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We had six members for the July edition of our SoCalASL Game Day at Paper Hero's in Sherman Oaks on Saturday:
Dave Nicholas' Canadians defeated Larry Reinking's Germans in “Trial Run”.
Blair Bellamy's Russians defeated Chris Watson-Wood's Germans in “Slamming the Door”.
Continuing my march through the Red October scenarios, Dave Rosner agreed to take the attacking Russians against my ammo-short Germans in “Stone Age Caves”. The scenario is set in late December, 1942, with a strong Russian force of 19 squads with an 82mm MTR, attacking a dug-in company of Germans. The Russians have the completely control Hall 2, and at least 4 hexes of Hall 3, by game end. The Germans are mixed quality and have mediocre leadership. But their position is almost completely protected by wire, plus a few mines and 4 fortified locations. The Russians have to split their force and attack in two groups; one from the Slag Heap to the east, and the other out of the Martinoffen to the south. The Martinoffen also gives them the advantage of Smokestack Snipers (or as we call them at Brandon's house, “super-snipers”.
Wire and trenches are placed by SSR, which sort of dictates strategy for both sides. Because the Russians have a wide area to attack from, and have Smoke, I wanted to keep the German set-up as inter-locking and flexible as possible. I chose building X18 as the lynchpin of my defense. I fortified both levels, put a tunnel back into the factory, and surrounded it with mines. The 9-1, 4-6-7 and an MMG went on level 1, with a 5-4-8 and LMG downstairs. I supported this to the north with an MMG, 4-6-7 and 8-0 at level 2 in hex Y14. The HMG, 8-1 and another 4-6-7 went into 2nd level of O16, which can see to the east (over the factories) and into the Martinoffen to the south. A mandatory trench placement in hex V19 makes the V18 factory entrance very vulnerable. I used my 4th fortified location, here, guarded by a 5-4-8 and LMG. The rest of my troops went into the ground levels of both factories, with a couple of squads in reserve.
David put his MTR on the slag heap, and as I anticipated, Smoked in X18, and the hex adjacent, and ran out of Smoke but kept rate. I was fine with getting Smoked in, because the Russians would have to reduce that position before then could enter the factory, and my other MMG and HMG had the approaches covered. Dave decided to light up my X18 position and needed a 2 to hit. And he proceeded to roll his first crit. 32 -4, Ouch. But this is ASL, and shit happens. Then he rolled another… and another. Knowing he had plenty of time, he moved the rest of his troops up carefully, closing in on the factory. Then in the first shot of turn 2 prep, he rolled his 4th crit into the same building. He had emptied my lynchpin position and I had lost a 9-1, 4-6-7, 5-4-8, MMG and LMG. Meanwhile, my 5-4-8/LMG defending V18 shot once, and boxed the shot, sending it to a 4-4-7 and eliminating the LMG. The door was open for the Russians to walk in with minimal opposition. Frankly, at that point I'd had enough, and we called it a Russian win. This scenario shows even on the ROAR, and we played it straight up. Aside from Dave's 4 crits, it seemed pretty even, and I'd like to try it again.
Because we still had plenty of time, so we set up “Yankee Pride”, with Dave taking the Germans. I'll just say that everything went right for me in this scenario and we called it an American win on turn 2.
We had our usual solid lunch at Nat's. The survivors tried PizzaRev for dinner, which we thought was a good choice. It was another great day at our newest venue.
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