and capture a building. We called this one a Russian win. We had a fun game and I'd like to try it again. In retrospect I deserved the loss. I should have followed my original plan, which was the get a kill stack and the OBA observer into 1st level of building D26 on turn 1. The Germans actually have enough time to clear the Russians out of the 2nd level locations before running against their position. Even then, I think this is the Russian's scenario to lose. Even when giving the Germans the balance.
Most of us ate at Jersey Mike for lunch, with a couple guys hitting the fish place next door. The survivors adjourned to Hambone's for our usual late dinner. I want to extend my most sincere thank you to Stance and Cheryl for hosting us at the last minute. They totally bailed us out!
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