AAR: The Advance Continues
Wanted to share an AAR of our multi-player scenario for the blog. Yes, the four of us got together on June 4th and played this one out. It was a great time and with four players “woofing” at each other, certainly a lot livelier than the typical two-player game. Anyway, on to the AAR.
As defenders, Doug and I had gotten together a couple days earlier to look the scenario over and set-up a defense. The scenario was from the 1990 ASLOK event titled “The Advance Continues” and Mark had gotten a hold of it and sent the defense to me. What is unusual about this scenario (aside from being intended to play by four players) is that the two sides do not know the opponents OoB or their victory conditions. This is vitally critical to the scenario; more so than you might imagine at first. Therefore, if you have any intention of playing this scenario, do not read further on because it will spoil (and probably massively unbalance) the scenario.
************ Spoiler **********
The scenario takes place south of Bastogne on Dec 23 1944. It is Patton’s push to relieve the besieged defenders of Bastogne by pushing through the German 212 VG Division. Doug and I, as defenders looked over the German OoB. Not much, 6 second line squads, a couple of leaders, a Flak gun (37L), an AT gun (50L), a light mortar, smattering of mg’s, 6 concealment counters, and a road block. On turn 2, the meat of the Germans enter on either side of the two boards as determined by a random dr. The reinforcement includes 4 elite squads (468), 2 Stug IIIG’s, a Puma AC, Psk, dmHMG, a halftrack, three tracked trucks (SdKfz 11’s), a 9-1 leader and a 9-1 AL. Certainly respectable. What do we face…well, that’s the catch in the scenario. All our scenario card indicates is that a US armored division is assembling for an attack. So we don’t know what we are facing, but we can take some intelligent guesses.
The scenario takes place on 2 boards placed length-wise. Looking at the clues in the German set up and the VC’s, it was fairly obvious that the US would be entering from the South end. Part of the German VC is that they have to not lose units, control buildings and 2nd level hill hexes, and control the 4 North road exit hexes off the playing field. So, Doug and I guessed that the US VC’s would probably be exiting units off the North end (we were correct here), capturing the buildings, and capturing the hills (wrong on these two). However, guessing correctly on the exit part helped a lot. Looking at the terrain and the fact the SSR had Deep Snow in effect; we knew that dismounted troops couldn’t physically cross the length of the boards in 7 turns. Therefore, we based our defense on covering the roads and not really worrying too much about the center of the boards where the woods and lack of roads would really slow the US down in the deeps snow. As a matter of fact, almost all of our dummy stacks were in the center, and only 1 real unit was in the center. Everyone else was focused on road hexes. Careful LOS checks revealed a few critical road hexes that would have to be crossed, so that was where the bore-sighting for the AA, AT guns and the mmg went. We also wanted to ID as early as possible the US forces, so the mmg went on the first level of a building, giving it LOS to the East half of the potential entry side, and the AT and AA guns went on a 2nd level hill on the west side to get LOS across the west side. We needed to ID the US as soon as possible so the reinforcement group would know what they were up against as they entered. Our plan was essentially to 1. ID US forces, 2. Get fire down on the roads and forces US troops to dismount, 3. Fall back the on board units as soon as possible and 4. Let the reinforcements plug the gap and possibly counter-attack to take back buildings left by the withdrawing troops. We figured we would be facing a company of 1st line and maybe elite US squads, a troop of Sherman Tanks, M3 halftracks and maybe some trucks as, given the distance to travel, the squads would have to be mounted. To pause here, it was neat to set-up with a second opinion. Between the two of us, we were able to cover several possible US actions that might have been missed with just one person planning. This type of defense planning went a long way (a long with good dice rolls) to what happened next.
And off we went. Turn one: Hmmm…Mark and Steve set up a whole string of vehicles off-board – but fortunately on the side we thought they would enter. Turns out they had 15 vehicles. 6 Shermans, 6 M3 Halftracks, 2 trucks, and a M16 quad .50cal halftrack. The quad .50 was an unpleasant surprise, along with one of the Shermans being a Jumbo with a front armor of 18. We had nothing shy of a panzerfaust/panzershreck to touch that puppy-dog. Rats… Steve enters on the East side, the MMG team identifies everyone (pretty much what we expected). A shot from the mmg in the boresighted road hex stuns/recalls a halftrack crew and breaks the passengers. So far so good. The AT gun fires across the boards and burns another halftrack and passengers. Then the quad .50 opens up on the mmg squad. Leader breaks…squad Berserks. Not what we needed as they represent 16% of our total force on the board. They eventually die in CC taking no one with them. On the West side, Mark rolls the Jumbo up on the hill (where we see it the first time and get depressed) and starts to shell the AT gun. Eventually breaking the crew.
The next few turns see the East side US forces get caught in the village by the German reinforcements – with most of their armor in motion. Not pretty. With the loss of only the Puma AC, the help of two malfunctioned MA from the Shermans, the two Stug’s, the roadblock, and a panzerfaust shot pretty much stop the US thrust cold. Lots of VC earned by the Germans for only the loss of the berserked squad and the Puma. The US lost 3 Shermans and a halftrack IIRC. Meanwhile, on the West side, the Mark was cautiously watching for (non-existent) minefields and more hidden AT guns etc. While the Jumbo kept the AT gun out of action (the crew broke and rallied twice), the AA gun had also opened up on some trucks and a .50hmg that the US had set up. Breaking the .50cal and the leader with it, along with burning the truck and taking out the Quad .50 with a nice cross board shot had also added up a lot of CVP for the Germans on that side also. By the beginning of turn 5, a quick check of the VC’s and counting up of CVP’s revealed that it was extremely unlikely for the US to gain more VP’s that the Germans. Only three Sherman’s had the potential to exit in time and even though they would earn double EVP’s, the Germans would still have more than enough VP’s to exceed the US count. At that point the US resigned.
I think there were two key elements that made this scenario both a blast to play and a German victory.
First, having the thoughts of two players setting up a defense I think is more of an advantage to the defender than the attacker. Terrain and certainly in this case, distance to travel in deep snow restricted what the US could do no matter what their OoB was. With two planners, we were able to better anticipate and plan such key issues as bore sighted hexes (everyone of them paid off), roadblock placement (stopped the US in the village), and HIP placement (the HIP squad took out a Sherman with a PF). Doug took shots (including an IF) that I probably wouldn’t have taken – and each time those shots paid off. The attacker doesn’t get that benefit as the only thing they can plan prior is based simply on terrain – as they don’t know what the OoB is or where the placement is.
Second, since the defender could have had anything (Mines, more hidden units etc.), the attacker, essentially trained to attack knowing at least what the OoB of the defender is and able to “count” counters, will be much more cautious then in a typical scenario. This is a huge advantage to the defender – especially in a scenario such as this where time was critical. I think if this was played as a normal scenario between two players knowing each others OoB, the balance would be tremendously in favor of the US. As it stands, I think the Germans gain a huge benefit from the unknown. This was very evident in the cautious west advance by the US (trying to protect the Jumbo/Shermans) and the East advance getting flanked by the German reinforcements. I wonder how often this has been played as a four-player scenario and what the results were.
Anyway, great time and I hope that Mark, Steve or Doug will comment on it as two their impressions of the scenario were.
Chris
As defenders, Doug and I had gotten together a couple days earlier to look the scenario over and set-up a defense. The scenario was from the 1990 ASLOK event titled “The Advance Continues” and Mark had gotten a hold of it and sent the defense to me. What is unusual about this scenario (aside from being intended to play by four players) is that the two sides do not know the opponents OoB or their victory conditions. This is vitally critical to the scenario; more so than you might imagine at first. Therefore, if you have any intention of playing this scenario, do not read further on because it will spoil (and probably massively unbalance) the scenario.
************ Spoiler **********
The scenario takes place south of Bastogne on Dec 23 1944. It is Patton’s push to relieve the besieged defenders of Bastogne by pushing through the German 212 VG Division. Doug and I, as defenders looked over the German OoB. Not much, 6 second line squads, a couple of leaders, a Flak gun (37L), an AT gun (50L), a light mortar, smattering of mg’s, 6 concealment counters, and a road block. On turn 2, the meat of the Germans enter on either side of the two boards as determined by a random dr. The reinforcement includes 4 elite squads (468), 2 Stug IIIG’s, a Puma AC, Psk, dmHMG, a halftrack, three tracked trucks (SdKfz 11’s), a 9-1 leader and a 9-1 AL. Certainly respectable. What do we face…well, that’s the catch in the scenario. All our scenario card indicates is that a US armored division is assembling for an attack. So we don’t know what we are facing, but we can take some intelligent guesses.
The scenario takes place on 2 boards placed length-wise. Looking at the clues in the German set up and the VC’s, it was fairly obvious that the US would be entering from the South end. Part of the German VC is that they have to not lose units, control buildings and 2nd level hill hexes, and control the 4 North road exit hexes off the playing field. So, Doug and I guessed that the US VC’s would probably be exiting units off the North end (we were correct here), capturing the buildings, and capturing the hills (wrong on these two). However, guessing correctly on the exit part helped a lot. Looking at the terrain and the fact the SSR had Deep Snow in effect; we knew that dismounted troops couldn’t physically cross the length of the boards in 7 turns. Therefore, we based our defense on covering the roads and not really worrying too much about the center of the boards where the woods and lack of roads would really slow the US down in the deeps snow. As a matter of fact, almost all of our dummy stacks were in the center, and only 1 real unit was in the center. Everyone else was focused on road hexes. Careful LOS checks revealed a few critical road hexes that would have to be crossed, so that was where the bore-sighting for the AA, AT guns and the mmg went. We also wanted to ID as early as possible the US forces, so the mmg went on the first level of a building, giving it LOS to the East half of the potential entry side, and the AT and AA guns went on a 2nd level hill on the west side to get LOS across the west side. We needed to ID the US as soon as possible so the reinforcement group would know what they were up against as they entered. Our plan was essentially to 1. ID US forces, 2. Get fire down on the roads and forces US troops to dismount, 3. Fall back the on board units as soon as possible and 4. Let the reinforcements plug the gap and possibly counter-attack to take back buildings left by the withdrawing troops. We figured we would be facing a company of 1st line and maybe elite US squads, a troop of Sherman Tanks, M3 halftracks and maybe some trucks as, given the distance to travel, the squads would have to be mounted. To pause here, it was neat to set-up with a second opinion. Between the two of us, we were able to cover several possible US actions that might have been missed with just one person planning. This type of defense planning went a long way (a long with good dice rolls) to what happened next.
And off we went. Turn one: Hmmm…Mark and Steve set up a whole string of vehicles off-board – but fortunately on the side we thought they would enter. Turns out they had 15 vehicles. 6 Shermans, 6 M3 Halftracks, 2 trucks, and a M16 quad .50cal halftrack. The quad .50 was an unpleasant surprise, along with one of the Shermans being a Jumbo with a front armor of 18. We had nothing shy of a panzerfaust/panzershreck to touch that puppy-dog. Rats… Steve enters on the East side, the MMG team identifies everyone (pretty much what we expected). A shot from the mmg in the boresighted road hex stuns/recalls a halftrack crew and breaks the passengers. So far so good. The AT gun fires across the boards and burns another halftrack and passengers. Then the quad .50 opens up on the mmg squad. Leader breaks…squad Berserks. Not what we needed as they represent 16% of our total force on the board. They eventually die in CC taking no one with them. On the West side, Mark rolls the Jumbo up on the hill (where we see it the first time and get depressed) and starts to shell the AT gun. Eventually breaking the crew.
The next few turns see the East side US forces get caught in the village by the German reinforcements – with most of their armor in motion. Not pretty. With the loss of only the Puma AC, the help of two malfunctioned MA from the Shermans, the two Stug’s, the roadblock, and a panzerfaust shot pretty much stop the US thrust cold. Lots of VC earned by the Germans for only the loss of the berserked squad and the Puma. The US lost 3 Shermans and a halftrack IIRC. Meanwhile, on the West side, the Mark was cautiously watching for (non-existent) minefields and more hidden AT guns etc. While the Jumbo kept the AT gun out of action (the crew broke and rallied twice), the AA gun had also opened up on some trucks and a .50hmg that the US had set up. Breaking the .50cal and the leader with it, along with burning the truck and taking out the Quad .50 with a nice cross board shot had also added up a lot of CVP for the Germans on that side also. By the beginning of turn 5, a quick check of the VC’s and counting up of CVP’s revealed that it was extremely unlikely for the US to gain more VP’s that the Germans. Only three Sherman’s had the potential to exit in time and even though they would earn double EVP’s, the Germans would still have more than enough VP’s to exceed the US count. At that point the US resigned.
I think there were two key elements that made this scenario both a blast to play and a German victory.
First, having the thoughts of two players setting up a defense I think is more of an advantage to the defender than the attacker. Terrain and certainly in this case, distance to travel in deep snow restricted what the US could do no matter what their OoB was. With two planners, we were able to better anticipate and plan such key issues as bore sighted hexes (everyone of them paid off), roadblock placement (stopped the US in the village), and HIP placement (the HIP squad took out a Sherman with a PF). Doug took shots (including an IF) that I probably wouldn’t have taken – and each time those shots paid off. The attacker doesn’t get that benefit as the only thing they can plan prior is based simply on terrain – as they don’t know what the OoB is or where the placement is.
Second, since the defender could have had anything (Mines, more hidden units etc.), the attacker, essentially trained to attack knowing at least what the OoB of the defender is and able to “count” counters, will be much more cautious then in a typical scenario. This is a huge advantage to the defender – especially in a scenario such as this where time was critical. I think if this was played as a normal scenario between two players knowing each others OoB, the balance would be tremendously in favor of the US. As it stands, I think the Germans gain a huge benefit from the unknown. This was very evident in the cautious west advance by the US (trying to protect the Jumbo/Shermans) and the East advance getting flanked by the German reinforcements. I wonder how often this has been played as a four-player scenario and what the results were.
Anyway, great time and I hope that Mark, Steve or Doug will comment on it as two their impressions of the scenario were.
Chris
posted by asler @ 7:55 PM
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