Capitaine LeMon stared at the rather adhoc vehicle park in front of him in dismay. He waved his hand at the small and motley collection of trucks presented for his inspection.
"Where the hell are the rest?" he demanded. "I need to get these troops to the front."
A corporal in grease stained overalls (he's not a mechanic he just has an "interesting" private life) shrugged apologetically.
"It's all I could get mon capitaine. Most of the trucks have been requisitioned to distribute the asparagus harvest. It's considered vital for morale."
"I would be very happy," snarled LeMon, "if nobody ever mentioned asparagus to me ever again." He cast a glance behind him to where a ragged figure rocked back and forward in the dirt drooling and crooning to himself. From time to time he drew doodles in the dust with what, on close inspection, turned out to be an asparagus stalk.
"How's Outlebarrel doing?" asked the corporal.
"I plan to put him in the front line of the attack," responded the Capitaine. "With any luck there are still some Germans out there who can shoot straight. Let's face it a telegram that begins with 'I regret to inform you...' is pretty much the most positive news his parents are ever likely to get."
So finally we come to the end of the road. The very last of the Provence Pack scenarios. Keen observers will note that we missed PP9 - Night Hodgepotch. We intended to play it. I unearthed the night rules from the dusty crypt they'd been hidden in especially. Then we looked at the special rules. Then we looked at them again. We needed a deck of playing cards, 52 dummy counters only thirteen of which represented real units and nobody knew where any of them were. Our conclusion? Bugger this for a game of soldiers. So we moved on to the final scenario PP10 - A Cab for Ste Anne. Finally the French have reached Toulon and all that stands in the way of them hoisting the Tricolor over the local post office are the stalwart landsers (or whatever the Polish, Russian and occasionally Azerbaijani equivalent is) of the German 242 Infantry, a formation whose name is writ but lightly in the military history of the world.
My Free French will claim victory if the Germans are driven out of the buildings they hold. Specifically I win immediately if the Germans are ever reduced to four buildings or less on board 20. Alternatively I win at game end if there are no German non-crew MMC on board 41 and the Germans hold nine or fewer buildings on board twenty.
To dispossess the hated Boche (and the mildly disliked Poles, Russians and Azerbaijanis) from the precious buildings of France I have the usual collection of impressive troops along with the usual tediously complicated set up/entry conditions. On board 41 facing across a dry stream bed to the German etc positions are six elite squads with a pair of crappy French lmgs. These proud warriors of France (Senegal actually) are led by a 9-2 and an 8-1. Over on board 20 where buildings abound I have four elite squads and their own pair of crappy French lmgs. This "force" too is led by a 9-2. I had so many good officers I seriously hoped the sniper might run out of ammunition before he killed them all.
But this is just the start. Beginning with turn two another fourteen squads (eight elite, six first line) enter at the far end of the battlefield and roll in the general direction of the firing. Did I say roll? Indeed I did. These lazy buggers demanded a shuttle bus service to the fighting. I have six trucks in total all of which are in no way sufficient to lift all of my reinforcements in one turn. Which means that that my reinforcements trickle on over several turns while the trucks race backwards and forwards picking them up and dropping them off.
As defender Dave was allocated a modest force of three squads, two leaders (one of them a 6+1) and a 20mm AA gun to defend board 41. For board twenty he had everything the 242nd could muster; thirteen squads, a mix of first line, second line and conscripts. These reluctant warriors had three light machine guns, a medium machine gun and another 20mm AA gun. They also had a pillbox, eighteen factors of known minefields and twenty concealment counters. Three not particularly impressive officers command.
Before the game I was given the opportunity to rubble five building locations which I did with maniacal glee. Below is Dave's set up with his forces lurking nervously beneath concealment counters. For some reason I didn't take a picture of my set up. Please imagine your own deployment, it will no doubt be far better than mine.
With Dave's pillbox set up in what appeared to be a highly vulnerable position I set up a pair of squads with lmgs guided by the 9-2 where they could fire directly into its embrasure. Even with his troops concealed that gave me a 6+1 shot from the get go. The other two squads I set up as close to the pillbox as possible. If all went well with the prep fire shot (spoiler alert, all did indeed go well) I would advance one squad on what would hopefully be either a pinned or broken pillbox defender while the other wormed its way around the minefields to the rear of Dave's position. The remainder of his forces I ignored, my reinforcements could deal with them.
On board 41 I set up another two squad/lmg stack guided by my other 9-2. These would hopefully suppress some of his defenders while the rest of my force crossed the creekbed (and in one highly optimistic case the bridge) to bring the battle to him.
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| End of French turn 1 |
Turn one wound up pretty good for the French. My kill stack broke the squad in the pillbox (although the 8-1 guiding them survived). Said squad would die attempting to withdraw from melee but the 8-1 would hang around to tie up one of my few squads which was annoying. Over on board 41 my vaunted "kill" stack managed to strip concealment from one half squad. Undaunted the remainder of my force pushed across the creekbed to close with the enemy. Except for one officer who got pinned trying to cross the bridge. Which left the halfsquad accompanying him in an awkward position as he no longer had the movement to reach the cover I had intended for him and he wound up standing out in the street smiling nervously at a bunch of Germans. He was fortunate to get away with a pin result.
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| End of German turn 1 |
Dave's turn consisted of trying to reclaim his pillbox and also seizing a bunch more buildings that I would then have to recapture. His attempts to reinforce his lone 8-1 currently doing battle with an entire French squad would crumple under the fire from my kill stack which would utilise the stone walls around it to prevent any return fire. His building seizing attempts were more successful as he added several more locations I was going to have to push him out of. In revenge I killed his 8-1 in melee and started loading my reinforcements into trucks.
Up on board 41 I was slowly disposing of dummy stacks and jumped into CC with one of the few real units I had discovered so far. Possibly a little drunk from my CC success against his pillbox team the victors of that battle cheerfully hurled themselves against a neighbouring squad. It was true that Dave had taken a number of extra buildings that I would need to reclaim but I could hear truck engines in the distance.
Oh yes, my reinforcements. Slowly and painfully the trucks trundled forward dumped their troops as far forward as they could get and then turned to run off the board again ready for the next load. Dave whistled and talked amongst himself while I went through that painful process. I got my first batch of reinforcements into position to block Dave's adventurous boys in the south, they would claim no more buildings.
Dave's turn was noticeable for three things. For possibly the first time in my ASL career I fired a snapshot (a 1-1 shot which broke a hitherto concealed squad), secondly he unveiled a 20mm gun inside a building to the rear, changed covered arc and promptly broke it. The barrel must have hit some of the brickwork. Finally a "German" conscript squad tried its hand at CC with an elite Free French unit and died an unlamented death. Dave's dice had not been kind so far (and for once CC had been my friend) and a goodly number of his troops were broken. Was it enough? It was. Dave suggested he might concede. I asked that if he was going to would he please do it before my next movement phase so I didn't have to bugger about with all of those trucks again. Dave agreed and the game came to an end.
So a rather quiet note on which to end our Provence Pack journey. Stand out favourites in my opinion were PP1 - Cut the Road to Marseilles and PP5 - Today We Take Hyeres despite the fact that I lost them. I'll give an honourable mention to PP-8 A Little Bit Closer to Heaven because I won it. PP-3 Viet Relief I didn't do an AAR for because it would be one long string of expletives. The special rules and the sometime convoluted victory conditions are sometimes difficult to interpret. I wouldn't have been surprised to find a scenario where your reinforcements only enter if you're playing on a day with an "r" in it.
Going forward both Dave and I are ravaged with guilt about missing out on the night scenario so we're going to do a couple of those starting with ASL-61 Shoestring Ridge.
Capitaine LeMon stared at one of the trucks supposed to bringing his troops forward, his face as black as thunder.
"So this is why they couldn't fit all of my troops in one lift," he snarled as soldiers unloaded crate after crate of asparagus from the back.
Sous-lieutenant Outlebarrel had the decency to look a little embarrassed.
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