CanCon AAR

Well a week has past since CanCon.  The dust has settled, my floods of tears have dried and concerned bystanders have finally succeeded in wrestling the kitchen knife out of my hands.  So time for a brief recap of the wretched failure and unfulfilled dreams that hovered vulture like over my head as I pitted my, I hesitate to say "wits", against my opponents in five rounds of vicious cardboard on cardboard action.

Up in the nosebleed seats of the CanCon festival reserved for those fit enough to climb a single flight of stairs we proud ASLers gathered, gazing godlike down onto the scrum of black t-shirts and morbid obesity displayed before us (although there was one cute trans girl with red hair and interesting tattoos I wouldn't have minded getting to know better).  But people watching was not our purpose, the cardboard battlefield awaited.  There would be cheers, shouts and hysterical weeping (I'll leave it to your imagination as to who might providing the latter) as the dice rolled and battles were won and lost.  In my case, mostly lost.

The first scenario was 11th Company Counter Attack which pitted a group of top quality Finns supported by a pair of huge, lumbering but powerfully armed SP guns against some Soviet interlopers in 1944.  I had the Soviets and my objective was simple.  At the end of the game I had to have at least one unbroken squad still on the board.  A railway bisected the battlefield and I set up the bulk of my forces hiding in foxholes in the woods to the south.  A couple of squad strength positions (including an atr) went to the north to prevent Andrew from rushing forward and out flanking me.  A measure of the success of this strategy can be determined from the fact that Andrew rushed forward and outflanked me.  My very first roll, against a probing halfsquad, was boxcars, breaking an lmg and encouraging Andrew to be even more aggressive in the north.

In the south his frontal assault went slower as I skulked and hid amongst the trees as his troops pushed forward.  I was holding my ground well but by turn three Andrew had swept my now undergunned northern troops aside and was mounting the railway embankment to surround me.  A sniper killed a leader I had placed in the rear to serve as a rally point for retreating squads and suddenly I was neck deep in Finns.  I surrendered at the end of turn three when one of my few remaining squads went berserk and prepared to abandon its defences to charge directly at about five Finnish units.
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Fresh from this painful initiation I moved on to command elements of the British 7th Armoured Division tangling with Michael Wittman's SS panzers in Normandy.  If you've read your history you know this is probably a hiding to nothing.  The scenario was Test of Nerves and involved a small British infantry force backed by a group of five tanks trying to hold a crossroads against a somewhat larger force of German infantry backed by a trio of Tiger tanks (led by Wittman himself) and one PzIV which must have been there to make up the numbers.  My opponent, Peter Jeffrey from Queensland would command the Germans.

The sole British victory condition was that at the end of the game at least one tank had to have a line of sight to the crossroads.  All British and German tanks could set up HIP.  I had one Sherman Firefly that could take it right up to the Tigers.  The remainder were metal meat for the 88s.  I hid the Firefly as far back as I could and still have a bead on the crossroads.  This was my last stand position.  Everything else was to protect that.  I set up a 57mm atg so that it could fire across the relevant street (57 vs Tiger armour, not great) and placed my scanty troops in buildings around the crossroads.  Over on the left I had a pair of Cromwells looking over open ground.  I couldn't hope that they would bag a tiger but I thought they might be able to take out some infantry.  I had one more tank, a Cromwell mounting a 94mm something or other.  I treated this with deep suspicion and hid it in the woods (although also with a line of sight to the crossroads).

Things started well when one of my overwatch Cromwells broke a German halfsquad.  Unfortunately it did it right under the nose of a Tiger tank.  Have you ever seen a Tiger get a rate tear.  It isn't pretty.  At the end of one firephase I had lost two Cromwells and a halfsquad.  And this before the game had really begun.  Peter used his Tigers cautiously, supporting his infantry as they worked their way through the buildings towards the crossroads.  I kept my remaining tanks hidden secure in the knowledge that if they never revealed themselves I would win.  In the centre Peter ground slowly forward but I was more concerned about my flanks.  He was filtering troops round both of them and on the right his troops were backed up by his PzIV, obviously trying to draw fire from an as yet hidden tank.  Fortunately for me he drove it right next to my 57mm gun and a PzIV was well within its capabilities.  Any more fire drawing would have to be done by the tigers.  My gun crew were soon broken and he captured the gun before I managed to break his squad in turn, my gallant crew then rallied and recaptured the gun.

Over on the left things weren't so great.  His troops had outflanked my position and I only had one asset to stop them.  My hidden Cromwell 94.  I started up, reversed into a woods hex and promptly bogged.  However I bogged in a convenient location allowing the Cromwell's guns to beat up his flankers, or at least threaten to.  But this meant I had only one tank left with a sight to the crossroads.  The as yet hidden Firefly.  Biting the bullet Peter rolled his Tigers forward.  The Firefly killed two and the maligned 57mm killed the third courtesy of a sabot round at pointblank range.  With my last card revealed all I could do was await his final infantry rush.  They came straight down the road, most of my infantry was dead now and could do nothing to stop them.  My gun crew fired at pointblank range but in the ensuing morale checks he battle hardened and rushed on.  The Firefly used machine guns, main armament and then intensive fire but couldn't stop them.  They plunged into close combat with the Firefly, if they could destroy it they would win the game.  They failed, at game end my Firefly stood proudly intact, still with the crossroads in its sight.
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That was the first day and I wasn't too disappointed.  I looked forward to a resumption of the cardboard carnage tomorrow.  Alas my eagerness was misplaced.

The next scenario was Maximum Aggression which pitted a low grade British force defending a Malayan village against the Japanese while a much better British force charged to the rescue.  I had played this once before at the end of a long and depressing competition and conceded on the second turn.  I was determined to do better this time.  I guess you could say I did.  The game went on much longer.

My opponent was David Bishop commanding the Japanese.  It didn't take him long to wipe out my less than stalwart village defenders courtesy of white phosphorous, banzai charges and close combat but nemesis, I hoped, was coming.  My British reinforcements were supported (if that's the right word) by a solitary Marmon-Herrington armoured car.  This thing conducted its own miniature panzerblitz while my infantry panted along as best they could.  I hit on three sides trying to get into the village on both flanks and the centre.  Unfortunately David and I both suffered a rather debilitating problem.  We couldn't roll for shit.  Anything less than a nine by either of us was a topic of much discussion and rejoicing by the successful roller.  The armoured car sat in a road for three turns with its rear to the enemy while David unsuccessfully attempted to destroy it while my infantry (which the car was supposedly supporting) made almost no progress towards actually hurting the Japanese.  I did manage to push forward a little on the left (thanks largely to David's strategic withdrawals) and on the far right I captured a remote building he hadn't bothered to garrison.

Eventually David managed to roll low enough to destroy the car and in return I managed to roll low enough to stripe a squad and set some huts on fire but it was a curiously low key and casualty light affair throughout.  Without any significant damage to his troops I couldn't really push through to the buildings I had to capture.  The final turn saw the usual despairing charge into withering fire most of which in keeping with the game so far did absolutely nothing.  But one shot managed to inflict a morale check on a squad aiming at a building.  I failed the check and thus couldn't attempt to capture the building thus giving David the win.  Partway through the game we started keeping a tally of all the nines we rolled.  David won that too but not by much.
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In the afternoon I sat down with Jackson Keddall to play Friday the 13th.  This pitted a tough bunch of Germans paratroopers supported by a trio of PzJIVD tank destroyers against a solid bunch of late war Soviets with a .50cal machine gun and a 57LL gun amongst their other toys.  Once again I had to seize a bunch of buildings and once again I came up sadly short.  At least because I didn't use enough smoke.  I knew the PzJs had smoke shells but I'd forgotten the smoke dispensers and grenades which could have sheltered my troops as they went forward.

Still, forward they went bulling up to the Soviet front line and there they stopped for several turns.  My tank destroyers had left their HE shells at home and suddenly I was short of fire support.  Jackson played a smart game, pulling back, maintaining concealment and maintaining a solid front line.  Over on the right he had skilfully wired a possible outflanking area and for a couple of turns my troops hid in woods and behind buildings hoping somebody else would do the difficult "killing of the Russians" part of the scenario. 

The only glimmer of joy for me was when I fired a panzerschreck at a concealed squad in a victory building.  A critical hit killed the recipients outright and I managed to snatch a couple of buildings and challenge for a couple more but Jackson's defence was essentially intact.  He didn't get much use out of his .50cal but that's an indication of how successful his defence was.  He killed one PzJ by firing an antitank rifle through the roof which pleased him although he was less keen when in the closing stages I roared my one fully functional PzJ over a wall offering him an underbelly shot from his atg.  He broke the gun and the PzJ plunged forward to wreak havoc.  Unfortunately I had left it too late in the day and I slunk away from the second day without a single victory to my name :(
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The next day replete with a dinner of delicicous Korean food (kimchi is awesome) I faced the grim reality.  If I didn't win today my track record (of 2 wins and three losses) at CanCon would be broken.  I faced Mark McGilchrist for the final round.  We were playing Ultimate Treachery which pitted a force of Japanese attacking the French in Hanoi near the very end of the war.  The French had a mixture of green and first line squads and a single FT-17 tank, possibly the most useless armoured vehicle of World War II to defend several blocks of downtown Hanoi.  I got the French and positioned my green squads forward (to do most of the dying) with my first liners and machine guns in reserve.  For the French in this one its all about delay.  The Japanese have to capture 45 building locations (that is each level of each hex of each building).  All the French have to do is cling to enough to prevent them.  Stern defence from sacrifice squads and slow withdrawal from the others would appear to be the order of the day.  I put the FT-17 where it had a line of sight down a street and told it to stay there.

The first few rounds went quite well despite my stupidity in getting a pair of green squads locked in CC with a Japanese squad, yes they killed it eventually but time was lost and a bite was taken out of my defence.  Mark plastered likely areas with white phosphorous (I prayed for rain but was denied) and pushed forward vigorously.  Where I stood and fought I died (but hopefully bought some time) and with my other squads withdrawing in good order I started to entertain hopes of a victory.  Mark had other ideas, pushing forward aggressively and leaving my remaining delay troops the option of dying in place or fleeing.  They chose to die in place.

Upper level encirclement is a bitch but fortunately my FT-17 stepped forward breaking a crucial halfsquad and allowing me to escape the consequences of my own stupidity in surrendering lower level stairwell hexes without much of a fight.  With this relief I still had a hold on half of a large building Mark needed to capture to win.  The only other way to win would be to push into my rear area defended by an lmg, an hmg, the FT-17 and a couple of other squads.  I started to feel good.  That was probably a mistake.

With a turn and a half to go Mark was short of the buildings he needed and I still had an hmg team and a concealed squad ready to beat up any last minute attempts to push forward.  Then I rolled low.  I rolled Mark's sniper number low.  In one firephase his sniper broke my hmg team and the concealed squad and my defence was shattered.  He didn't need to capture the remaining buildings, he just moved in.  Mark coaxed me out of my foetal position long enough to inform me I had lost.

So there we have it.  One victory and four losses, not a great record but I'm not too disheartened.  I felt competitive in at least two of the games I lost so I've put suicide prevention on hold and am plunged into a VASL game with some chap from Perth which involves both night rules and falling snow.  I must be mad.  Much thanks to Andy Rogers and Eric Topp who organised all and selected a good bunch of scenarios and also thanks to Ivan for putting up with the running cow commentary on the way down (and back).