On the ANZAC Day weekend I had intended to pop down to Melbourne, pester a long suffering friend and compete in the ANZACon tournament. However given the current plague ravaging the world it was decided to play it online using VASL. For my opponents I would just be a scratchy and slightly hysterical voice at the other end of the phone. Unfortunately that didn't seem to put them off.
The first scenario pitted me against Eric Topp in scenario Q6 Per l'Onore di Roma. Here men of the Italian 80th infantry regiment (dubiously commanded by me) have to seize a village from Eric's defending Soviets. Victory for the Italians required them to capture three of the only four buildings in this miserable mud hut collection that were made of stone. I didn't come close; my brave fanti swept forward through the wheatfields to the first of the buildings and then stopped outside as the Russians occupying it showed a disinclination to leave. They also showed a disinclination to break. After four turns of pouring in as much fire as I could bring to bear the only appreciable result was that the Russian 9-1 leading the defence battle hardened to a 9-2 and then battle hardened again to become heroic into the bargain. Italian reinforcements tried to go for a flank and even managed to capture a stone building but that was the limit of the achievement. In the entire scenario I broke precisely one Russian halfsquad. Along the way a goodly amount of the Italian force became casualties. I conceded on turn five with the wreckage of my Italian force weeping around me.
If I could claim a certain amount of bad luck in the first scenario I had no such excuses in the second. I lost this one through sheer, breathtaking incompetence. The scenario was FrF51 - Bite of the Bassotto. I had small but tough group of German paratroopers backed up by an SP gun pinched from the Italians and had to hold off Bruce Probst's New Zealanders supported by some Staghound armoured cars. The job is to defend a small village, the Germans win if they're still holding six buildings at the end of the game. It's hard to encapsulate so much cock up in just a couple of sentences but let me try. Firstly the New Zealanders could enter on either or both of the south and the east board edges. For reasons I can't explain I thought the eastern troops came on later. As such I set up mainly guarding the south thinking I could pull back to cover the east later. Secondly it didn't occur to me that "enter on the east board edge" meant anywhere on the east board edge. Such forces as I did have covering the east were looking southeast. Bruce brought his troops on in the north east and promptly outflanked my entire position. My bassotto didn't fire a shot as his troops advanced onto it in close combat in the first turn and promptly killed it. This left the entire village effectively defended by a half squad and a dummy stack. They weren't enough (although the halfsquad tried quite hard). I did manage to kill a staghound with a panzerfaust and my southern defences held for a while but Bruce was gathering up undefended real estate all over the place and my few remaining troops died in place. I was supposed to get reinforcements on turn 3, I conceded before they turned up.
That was the end of day one and a deeply humiliating one it was. The first defeat was a misfortune but the second smacked of carelessness.
I started day two determined to win something if I died for it. Strangely, just for once I did (win something that is not die. I'm not writing this blog entry from beyond the grave). The scenario was FT43 - Infantry Probe at Argentan which saw my Germans counterattacking a group of Free French who unreasonably wanted their country back. My opponent was Joe Moro hunkered down in yet another village (a French one this time). I had to capture two out of three designated victory buildings for the win. Did you ever have a day when everything just went right? That was my experience here. I think my plan was good but the simple fact of the matter was that everything I tried worked while Joe's attempts to hold me back didn't. Joe was ill served by his bazookas which proved incapable of hitting a barn from inside it (they did eventually kill a halftrack and an armoured car but far too late) while my brave landsers were unstoppable. Highlight of the scenario, picking up the Free French flamethrower and then firing it into the melee that was raging to decide occupancy of the second victory building. A roll of three wiped out everything in the hex and a medium machine into the bargain and left me as sole occupant.
Having had an uncharacteristic taste of victory the fourth game saw normal service resumed. I fought Darryl Lundy in FrF 52 - Dying for Danzig. I was the defending Germans and set up in "the strongpoint" although a better term may have been "killing zone". My objective was simple, the Germans would win if a single squad equivalent in the stronghold was still alive and in good order at the end. Not one German survived anywhere. The Soviets had two flamethrowers and two flame throwing tanks plus a stack of elite infantry. The first couple of turns were slow as Darryl ground his way through my outer defences but grind he did and the Germans could not stand up to late war Soviet firepower. I got a single armoured car as reinforcements which Darryl dealt with by the simple expedient of driving a tank up, parking in front of it and destroying it in bounding fire. He then shot and burned what remained of my force into extinction. I have to admit this one wasn't a lot of fun to play. I spent most of it desperately hoping to pass morale checks and failing. Possibly a more competent commander could have achieved more (more of a certainty really). Highlight for me came at the end when Darryl, perhaps a little drunk with victory, advanced two squads and a 9-2 leader into close combat with my one remaining squad and leader. He gacked his roll and I got a three to wipe the lot of them out. In revenge he smothered my guys in flames the next turn and I didn't so much concede as run out of troops to do things with.
That was my first online ASL tournament and its smooth running is a credit to Joe Moro who organised it and had everything running smoothly. Much thanks is due to Joe for the effort he put in (and it was a lot of effort), the results certainly justified it (not my results obviously but results in a more general sense).
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