Once again, a Saturday has come and gone and Dan Best and I continued our ongoing weekly game of ASL. Hard to believe we are into our 3rd Year now of gaming by Cardboard via SKYPE. I must say that it has been an incredible ride and one I hope continues for as long as I can roll dice and read the IIFT. Here in Western Illinois...old Man Winter finally loosened his death grip on us and the snow, that has covered the ground since January 10th...is finally disappearing. This past week was one of the coldest I have ever lived through. Let's hope that the worst of winter is now behind us.
Of course one of the great things about a hard winter along the Mississippi River is that it brings the Eagles to the local Lock and Dam where the ice is broken up and fishing is plentiful for the many Eagles lining the banks of the river.
As for our Saturday game, Dan Best and I selected Scenario FE 16 "Where the Bullet Meets the Bone" by Fanatic Enterprises (scenario designed by Paul Kenny). http://fanaticenterprises.tripod.com/ is where you can find more excellent scenarios and scenario packs from Fanatic Enterprises.
Where the Bullet Meets the Bone takes place in the war-torn Yugoslavia of November 1941. The battle takes place in Lastra, Herzegovina. In this scenario, the Lastra Garrison, made up of Italian Occupation forces, find itself under attack from Tito's Partisans, who have two captured Italian tankettes in their attack force. Now, while Dan is a huge fan of Partisan based scenario...I'm a little bit less so. For me, it can be painful to watch 3-4-7's and 3-3-7's battling it out in +2 terrain...and especially when Partisans can't make fire groups, etc. And this night's scenario would bear out some of my worst fears about these kinds of fights.
The scenario takes place on board 48, which is somewhat unique by the way it's roads neatly bisect the map and central village. I remember one of Mark Pitcavage's scenarios from his excellent, Few Returned Action Pack takes place on this map. I still have bad memories of the beating I took then on this very map. Unfortunately for me, history would repeat. ROAR has this scenario with 14 Italian victories and 10 Partisan victories. The ASL Archive has it with 1 Italian and 1 Partisan win.
After rolling for sides, Dan would be the defending Italians. This would be one of the few times, that I was actually jealous of my opponent for having Italians!!
The Italian Lastra Garrison under Dan's command would consist of 4 x 3-4-7's, 7 x 3-4-6's, led by an 8-0 and 7-0 with an MMG, LMG and 20L ATR for support. Additionally, Dan would have two Lancia 1Z Armored Cars. These would be extremely valuable assets as the game progressed.
As the attacking Partisans, I would command 3 x 5-2-7's, and 9 x 3-3-7's led by an 8-1 and 7-0 with 3 x LMG's, 2 x DC's and 2 x captured Italian L3/35 Tankettes. My tankette crews would be inexperienced and add +1 to all their to hit rolls...oh joy...
Now after our setup gak of last week, Dan and I were a bit sensitive about not gakking something in this week's game. Of course we did anyway...cause that's how we roll.
So here is where you may or may not recognize a gakking moment. My Italian tankettes are radioless, which means they would have to move in Platoon Movement. But as they were captured and my crews were inexperienced, I just totally forgot that and you will see that I brought in separately. Now, they were both in motion at the start, so now roll was necessary for them to separate and once they stopped, they never again started or attempted to move. So Dan and I will invoke rule: A2-Errors, which basically states what we all know about ASL...is that with soooo many rules, you will make mistakes (some more forgivable than others)...but you will make them. So we ask our readers for forbearance with this one error in today's AAR.
And now for Dan's Pre-Game Commentary:
The Italians need to defend two things in this game. The buildings and the route paths. My plan is to put the 8-0 and MMG on the north east flank. The 7-0 and LMG on the southwest flank guarding the gully. The ATR will be in the middle all armed by 3-4-7 squads. The last 3-4-7 squad will guard the southern flank on the east side. The 3-4-6 squads will be spaced out guarding building with a defense in depth. The armored cars are the counterattack force. They will start concealed in the south west corner and move to attack any weak sector. The armored cars are vulnerable to the MGs and the DCs will get a kill as long as they are placed anywhere on the tank. All forces will route to the middle of the board. And hopefully rally.
Ok...the victory conditions for this scenario require the Partisans to accumulate 31 VP by game end. Each building controlled at game end would also be worth 1 VP. So I decided to go after real-estate with five separate attack groups. As noted earlier, I had the tankettes enter separately. I would fail to appreciate the quality of Dan's armored cars with their Machine Guns and didn't factor them into my thinking. Big error on my part.
With 8 factor MMG to the front and a 4 factor MMG to the rear, this armored car was pretty darn tough.
Boy did I wish I had an ATR!!!
My groups made some progress, except in the center, where I was foolish early on. I had one 5-2-7 with a DC charge the nearest occupied house to set the DC. Yep...I paid it for it.
In his part of Turn 1, Dan went on the attack...why not...my forces were widely dispersed and had gotten into trouble early. The only success for me was breaking Dan's 8-0 with the MMG. My little tankette got a good hit with his machine gun. On the bad side for me, Dan sent both armored cars to hurt me...and hurt me they would.
Dan also sent a squad to take out my center tankette in close combat.
Dan's 3-4-6 would pass its PAATC...REALLY...!?! Are you kidding me...!?! Yep, they not only passed their PAATC but took me out as burning wreck.
Oh...the shame...
In the next turn, I rolled snake eyes on the wind change and suddenly we had a nice breeze blowing some smoke around.
In the next turn, I moved ahead as best I could, but Dan's ATR would take out my second tankette.
Goodbye little tankettes...I hardly got to know you...
Dan's armored cars were doing a great job of controlling the center of the village and the road.
Dan also moved his boys towards the center to add weight to his defense. A few of his squads had broken and needed support.
I tried for another DC run, but waited and tossed the DC. Success!! My boys survived the blast and the Italians were broken. But as Dan would later point out...the DC's were all I really had to take down the armored cars. I was taking the odd building here and there, but only had a third of the VP I would need to win the game.
My boys in the gully had done well and were ready to make their move in that part of the village.
As the game passed the half-way mark things were looking vey pro-Italian. Dan's armored cars had me boxed in and I wasn't feeling up to challenging their 8 factor machine guns with any unsafe moves.
I would emerge from the gully and manage to break the unit in front of me. My progress in the center and in the east were pretty much checked by Italians in good positions. I just lacked the firepower punch to evict them.
Dan had a nice center position which allowed him to easily respond to any of my moves.
As my gully force began to threaten the Italian positions to the southwest, Dan's armored cars moved to stop me.
A last look as time ran out on me. I never managed to inflict any real damage on Dan's forces. He would only lose a single half-squad. I had taken several buildings, but by game end, I had only accumulated about 12 VP's out of the 31 needed. It's fair to say that my attack served to dilute my already weak firepower. A more concentrated attack with both tankettes in the same attack with the total weight of my infantry would probably have allowed me a great opportunity to win. My strategy of focusing on building and pushing towards the center from three sides required more men than I had. Dan's central position and armored cars allowed him to concentrate his force to stop each of my attacks. So congrats to Dan on a nice victory. It's not easy to win with low morale troops, but he did with style!
Dan's boys had won the day!
And now for Dan's Post-Game Commentary:
The plan worked for the most part. Highlight was passing a PAATC and killing a Partisan tank in CC. The other Partisan tank fell to the ATR and could be destroyed to avoid capture. The armored cars attacked twice and both were successful at breaking the partisans. Game ended with only one Italian HS as CVP and 10 buildings. Although three Italian squads had "scriptified" by ELR and the HS was also a conscript. The scenario is a big contest between weak troops. Fun to play and falls to the strength of the Fanatic Enterprise scenarios...esoteric actions.
And now for our second featured game of the evening. We finished Where the Bullet Meets the Bone early and so decided we had enough time for something else that would play quick. In keeping with the bone chilling week we just had, Dan and I decided to play GJ064 Snap Freeze. Snap Freeze is "for fun only" scenario that was featured here on Grumble Jones in November 2018.
Snap Freeze is a hypothetical scenario taking place in 1942 Lapland as the Russians and Finns battle it out in the "Continuation War". The primary idea of the scenario is based on stories, which emerged from the Eastern Front, where soldiers would come across enemy troops frozen in place. So this scenario has extreme winter conditions where it is so cold that at the beginning of each Rally Phase, all MMC's and SMC's not in a building must take a Frost Task Check. Failing the Task Check results in the unit ELR'ing. Any unit unable to ELR is eliminated...frozen by the snap freeze!
The scenario utilizes the Hollis Map, which is part of the Kansas City ASL Clubs 2017 March Madness Pack "Partisans". This is excellent scenario pack if you don't already own it and the Hollis Map is a fun little map to play a fast game of ASL.
Now the map has 7 buildings on it...but for this scenario, these are not buildings, but instead hunting cabins deep in the Finnish woods. 5 of these cabins can only hold 1 squad and no more. One can hold 2 squads and one can hold 3 squads. The objective of this scenario is to see how many of your squads can make it into a cabin and escape the deathly cold that is killing everyone else around you. Both sides enter on the east edge in SSR designated zones. Prior to play Dan and I rolled to see who would go first. Dan would be the Finns and I would be the Russians. Dan won the roll and would get to move first. But movement would be painfully difficult in the eastern, wood covered hills...especially with deep snow and heavy winds. The heavy winds would produce a lot of drifts throughout the scenario.
Yes it was and both Dan and I would watch a bunch of our boys freeze to death before this scenario was over.
Dan's Finns would move first and find the going very difficult. The white numbers beside the cabins indicate the number of squads each cabin can accommodate. Winter's icy arms would house the rest.
Turn 1 - Dan's boys discovered how tough it was to move in the double crest lines in deep snow.
My boys had an easier journey to the frozen stream, and made good progress.
Turn 2 is the first turn that both sides have to begin rolling each and every Rally Phase for the Frost Task Check. The Snap Freeze was going after us both!!!
Golden Circles indicate units that have made it into the safety of a nice warm cabin.
With too few rooms at the inn for everyone to survive, both Dan and I realized that we would have to eliminate some of our opponent's troops if we could. So Dan sent two half-squads to mess with me. I managed to KIA one in the frozen stream, but another came at me in Close Combat.
Dan's Finns meant business!
Dan's 8+1 was evicted from the G6 cabin in favor of his 9-0. The 8+1 had been an 8-0, but the cold had already reduced him. He would eventually freeze to death.
Dan had made good progress on Turn 2, but had several squads ELR due to the cold.
My boys moved into the open and headed for cabins. Dan's boys were waiting for me and opened up.
I would successfully get into two of the cabins. But several of 6-2-8's had ELR'd to 5-2-7's. They were slowly freezing to death. Time was running out!!!
The D8 cabin was the only one that was in reach of both sides. It could hold two squads. I could only send one squad into Close Combat, because any more than two squads would over stack the hex. So it was a man to man fight.
Dan and I would both roll too high and so would be locked in Melee. Everyone else was now in a cabin and no one was going outside. Death awaited anyone still outside...my last 5-2-7 could only hope for the Melee to end successfully...or else freeze to death.
Well...my 5-2-7 decided to fire into the Melee and broke both squads, who then both had to exit. But my 5-2-7 would ELR to a 4-2-6 due to the cold. They had managed to save themselves...just barely!!
Dan's broken Finns were doomed.
Game end...the bitter, deathly cold had claimed many lives on both sides. My Russians would have one more squad survive than the Russians. Both sides would hunker down in their cabins and embrace the life giving warmth...while frozen death walked silently outside the glow of the fireplaces. Dan and I both enjoyed this scenario. It was something different and challenged us both to find a way to save our boys.
My thanks as always to Dan for two great games!
Thanks for following the "Our Saturday Game" Series. I appreciate you spending your valuable time at Grumble Jones!
Dan and I will be back on Friday (work event for me on Saturday) for a playing of MM 49 The Other Side of the Tracks.
See you then!
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