An assault engineer fiddled with the hose on his flamethrower and was rewarded with a squirt of fuel that soaked his uniform. His comrades backed nervously away. The rain was pouring down outside but there didn't seem to be any point in taking chances. One soldier pulled out a cigarette, the warning label on the packet said "An exploding flamethrower can seriously damage your health". With wincing care he put the cigarette away again.
"What are our objectives today?" asked one of the soldiers who had moved so far back he was practically in another unit.
A gefreiter pointed at a large building rather like the one they were in across the road.
"That's it."
"It looks just like this one. Can't we just change the signs and say we captured it? I'll bet higher command would never know."
"We tried that once, we occupied Dortmund decked it out with Polish street signs and told the fuhrer we'd captured Warsaw."
"What happened."
"Another unit did the same thing with Emden. It all got a little bit embarrassing. Particularly since some bunch of overachievers had actually captured Warsaw."
"Are you sure?"
"Well they said they did and there were plenty of Polish street signs all over the place so I think we have to believe them. Anyway since that debacle its been a little harder to get away with tricks like that."
After my near endless list of screw ups in the previous scenario you will be pleased to hear that I lifted my game in this one and only barely managed to lose. Having enjoyed a brief sojourn in east Africa Dave Wilson dragged me to the rain soaked streets of Stalingrad to play Blood and Guts a scenario from one of the seventy odd campaign games that revolve around the fighting in that city. I think this one is from Red Barricades but it could be any of them really.
Here I shall take command of a large number of well motivated, well equipped Germans looking to capture the building next door (and associated rubble) from a similarly enthusiastic group of Russians. The Germans have to select one of two victory options for this scenario. They can either capture building K22 and two other multihex buildings within the Russian set up area or they can win immediately if they capture all stone building and stone rubble locations north of the road that neatly bisects the playing area. This is the option that I decided to go for.
It certainly looks like the Germans have the tools to do the job. I have seven 838 elite squads. A dozen 548 elite squads and fifteen first line squads looking a little shabby and out of place in such august company. This bunch are led by no fewer than eight officers spearheaded by an awesome 10-3 (you just know he's not going to survive the game don't you). To assist with the going forward they have eight light machine guns, two medium machine guns and two heavy machine guns. Plus six demolition charges and three flamethrowers. Three not particularly impressive StuGs roll on to provide close fire support assuming they don't bog on the rubble on their way to the front.
What can the Russians show against such magnificence? Well how about thirteen elite squads, thirteen first line squads, a .50cal machine gun, two heavy machine guns, two medium machine guns, four light machine guns and a molotov cocktail projector. To spread the love he has twenty two concealment counters, twenty four factors of minefields and a 76mm gun. These guys are led by five officers including a none too shabby 10-2. Lurking in the rear are six squads of elite troops in reserve along with another leader and a flamethrower and DC of their very own.
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| At start |
Above is the at start set up. All non interior factory hexes are fortified and each of us got to fortify six more locations. I had to display mine, Dave didn't. As you can see I've divided my force into two groups. The larger on the right to capture the factory across the road. If I can take that I'm a long way towards achieving the victory conditions. The other force on the left is to put some doubt into Dave's mind as to which objective I'm going for and to prevent his troops there from helping out their no doubt beleaguered forces on the right.
Things went quite well at first, on the right I fried and sizzled his up front troops and gained a lodgement in the factory. In the centre I pushed forward, capturing a smaller and less sexy looking building which would serve as a base for my 10-3 commanding a pair of hmg toting squads. On the left a half squad charged across open ground and blew a hole in a fortified building he was obviously keen to hang on to. I say "obviously" because he had mined the actual building hexes so that anyone going in stood a good chance of being blown up before they reached the door.
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| End of German turn 1 |
It turned out that the large stack I was approaching in the factory consisted of a pair of elite squads, a medium machine gun and the .50cal guided by his 10-2 leader. It was sitting in a fortified location. This was the rock upon which my attack would break. In his turn Dave unveiled this death machine and swept the bulk of my troops out of the factory again. His 10-2 left to rally some troops but would soon return. Over on the left it turned out that I had managed to set up a lot of troops in LOS of his 76mm gun with unfortunate consequences.
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| Not looking so great now are they? |
Still thing could be worse. I was definitely pushing forward in the centre and my own 10-3 kill stack had reached a convenient position on the upper floor of what appeared to be the only undemolished building in Stalingrad. Expendable halfsquads had swarmed over the rubble and now the only thing that stood in the way of victory was the factory on the right. I rallied the survivors of my first attempt (and finally rolled my StuGs forward) and prepared to assault again. Incidentally you may notice a hero or two and the odd fanatic squad running about the place. My dice weren't particularly impressive in this game but I appeared to have an absolute mania for rolling snake eyes on rally attempts. I can't say that it did me any good. Failing morale checks with nine morale troops was a challenge the dicebot was proud and pleased to accept.
My next effort in the factory would involve my freshly rallied troops going back in this time with a StuG in support. Results were mixed. My troops were once again swept away in a hail of fire but the StuG stayed put and mangled some of the other defenders. Dave's defence was starting to rely more and more on that single kill stack as its supporting troops were whittled away. In the centre my own kill stack amused itself by slaughtering anyone that Dave tried to send in to man the 76mm gun. The crew died early and he lost another squad equivalent trying to reclaim it.
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| The way seems clear but I have no one who can take it |
In bad news for my StuG Dave had managed to get a squad with a flamethrower into the factory and my StuG would not survive the experience (I had misjudged how effective flamethrowers can be against armour) but my third attempt against his kill stack would surely bring success. Another StuG (commanded by a 9-2) was parked right next to them with a wide array of weapon toting psychopaths. Nope, he shrugged off two 12 flat attacks, two 16+2 attacks and an 8+2 attack and then proceeded to sweep the area clean of German troops again. The most positive thing that happened for me was he managed to malf his medium machine gun. He then sent a squad into CC with my StuG and killed it. One of my flamethrowers fried the life out of that squad immediately afterwards but it was poor compensation.
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| At this point I'm getting a definite sense of deja vue |
Despite this things weren't looking great for Dave. Most of the other troops in the factory were broken and I was creeping around occupying more hexes and squeezing him into a smaller and smaller area. He was fighting a desperate rearguard action and didn't seem to have too much hope. It looked a little different to me. Yes I was pushing forward but his kill stack reigned supreme and I was running out of troops. So I made a fatal decision. I brought my own kill stack down from the building and sent them into the factory. Big mistake, big big mistake.
Not only did removing the kill stack from its overwatch position give freedom of movement to his reinforcements previously lurking in the rear but entering the factory exposed my 10-3 to fire from his .50cal. It wasn't really my fault that this was the occasion when Dave decided to roll a four on a 24 flat shot and it wasn't really my fault that of five separate units in the hex to take the KIA random selection it was naturally the 10-3 that went down but it was still an idiotic decision on my part.
That was it, I had three squads broken (and casualty reduced on the LLMC) my best leader dead and Dave's reinforcements swarmed forward recapturing much of the terrain I had taken. I sobbed my way through a concession and booked in for therapy. Bizarrely in comparison to the previous game I was actually happy with my performance in this one. It's nice to get back to just ordinary levels of incompetence.
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| The last point at which it looked good. It got very sad and ugly just after this picture |
The wreckage of the German assault force cringed inside their starting location grateful to be alive. A pair of them, under the direction of the gefreiter, were engaged in hanging up a big sign with some writing on it in Russian.
"Do you think this will work?" asked one of the soldiers.
"As long as higher command doesn't have Google Maps," replied the gefreiter.
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