Hooked up with Tycho (The Evil That Is) Granville last night for CH51, Sonnenburg Hotel, a nice little Arnhem scenario featuring 11 658's assaulting the board 10 town with the aid of a Char B1 flame tank and 80mm OBA, opposed by 7 Brit 648's with plenty of pluck and mustard.
First off, let me say that I am now officially Tired Of Board 10. I've assaulted that damn town more times than board 3. Sonnenburg Hotel, Faugh A' Ballagh, Nel Nome di Roma, Dorset Wood in the Rain, Morgan's Stand, the list goes on. At least in SH you get a few overlays to change things a bit, but PLEASE people, let's get another town!
OK, take my pill, relax.
At first blush, this thing seems slightly pro-German, and after playing it I still think so. The Germans get 7 turns to go from their start line (row S) to control the multistory stone building in DD5/EE5 (an overlay). The Brits have only two leaders (albeit a 9-2 and an 8-1), three MG's (an HMG and two captured German LMG's) and suffer from Ammo Shortage, which really hurts in terms of not being able to lay firelanes and lowering the B#'s of their SW. The Brits do get 12 Concealment counters, two HIP squad-equivalents, and have two Heroes and PIATs, but all in all, it just seems that the Germans have a bit much. Either lose the German OBA or the Brit Ammo Shortage and you'd have a better game, IMO.
When defending the bd 10 town, the weak spot always seems to be the W8/X8 rowhouse. It's relatively hard to cover from the town proper, is difficult to retreat from, has some nice orchards to attack through, and provides a nice stepping-off point for the push against building Z6 (which is covered by a woods overlay in SH). Knowing this doesn't translate into being able to do much about it, so I settled for placing the Brit 9-2 and 648/HMG in Z2 to fire laterally across the board and cover the approach to W8/X8 via U8-U10.
I HIP'd this stack to avoid discouraging the attack on W8; I don't normally like to HIP units that are going to fire on turn 1, but in this case it seemed good to try to lure Tycho into thinking the approach to W8 was open. Figuring that this stack would attract the flame tank, I also HIP'd a hero/piat with them. Also, since I figured there'd be Germans in the tree line from X0 to X2, I gave the Brit airborne MTR to the HMG squad and planned on Deploying into HS's on Brit turn 1. Smart Players normally get a churning feeling in their guts when they give 8 PP to a single squad; that's why I'm not a Smart Player :-)
X8 had the second HIP squad with the other hero/piat, just to balance out the piat coverage and give the Germans a bloody nose. If things went badly, the 648 could rout to AA10 where he'd receive aid and comfort from the Brit 8-1 who started in Z9 stacked with two 648's and a German LMG. Z9's task was to cover the V4/V5/W6 approach to the town and hold off the Germans should they come through W8/X8.
The Brits also get four foxholes which I placed in the woods hexes Z9, AA9, CC9, and CC8 in order to provide some cover in case the German OBA came down in that area. CC8 also provides a nice line of fire to defend the VC building.
The final defensive note was a 648/LMG and two ? counters in DD5 Level 2. It's The Obvious Spot for the Brit 9-2/HMG, so I thought I'd encourage Tycho to believe this. This worked fine, attracting the only effective Fire Mission of the game; the squad did break but was far enough in the rear that he rallied in time to join the battle.
Knowing that I knew about W8/X8, Tycho attacked the other way :-) Everybody in one big thrust through W1-W5. My two covering HS's in W1 and W4 went down after laying a line of 1 FP Resid counters, which is about all one can expect. On turn 2, Tycho advanced to the woods line in X0-X2 and brought the flame tank up in bypass of W3/W4 after smartly making sure there were no HIP Piats in the first level of W4.
That's when I opened up with the HMG. It perhaps might have been smarter to wait until the Brit PFPh of turn 2 and try to catch some Germans out in the street of hexrow Y, but I wanted two rounds of firing and I was afraid of the AFPh shot from the flame tank. The 12(-1) shot at X2 KIA'd a German HS but Battle Hardened the leader to a Heroic 9-2. Aargh! The return shot from the flame tank missed, but Tycho's boys in W4 got off a good Advancing Fire shot which broke the Brit 9-2 AND the HMG/MTR squad. Double Aargh! THIS is why Good Players don't give 8 PP to a single squad! Learn! *THWACK* Learn! *THWACK*
Somehow we managed to retreat in reasonably good order from this debacle, aided by covering fire from AA4 and BB7. In a move born of desperation and misguided optimism, I brought a squad back to Z2 and recovered the HMG. Hey, maybe he could survive the German PFPh and then retain ROF 5 or 6 times in dfire and then...
Of course, I had forgotten about the flame tank, who cares not about such fantasies, especially since the Hero's PIAT had X'd out a turn earlier. Tycho simply moved the tank up and stopped 2 hexes away for a tasty 30-flat bounding fire shot against the tank. Ewps, duh, yeah, I forgot they could do that.
Fortunately, the Dice Gods smiled upon us and Tycho boxcarred the shot. Much rejoicing from the beleaguered British lines. A Char B1 Flame Tank without the flamethrower is just an old slow armored French LMG platform. Still, Tycho used it to best advantage, moving into the HMG squad's location and freezing its fire whilst the German infantry moved up and broke the squad in advancing fire.
From that point, it was a standard painful city fight as the Germans strove to gain the last few hexes in front of the VC building and the Brits skulked in and out of whatever cover they could find. The Stone Rubble in DD1 was a good defensive spot, as were BB7 and the foxhole in CC8.
The German OBA was ineffective after getting off their sole Fire Mission against the VC building early on, suffering from enough occasional red cards on extra chit draws to keep the Brits happy. Still, on turn 5, the Observer had moved up to W4 level 1 with designs on getting off some more Death From the Skies, so the last Brit Hero took matters into his own hands. Double-timing across the board, he made it into CC with the Observer, and while he died a turn later, he bought some valuable OBA downtime for the Brit defense.
The end game was nicely nip-and-tuck. Note that DD4 can be Encircled from EE3 and BB7, making it harder for the germans to get adjacent to the VC building. Also note how hard it is to Control a building - everyone who's ever played Le Herisson knows this. Having a GO defender at the ground level of the building is a near-guarantee of winning the game, because even if he breaks, he can simply rout upstairs and deny control of the building to the other side.
Ah, but you've been reading Louie Tokarz' ASL Open quizzes, haven't you? If so, then you remember last week's quiz, where the trick lies in knowing that an Encircled unit will surrender instead of routing upstairs (if No Quarter is in effect). Very good thing to remember.
So the Brit objective in the end game was to avoid getting encircled, which turned out to be doable because of the German schwerpunkt - there were no German flankers on hexrows 6-10 which could even threaten an encirclement. The direct German attack through DD4/CC5/CC6 was beaten back by a very timely string of very nice British IFT rolls, including the immobilization of the ex-flame tank and the overdue wound/kill of the Heroic German 9-2. With not much firepower to even break the Brits in the VC building and no way to keep them from routing upstairs even if they did break, the Germans called it quits.
Overall, a nice scenario and a very pleasant and competent opponent. What else is there in life.
*** Pre-Wild West Fest Rant Mode On ****
HEY OREGON! TEAM COLORADO ROOLZ! WE GOT TYCHO'S HEAD ON A POLE OUTSIDE OUR HEADQUARTERS! C'MON, IZZAT ALL U GOT? SEND US MORE FRESH MEAT!
Tom