Here's my obligatory ASL photo.
We played this scenario last weekend. I chose it partly because it was set on 16 December 1944 on the opening day of the Bulge. Pretty simple scenario with the Germans attacking the Americans in the woods. American force isn't particularly strong, but the German force is pretty strong, with lots of squads. The Germans have to take 4 out of 5 designated hexes, which I marked with red plastic circles.
I set my defense up to be strong on my right side to discourage him from coming through the woods. I was concerned that he could get close, blast me with his superior firepower, and then get into close combat with 2 or 3 squads against my 1 squad. On the left, there is open ground, so I set up my two MMGs with good fields of fire, and I had a little mortar in a forward position. Once the fight got into the woods, that mortar would be useless, so that half squad was a sacrificial speed bump. Quite a few of my units in the photo are dummies, which will slow him down a bit.
On the first turn, my strategy seemed to work. I set up two fire lanes in the open ground, and killed a full squad on my first shot. The fire lanes discouraged him running down that side. Plus my mortar got acquisition on a woods hex on the board edge, which also slowed him down. So far, so good.
On the second turn, the Germans pushed down my left side. I left that side a little too weak, and my shots were ineffective, so he got a foothold into the woods a little easier than I had hoped. In the center and the right, he stalled, but then he shot two of my primary defenders in the woodline and broke them both with weak shots. Oops. But this illustrates why I don't like playing the Americans - they break easy. That is usually offset by a good ability to rally, good firepower, and lots of support weapons, but they are still too fragile.
As the game progressed, the Germans kept pushing on all fronts. The dice were not on my side during this game. My units kept breaking. Three times in a row I tried to rally a unit, only to roll boxcars, which results in casualty reduction (and no rally). The last time that happened I just laughed and cried. Every time I had a good shot, I'd nerf the shot. After my initial kill, I think I only broke 3 of his German squads. One of those I managed to kill by failure to rout. I don't like to blame the dice, but they sure weren't on my side during this game.
Another challenge for the Americans is that the Germans had plenty of time, so I was constantly fighting a measured retreat. As the noose collapsed on the last victory hex, I still had two good squads in position to defend it, but they couldn't survive the barrage of German firepower, and with a half-turn to go, both squads broke. At that point, I only had a puny green half-squad to defend the hex against at least 8 full squads, so I conceded with a half-turn to go.
This weekend, I'll go from the snowy forests in Europe to the kunai of Thailand. Our scenario is set in 1941, and has the Vichy French attacking the Thai Army. The French have an FT-17 and will attack a hill. Should be interesting.
Topic: Whats on Your Table? (Read 179835 times)