There is a wheeze as battlecries are shouted, a wincing and cracking as muscles are flexed and weapons hefted. It is fitting that the muster should take place at that Fortress of Decrepitude, Paddington RSL Club. Here among the soon to be dead my comrades and I have gathered for the cardboard bloodbath known as JunoBear. Why here? Becasue its the only place outside a retirement home where we're the youngest people around. Plus they serve beer at 10 in the morning.
To celebrate (or exploit) the release of Hakkaa Paalle (its Finnish for "Go bugger a reindeer!") a certain number of scenarios would welcome this newest addition to the ASL family. This required much scrabbling in the rules to understand ground snow, winter camouflage and the consequences of a herring only diet.
With the introduction done I shall now take you on the journey of my games at this years JunoBear. It's a rollercoaster journey from the depths of defeat to, well, even more depths of even more defeat. In fact the journey is not so much like riding a rollercoaster as it is like falling down a mineshaft. On that hopeful note, let us begin.
Armoured Car Savikurki
The first scenario saw me commanding a rather ragtag group of early war Soviet troops being given a lesson in exactly how unwise it is to invade Finland in Winter. My opponent Ivan Kent was attacking them with the entire Finnish armoured force. Said force being present in the shape of a single armoured car. I had seven squads (four conscript) to defend half a board from four Finnish Squads and the eponymous armoured car of the scenario title. To aid my somewhat dubious force I had a light machine gun and a heavy machine for which I had great (unrealised) hopes. Ivan had to exit at least four VPs worth of personnel off the edge of the board, I had to defend it to the last.
The left side of the board was thick forest with a road cutting through it. I set up the bulk of my force here as it seemed a more appealing approach than the frequently open ground in the centre and right. I set up a squad with the hmg set back in a building that covered the only two exit roads and to cover the right set up a squad and lmg on the first floor of a building covering Ivan's entry area with some conscripts lurking in the trees nearby to help out.
Of course Ivan didn't go through the woods. Instead he sent a diversionary force to occupy the lmg force on the right while the bulk of his troops moved down the middle. Things started off rather well for me. I quite literally (and by literally I mean figuratively) shot his diversionary force to pieces. I killed so many that Ivan couldn't really afford any more casualties if he wanted to exit the required number of troops. Unfortunately that was the end of my success. While my defenders were thus occupied the bulk of his force slipped down the middle and got behind my guys in the building. I wasn't too worried, I had the heavy machine gun waiting for him and now that I saw the placement of his troops I started easing some of my forces through the woods on the left to meet the new approach.
Damn conscripts move slowly in woods! Sadly sluggish conscripts weren't my only problem. Like an avenging demon his armoured car swept forward. Heavy machine gun fire didn't bother these heroes. Under a hail of lead they roared down the road, slewed to a halt and shot the hell out of my machine gun squad. Crap! Most of my troops are out of position in the woods or the now bypassed eastern building and my heavy machine gun goes down.
The next couple of moves saw little shooting as Ivan raced for the exits and I raced (somewhat more slowly, damn conscripts) to try and stop him. Meanwhile the armoured car trundled forward to make life difficult for anybody who tried to get in the Finns way. I couldn't stop him, I did get some guys into position to take a few shots as he ran for the exit. I even managed to regain the hmg but I couldn't concentrate enough firepower in enough time to worry 8 morale Finns with the exit in sight.
Ivan exited his guys off leaving a broken rabble of conscripts licking their burnt patches and swearing revenge.
Barbarossa D-Day
It wasn't all about Finns of course. No, I was given the opportunity to go down to defeat against a variety of opponents over the two days. The second scenario saw me served up as a dish to David Longworth in Barbarossa D-Day which had me commanding the Germans attempting to introduce the concepts of Blitzkrieg to a sceptical Red Army. If I had really commanded the Germans the Soviets would have occupied Berlin in 1941.
I had seven reasonably high quality squads mounted on motorcycles (very briefly as it turned out) attempting to seize a village from a slightly smaller number of Soviet defenders. Supporting my efforts would be an armoured car. In turn three reinforcements in the form of three Panzer IIIs of various letters would arrive. David as the Soviets had half a dozen squads and a couple of light machine guns. On turn three he too would receive armoured support in the shape of six T26 tanks. My objective was to clear the village of Soviet troops (dead, fled or captured it didn't matter they just had to be gone). Furthermore I had to achieve this and still have at least one AFV alive at the end of the day.
I set up what I thought was a clever plan. To the southwest of the village was a straggle of woods so entered the bulk of my force to take advantage of this covered approach. The armoured car plus a pair of squads I allotted to a largely diversionary frontal attack. David had set up a couple of squads forward to delay my approach and these became the target of my frontal attack. Starting as it meant to go on my armoured car roared up to the first of these defenders and promptly broke its main armament. Foolishly I attempted to repair it and very soon my armoured car was trundling to the rear, its occupants no longer interested in proceedings.
This was actually disaster because I needed to keep an AFV alive until the end of the game. With the armoured car present I could be recklessly brave with my tanks, now not so much. With the armoured car fleeing for the rear David cheerfully shot up my diversionary force and pulled back in good order to the village. My main force did successfully creep through the woods and turn three found me nicely positioned near the village preparing to throw down massive amounts of firepower onto the defenders. My tanks rolled on and I moved one up to add its firepower to my attack. The other two lurked modestly in the background. I pretended they were flank guards but actually they were just trying to keep out of harms way.
And this is how things stayed for the next three turns. For three turns I pounded his forces in the village and for three turns he took it with barely a whimper. His tanks turned up to support, a lucky shot killed one and another broke down but the remaining four bolstered his defences. Not that they needed any bolstering, I simply couldn't hurt him while he gradually whittled away at my forces. The end of the game found such forces as I had left still sitting in the woods I had reached on turn three. There wasn't a bang but I may have let out a whimper. Two games, two losses.
That was it for Day 1. Check out my next blog entry to see if I did any better on Day 2. Spoiler Alert: I didn't.
I had seven reasonably high quality squads mounted on motorcycles (very briefly as it turned out) attempting to seize a village from a slightly smaller number of Soviet defenders. Supporting my efforts would be an armoured car. In turn three reinforcements in the form of three Panzer IIIs of various letters would arrive. David as the Soviets had half a dozen squads and a couple of light machine guns. On turn three he too would receive armoured support in the shape of six T26 tanks. My objective was to clear the village of Soviet troops (dead, fled or captured it didn't matter they just had to be gone). Furthermore I had to achieve this and still have at least one AFV alive at the end of the day.
I set up what I thought was a clever plan. To the southwest of the village was a straggle of woods so entered the bulk of my force to take advantage of this covered approach. The armoured car plus a pair of squads I allotted to a largely diversionary frontal attack. David had set up a couple of squads forward to delay my approach and these became the target of my frontal attack. Starting as it meant to go on my armoured car roared up to the first of these defenders and promptly broke its main armament. Foolishly I attempted to repair it and very soon my armoured car was trundling to the rear, its occupants no longer interested in proceedings.
This was actually disaster because I needed to keep an AFV alive until the end of the game. With the armoured car present I could be recklessly brave with my tanks, now not so much. With the armoured car fleeing for the rear David cheerfully shot up my diversionary force and pulled back in good order to the village. My main force did successfully creep through the woods and turn three found me nicely positioned near the village preparing to throw down massive amounts of firepower onto the defenders. My tanks rolled on and I moved one up to add its firepower to my attack. The other two lurked modestly in the background. I pretended they were flank guards but actually they were just trying to keep out of harms way.
And this is how things stayed for the next three turns. For three turns I pounded his forces in the village and for three turns he took it with barely a whimper. His tanks turned up to support, a lucky shot killed one and another broke down but the remaining four bolstered his defences. Not that they needed any bolstering, I simply couldn't hurt him while he gradually whittled away at my forces. The end of the game found such forces as I had left still sitting in the woods I had reached on turn three. There wasn't a bang but I may have let out a whimper. Two games, two losses.
That was it for Day 1. Check out my next blog entry to see if I did any better on Day 2. Spoiler Alert: I didn't.
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