CanCon AARs

The preliminaries are over and now the time has come to relate the events of two and a half days of gruelling cardboard warfare.  There would be triumphs, there would be heartbreaks, there would be despair and the occasional Chinese meal.  For convenience and ease of memory this account will be divided up into three days.

Day 1 - All Light Has Been Extinguished From My Life
 

Choiseul Few

My first opponent was Simon Spinetti who, having moved to Canberra a few years ago, was claiming to be part of the home team for this tournament.  The scenario was RPT85 Choiseul Few which pitted a group of marine paratroops (surely a contradiction in terms rather like airborne submariners) against a group of Japanese who are basically looking for the most convenient route to the exit.  I would command the Japanese who were simultaneously attacking and trying to keep the Americans out of their rear.

The Japanese objectives were to achieve any two of capturing a certain number of buildings, inflicting casualties on the Americans or exiting some of their forces off the board.  This seemed to imply a certain level of indecision in the Japanese high command which I dealt with by not achieving any of them.  I started with an onboard force of about half a dozen squads and was reinforced in the first turn by an equivalent number.  Lest I feel cocky a reinforcing group of Americans turned up immediately in my rear on turn two.

I divided my onboard forces into two roughly equal groups and attacked down both sides of the board (a mistake in retrospect, I should have weighted one side or the other).  My mortars were designated as smoke machines to try and cover my advance.  On my left Simon withdrew skilfully and in his own time.  I was always advancing but not really eating up the miles and I didn't really inflict too much damage on him either.  On my right I headed for the hill (and the buildings it contained) here I met more success but also far more disaster.  I slipped through the palm trees losing only half a squad or so to defensive fire and advanced up the hill to engage a native hero in close combat.  I killed this hero, in return he killed my entire squad.  And that's pretty much how things went.  I seemed incapable of entering a close combat that didn't kill me no matter what the odds.  I bought some territory but at a hideous cost in blood and by dividing my forces I had guaranteed that I never had quite enough force to fully press an attack.

My reinforcements I left to the rear to deal with his reinforcements and for a turn or two they did so.  One of my few bright spots was when I managed to kill a squads worth of paramarines outright as he attempted to push past me.  Push past me he ultimately did though and headed towards the main battlefield where my rapidly dwindling forces had more or less stalled in front of the main building on the hill.  My tendency to get squads killed in close combat only increased as the game went on and I eventually conceded while I had a few men left to surrender.

3rd RTR in the Rain

My next opponent was Ivan Kent.  Yes, my old enemy from Poland in Flames.  Now would be my opportunity to take revenge for my recent defeat.  I gleefully took the Germans and set up a defence which I thought was rather good.  Holding the centre buildings with most of my force.  Placing the 37mm in the woods where it could cover most of the approach routes for his armour and putting a squad and atr over on the right.  Ivan promptly showed me what an idiot I am but setting up most of his force to sweep through the woods on my right thus endangering my 37mm from the start.

I'm not a complete fool, I did give the gun some support but not enough to hold off virtually all of Ivan's infantry OB.  He only sent two squads across the out of season wheatfields on the right.  Somehow (luck) my 37mm wasn't overrun in the first turn and when Ivan rolled a tank across its line of sight I decided it was now or never as I probably wouldn't get another shot (correct).  I destroyed the tank and promptly saw the gun submerged under a khaki sea.  I got my own armoured support tangled up in the woods (see idiot comment above) but did manage to roll the PzIV up behind the stone wall on the left to dominate the approaches to the target buildings.  Ivan dealt with that by getting a critical hit with his first shot and burning the damn thing.

The rain poured down and, apparently, made it virtually impossible for the Germans to hit anything.  Sadly the British were obviously culturally much more used to rain and over the next few turns systematically broke virtually the entire German OB without suffering terribly much in return.  With most of the objective buildings empty of defenders and a single good order squad remaining to me I  risked close combat with a British halfsquad.  Victory would recover a building for me and put me in a slightly better position.  Ivan rolled a three in the close combat and I conceded.  The one bright spot was my slaughter of the British armour.  The 37mm got one, an atr got another and a PzIII got two more.  Sadly it didn't do any good in the long run.

 

 

Day Two - I Am An ASL God!!!

Coal in Their Stocking

After my dismal performance on the first day of CanCon I approached the second day with gloomy trepidation.  The very food tasted like ashes in my mouth.  No wait, that was the actual food.  Rinsing out my throat I sat down with Joe Moro to play Coal in Their Stocking which pits a smallish German recon force backed by a decent array of vehicles against a larger American force also overendowed with motorised death.  Joe wound up with the Germans while I took the American attackers.  The Americans got points for each stone building held.  The Germans had to deny the Americans but were also awarded points for anything they managed to exit off the board.

Joe's set up implied that he was going to hold the village with the bulk of his force while a sizeable minority seemed positioned to make a dash for the exit on my left.  I positioned what I hoped would be enough of a token force to deny any exit while I threw most of my forces at the village.  Strangely this sort of worked.  I sent forward token infantry forces backed by huge killer stacks lurking in the rear to gain territory while I sent my armour (and a bazooka toting halfsquad in a jeep) down the right hand side of the board to get into the rear of the village buildings.

The jewel in Joe's armoured crown was a PzJgIV with a 75mm gun and armour that could laugh at anything apart from a bazooka.  I rightly guessed that this monster was nestled in the village to back up his defenders while the bulk of his (much lighter) armour waited for an opportunity to leave.  I seized the first stone building easily while my light armour and halftracks trailed their coats in front of the PzJg.  Soon I was rewarded with a couple of burning wrecks to give cover to my flanking jeep and such of my armour as had survived.

Then things calmed down for a couple of turns.  Setting up kill stacks with the bulk of my infantry had given me the firepower to blow away his upfront defenders but left them poorly positioned to exploit.  I made aggressive noises with my armour as my infantry trotted forward hiding behind trees wherever possible.  Over on the left things were very quiet as both sides seemed prepared to live and let live but as I pushed towards the buildings on the right Joe had to pull his armour across to help his forces in the village.  The PzJg was virtually untouchable (and remained so until the end of the game) but he was short of infantry and soon his hold on the buildings was looking a little threadbare.  Then I got a stroke of luck.  I had rolled a tank onto the village road in the hopes of helping my infantry cross it.  One of Joe's (few remaining) squads went berserk and charged into close combat with this tank.  This close combat would endure for the rest of the game and deprive Joe of a much needed squad.  He immobilised my tank early on but just couldn't kill it.

Joe rushed his left handed armour up from the other side of the board but I had a strong foothold in the village and met them with bazooka (and captured panzerschrek) fire and smashed up a decent amount of his force.  The PzJg ruled the hex it stood in but had too many targets and not enough time.  Firepower allowed me to blast his remaining infantry defenders out of the required stone buildings and Joe conceded once the victory point total became insuperable.

Mile Peg 61

After a very long scenario Dave Wilson and I sat down for this one hoping it would be somewhat shorter.  Shorter it was but full of events.  The Australians were trying to hold a road in Malaya while a force of Japanese, backed by some of their dinky little tanks, were trying to roll over them.  For tank killing the Australians had two 2 pounder anti tank guns although virtually any automatic weapon in their armour stood a chance of getting an armour kill.  I was the Japanese attacker (the second of three times I would be Japanese in this competition) and Dave would take the Australians.  The victory conditions were simple, the Australians had to have a support weapon capable of firing on the road at game end.  What this meant for me was I had to virtually annihilate Dave's force to ensure they couldn't snatch an lmg at the end and deny me victory.

I divided my force into two with a pair of tanks for each.  One force would attack down the right side of the board winkling through the jungle to the rear of the village Dave was holding.  The other would strike down the centre.  Again I was hoping the disinclination of the Japanese to break would give me the opportunity to get in close.

Things started well; Dave had a lone half squad doing sentry duty on a hill on the right and my tanks rolled up and overran him killing him to death.  Then my right hand infantry poured down into the jungle simultaneously moving forward and hoping to blunder into an AT gun before the tanks did (unsuccessfully).  In the centre I moved more circumspectly circling a little to the left and managing to beat up on an outlying squad before I reached the bulk of his defences.  Naturally he had an AT gun set up to fire down the road and naturally I rolled a tank directly into his sights which he cheerfully killed.

Despite this my infantry pushed forward (I took some chances here but they largely paid off and I got into the jungle adjacent to the buildings which were his main line of defence.  I took some casualties here but managed to capture the buildings and even take a squads worth of prisoners (Dave was outraged but automatic no quarter was still a few months away).  Over on the right where I still had two functioning tanks I had found his hmg team nestled in a building it promptly hosed down a pair of my squads with a maniacal rate tear that didn't leave too many survivors but I thought I had a clever way of dealing with it.  I rolled a tank into bypass and then sent a pair of squads and my best leader into CC with the hmg team.  I had forgotten that when there's a tank in the hex the defender automatically attacks first.  Dave wiped out my entire force suddenly my right flank was looking a little destitute of troops.

Fortunately over on the left he had broken his AT gun and my remaining tank assisted in beating up on his surviving defenders.  Then I sent the remainder of my troops into close combat.  To give myself a better chance I abandoned the prisoners.  The close combats went well and I was anticipating success.  Imagine my surprise when Dave used one of the prisoners to occupy a building I'd left and snatch an lmg I'd left behind.  I didn't actually realise you could do this.  Despite being lightly shellshocked I had enough troops nearby to beat up the recalcitrant prisoners and this time there were no survivors.

The last couple of turns consisted of me chasing down the remnants of Dave's force and trying to beat up anything still possessing a support weapon.  I did manage to take out his hmg team and on the last turn I took out his mortar team in CC which was his sole remaining support weapon.  To spare Dave's blushes I won't tell you what he did with the other AT gun.  I was cockahoop.  I had gone from 0-2 to 2-2 with one game to go next day.  Could I possibly come out with a positive result?  Spoiler alert!  No.
 

Day 3 - And We're Back to Light Extinguishment Again
 

OK, I have to confess I can't remember the name of the last scenario I played.  I do know I played Paul Haseler and I know that once again I was the Japanese, this time defending a jungle covered hill against Paul's US marines with a bunch of first and second line Japanese squads and a 75mm gun.  I had high hopes of the gun, particularly when Paul moved a mortar team into its line of sight.  I fired and gained an acquisition.  In return Paul's mortar went on an eleven shot rate tear which striped and broke my gun crew and sent it fleeing into the jungle.  That was pretty much the story of my game.

With brutal amounts of firepower Paul moved slowly through the jungle dismantling my defence as he did so.  I attempted a fall back defence but it more closely resembled a fall apart defence.  I could never muster the firepower to do him much harm and even with concealment Paul managed to unleash so much death in return that my troops just fell apart.  Forget morale checks, I don't think I actually managed to fail by less than my ELR more than once.  My supposedly tough Japanese melted away as Paul's forces ground remorselessly through the jungle.  Even the miraculous recovery of my gun crew (and the subsequent breaking of a pair of US squads by 75mm fire) couldn't slow the olive green tide.

Eventually with fewer and fewer troops surviving to get in his way and with the turn marker still a disturbingly long way from scenarios end I brought the agony to an end.

So that was CanCon.  I managed to win a couple of scenarios and good times were had with familiar faces and the occasional new one.  Much thanks to Andy Rogers who always puts on a good competition and finds great places for us to eat.