ASL112 – OUT OF COWARDICE
Legion defending as the Yugoslavians
JP attacking as the Hungarians
ROAR (Y:H – 30:5) – 30th November, 2006
FTF Game
JP and I are about to start playing the Berlin: Red Vengeance CG. While we wade through the rules and choose our initial forces we have decided to play a quick game to get back into the FTF swing of things… Since I am yet to play any of the scenarios in my A$115 AoO module this seemed like the perfect opportunity.
Initial Thoughts
Allied Minors vs Axis Minors with some Partisans thrown in for good measure, what a melange! At the first perusal I thought this was going to be a cute little scenario, but once the counters started to go down it was obvious this is not the case, there is only half of Bd 50 in play and it is soon awash with counters.
All 7 buildings on the map have Partisan 337’s or dummies in them, and away from the buildings (which are the focus of the scenario) there are the 9 Green Yugoslavian 437s (+ 3x LMG, 8-0, 7-0). The Yugoslavians don’t even get to setup in the buildings, instead they must attempt to withdraw whilst keeping up the pressure on the attacking Hungarians (11x 347, 3x 2-7 LMG, 8-1, 2x 7-0). While the infantry odds are similar – the Green Yugoslavians have slightly better FP than the 1st-line Hungarians (we use IFT only so 4FP vs 3 FP is some advantage) – the Hungarians also get an AC (38M Csaba) and 2x 38M Toldi I’s, both of these are armed with 20L MA. To counter that I have a random amount of Partisans (with Molotov Capability vs the AFVs only), the number of which also allocates the victory conditions for the game (SSR5); I rolled a ‘1’ so I have just 2x 337, but the Hungarian needs to capture all of the buildings to win – something that remains secret until the game end.
ELR is another major factor in the game, the Hungarians have ELR2, so with luck they will crack under the pressure… My Yugoslavians have an ELR1… so most breaks will cause disruption, though this can have the effect of weighing him down with prisoners.
I already like the look of this scenario!
Hungarian
OOB
11x 347
8-1, 2x 7-0
3x LMG
2x 38M Toldi I, 38M Csaba II
His attacking options are limited.
– A stream makes out-flanking me along the Western border difficult… I shall have plenty of time to counter this if he attempts it.
– The AFV are pretty-much restricted to entering on the Q8 road, unless they try to flank me over the hill, a difficult proposition at best
– His initial moves over the lvl 4 hills are going to be slowed down by the wooded hills from Q4-Q9 and P3-P9.
– When he finally makes it to the village (the hills and woods will slow this down I feel) then I hope he finds a fairly dense defence, the buildings are all clustered together making and assault on them a difficult prospect if they are defended in depth
Yugoslavian Setup
Disposition – Partisans
I rolled a ‘1’ there are just 2x 337 with no leaders but the Hungarians must take 7 buildings to win
Dummies: C5, D5, G10, I8, R6
337: D7, F8
My choices here are limited, I have so few men… and with no leaders it will be hard to keep him guessing as to the victory requirements. D7 and F8 were chosen to give the impression of numbers of troops… I hope to have them revealed before I pull them back to give the impression of numbers. They are by the road in-case he makes a suicide run with his AFV.
Disposition – Yugoslavians
437: J2, J4 (2x 437, 8-0), M9, N4, N5
437 LMG: J6 (+7-0), J8, M10
Dummies: J5 (3), M3 (2), N9 (2+ 1S foxhole), O5, (3+ 1S Foxhole), O8 (2)
– I have setup some real units behind a dummy on the N9 forest-road to force him to waste time… I risk having these guys swamped, but I hope to be able to do some damage to him first
– Dummies are under the foxholes to give them an appearance of reality and to ensure that the captured foxholes will not be of any use to him in his attack. I will be happy for him to spend time wasting shots at these dummy positions.
– The line of men/dummies in J are to rush back to defend the buildings clustered around C6/7. This is going to be the ‘Alamo platoon’
The Game
JP started with a very serious armoured thrust down the forest road… one that totally gobbled up my dummies and 437 LMG squad here. In retrospect it was a foolish position to place one of the few LMGs I had, I just didn’t expect JP to be so armour-aggressive, it is most unlike him. He also weighted the majority of his attack along this road axis… there were just 4 MMC and a leader heading over the hill (they revealed the dummies in 50O5 immediately), all his LMG were also coming along the road. I had not expected this, there is a lot of open ground for him to cover and I thought this would force him to stick to the slower but more protected hill.
By the end of the first turn his AC and one of the tanks were placed at J10 and K10, obviously to create some cover for the advancing infantry. However when attempting to gain some AQR the Toldi had a MA malfunction, the very next Rally phase caused it to disable and all of a sudden he lost a third of his armour as the Toldi was recalled!
The Hungarians were forced to move slowly due to terrain while I was pulling back from cover to cover trying to keep shot options open for the lvl 0 flats and the top of the hill. I was doing well and holding him down enough to make me feel very secure. Unfortunately all my shots were going astray as I rolled a Cower result for every single fire attempt – the Green troopers ensured that I wasn’t even able to leave any RF for him to navigate though. It was only when he made a move down on the flat that I started to get some success, an LMG K/1 CR-ed and broke a Hungarian 347… this guy would fail to rally for the entire game and hold a much-needed 7-0 with him for just as long. Then another unit tried to move through the 1RF and he too ended up ELRed and CRed! Things were looking great and by the end of Turn 2 I felt like I was in a commanding position.
We then ate Pizza…
By the time the game resumed JP had a chance to realise that he was moving far too slowly, as I said the half-sized map is deceptive. His next moves turned my optimism into despair. The 1st building (50I8) is surrounded by walls; I had a 437 LMG in the building and a Partisan dummy on the road in front of the building (50I9). I knew he thought that the Partisan was real and that the Yugoslavs were dummies… I had done pretty well so far with keeping him guessing as to who was dummy or not. In a fit of aggression JP rushed the AC at the ‘Partisans’, found out they were dummies and then placed the AC in bypass of the building (50H7/I8)… my precious LMG attack, the one I had been patiently waiting to use against the 3x 347, 8-1 who were about to cross the Open Ground in front of me was nullified by an unconscious VBM Sleaze! Bah! All of a sudden I was in trouble, this MMC was swallowed up in no time, the only positive being that the AC failed his Vehicle Reliability DR and became immobilised in his current position making him quite useless. From 50I8 he had a 6 MMC and an 8-1ready to swoop down on the village which by now was guarded by 2x 337, 2x 437 and an 8-0, there were also 4 Partisan Dummy stacks as well as a Yugoslavian Dummy stack and a 6+1 (the 7-0 had earlier ELR failed a MC). One of the 337’s was already revealed when I took a shot against an aggressive 347 LMG, again claiming a CR in the process, the rest of my force in the village were still under concealment.
On the hill another important battle with even more important consequences was about to take place. He sent the remaining Toldi up here, its 4FP MGs disrupted 2 of my 437s and left me with little chance of pulling back… I had a concealed unit up here (I thought they were dummies, actually it was a 437 – this is ended up being very lucky as later in the game as JP had done the maths and realised I had 1 real stack and one dummy stack remaining… he thought the dummy stack in the village was real) as well as a solitary 437 who was Pinned and unable to voluntarily break and run due to the positioning of the Toldi behind his location… JP threw 2 Hungarian 347s into a CC that lasted 2 valuable Movement Phases and left the Yugoslavian MMC alone… my men had killed 2 of the 11x 437s in JP OoB and would end up making a run for the 50I8 house which the majority of the attackers had bypassed after it’s capture… This single CC probably saved the game for me as the sheer mass of prisoners needing guarding, the many broken Hungarian MMC who refused to Rally, and the unreliable AFVs were really starting to take their toll on his ability to attack me… It was about this point that JP noted how narrow the tip of the offensive spear had become!
In the Movement Phase of the 5th Hungarian turn the final major event happened, one that would again have far-reaching consequences. JP had moved the Toldi off the hill and back down to support the attack on the village. It came rushing into the village and stopped in front of the 2x 437, 8-0 defending the village choke-point (50E6 woods), the AFV fired and missed, so JP re-started with the intention of VBM-ing my valiant defenders… alas (for him) he rolled an ’11’, his final AFV was now immobilised! With all 3 AFV out of action (this one survived a Molotov attack but also failed to hit anything else for the rest of the game, the only time his AFV MGs failed to achieve outstanding success) and the majority of his force severely weakened by loss or prisoner guarding duties it would all come down to the last turns moves and CCs.
I had pulled back to defend 50C5 and 50B6 with the last ‘real’ units I had here (437 in 50D5; Partisan dummy, 437, 6+1, 8-0 in 50C5; 337 in 50C7; 3x Yugoslav Dummies in 50C8) while JP rushed forward as many attacks as he could muster. He assumed that the 50C8 dummies were real so he did not move though the ploughed fields (50D9) instead he was forced to rush along the roads… unit after unit tried and unit after unit broke. The RF density was too thick… and in the end proved too thick to beat… Though I did have to use SFF from every possible unit to take down the last 8-1 and HS.
The Yugoslavians had managed to hold onto 3 buildings…
The Hungarians fail to control 7 buildings
YUGOSLAVIAN VICTORY
Conclusion
Wow… what a game! This was a bundle of fun. First I thought I was romping it home. After a Pizza break JP started to push hard as his remaining AFVs exacted a terrible toll and it seemed to be finished for the valiant Yugoslavs. Then, all of a sudden, the last turn was upon us and in a frantic flurry of activity the remaining Hungarians made some last-ditch efforts to claim buildings only to be held off by an equally stretched and desperate Defence… What a game!
There are a few things to consider in this scenario:
– The AFVs are a terrible force to face, with only Molotov Cocktails and CC as an defensive option they can pretty much roam across the board as mobile MMGs. They are almost totally limited to entry along the road though, not that this did me any good, my men there got Overrun in no time. These AFV offer a great potential for unbalance in this scenario… as it turned out JP lost all of them, 2 to immobilisation (SSR 2) and one to Recall thanks to a MA disablement. Up till then they had ravaged my force as I had little to stop them. I would suggest to the Hungarian player that these should be used to hunt individual Yugoslavian units…
– The variable Victory Condition (SSR 5) is a real treat, I liked it a lot. I was lucky that JP didn’t read it carefully enough to notice that I obviously didn’t have any leaders, thus indicating that he needed to control all the buildings.
– A Yugoslavian player must be aware that ANY MC is a potential KIA for his units… with ELR 1 the disruption counters should be kept close to the board at all times… however every cloud has a silver lining… even though JP and I are used to playing CGs, thus most broken units were shot at till they were eliminated, he still ended up portaging a lot of prisoners which further reduced his numbers of units able to fight and CC… It might sound cynical but those disrupted units ended up being worth an extra Squad or 2 in my OoB. The Hungarian player might want to get creative in trying to deal with potential prisoners, just watch the SAN of 5.
– There are a lot of Dummy stacks available in this game and I feel that a dummy stack (assumed to be a real stack by JP) caused him to deviate away from what might have been a game winning move. the Yugo’s are going to have squeeze every bit of use out of those dummies!
I highly recommend this scenario, it was a LOT of fun and I would play it as either side without a second thought! I cannot understand why it has such a poor balance on ROAR… I would have thought it fairly balanced…