JunoBear, Tale of Woe, Frozen North etc etc

Hoping for better results on my second day of gaming I was up bright and early on Sunday and promptly spent forty minutes outside the RSL waiting for the serving peons to unchain the doors.  Once inside I sat down with Darryl Lundy who had apparently flown all the way from New Zealand to break my heart.

The Red Wave

The Red Wave pitted a horde of Soviets poised to sweep from east to west swamping the German defenders along the way.  This is actually pretty much what happened.  It will come as no surprise to learn that I was cast in the role of swampee.

Darryl had eighteen and a half squads, a few machine guns and a small mortar.  A pair of T26 tanks (which are turning up like bad pennies in this competition) came on in support.  To ward off this raving horde I had eight squad equivalents, a hmg, a lmg and a 75mm gun.  Darryl had to either exist a significant amount of his force off the west edge of the board or capture all of the buildings of a small village sitting conveniently between them and the exit.  A road running north-south divided the village in two and I set up the bulk of my force to the west of it defending the village.  A squad sat in the forest to the south to cover that flank and I placed a couple of of squads in the buildings to the east of the road as speedbumps.  Over to the left (north) I placed a squad and lmg on the hill to cover the approach from that direction.  Unfortunately I placed them behind a wall in a foxhole thus cutting their field of vision down to almost nothing.  Have I mentioned I rather suck at this game?

Darryl set up a powerful force in the north and centre and kicked things off with a human wave attack that drove towards my hillbound losers.  The human wave was, typically, a hideous bloodfest for all concerned.  My hill squad died a miserable death but they were buried under the mounds of Soviet slain.  While Darryl was enthusiastically reducing the number of counters we both had to deal with on that side of the board the remainder of his force drove somewhat more circumspectly towards the middle.  He brought his tanks up to freeze my defenders in place and then finished them off in close combat.  If I were to identify one factor that lost this scenario for me (other than Darryl's skill and my own idiocy) it would be the tanks.  I couldn't hurt them.  I had a heavy machine gun, a 75mm artillery piece and eager, battle hungry SS troopers, none of it worked.  When the opportunity to take on the tanks in close combat presented itself my brave soldiers enthusiastically pinned themselves rather than take the shot thus rendering Darryl's subsequent close combat efforts somewhat easier.

That's pretty much how it went.  Darryl systematically dismantled my defences in the centre and seized the entire village.  I managed to cling on by my fingernails on the flanks but there was a yawning gap where my centre should be.  Weeping I conceded and tried to stitch my tattered morale back together before the final game.  Could I at least salvage a little pride?  By now you should know the answer to that.

Father Sunshine

I played Dave Wilson in the last scenario, Father Sunshine.  This took us back to where it all began, Finland only this time I would command the Finns.  A small force of Finnish infantry supported by a charmingly eclectic force of armour would attempt to force or sneak their way past a small but hidden Soviet defence and sneak off the board.  I have five squads of infantry and eight AFVs which turned up at various times.  The AFVs included a pair of German sourced StuGs, a pair of captured T34s, a pair of the now tiresomely familiar T26s and a decrepit armoured car which must have been found in a military museum.  Topping off this lot was a hulking ISU-152 assault gun.  Unfortunately the ISU had been captured only a few days earlier and the Finns hadn't finished reading the operating manual.

To defend David had four elite squads and two skillfully dug in T34/85s.  He would get another squad and tank as reinforcements.  To win I had to exit at least five AFVs off a very small area of the board.  For every AFV I killed that number was reduced by one.  This was my favourite scenario, by a sheer coincidence it was also the one I came closest to winning.

Since my infantry were essentially expendable I cheerfully expended them.  Sending them on fire drawing missions in the hopes of locating David's tanks.  David had set up the bulk of his infantry in foxholes in the centre of the board along with one of his tanks.  The other tank lurked back covering my exit location.

The first turn was about placement.  I found his defenders (at a cost in blood of course) and trundled my onboard armour around to avoid them, except for the ISU.  That I sent straight down the road.  As it approached Dave took his shot and immobilised the beast.  The crew leapt out yelping in fear but these were Finns and the very next turn they leapt back in again yelping in defiance (it is a little difficult to tell the difference).  The ISU managed to destroy his forward tank, now I only had to exit four.  As it so happened I exited three.

To be fair I mishandled the situation.  I slunk my best armour around the rear and then made a dash for the exit.  Dave calmly let them go.  Three vehicles off but also the only armour that could effectively deal with his tanks.  My immobilised ISU wasn't going anywhere and that left me with three thin skinned AFVs that somehow had to bull past two (don't forget the reinforcement) T34s which could kill anything on the field.  I know I should have kept the better armour back but I did have a plan.  I swarmed my surviving infantry forward surrounding his tanks.  What I suspected Dave had forgotten was that Finnish troops get panzerfausts.  Surely with four squad equivalents sitting next to his tanks I could get at least one more kill.  If I did the vehicles I had already exited would give me the win.

So I didn't get any kills with the panzerfausts.  A total of ten rolls for the game produced on faust which missed.  After which, recognising the danger, Dave used his remaining infantry to give my guys something else to think about.  In desperation I cobbled together a new plan.  I had my two T26 tanks and a positively useless armoured car limping down the road.  I drove the tanks directly at his.  If somehow they survived then the exit location was a handful of hexes away but more importantly because of this Dave absolutely had to shoot at them.  If he used up his firepower killing my tanks then there was a reasonable chance that the armour car could scuttle behind them for the win.

The first part of the plan worked perfectly, I presented my tanks to him and he promptly blew them to scrap.  Then I smiled and reached for my armoured car, and failed the start up roll.  That was pretty much it, there was another unsuccessful panzerfaust attempt or two and the almost irrelevant destruction of the armoured car by a honking big tank but it was all done.

So four games, four losses and I had a deathgrip on the wooden spoon.  I have enough wooden spoons to create a biodegradable cutlery set.  Not exactly a glorious moment in my personal ASL history although I did get a consolation prize for turning up.  Thanks to Aaron and Ivan who arranged the competition between them.  I'm going home to cry now.