AAR - Le Bon Repos

Garth Boucher and I sat down with this one yesterday. It's a real quickie from the KING OF THE HILL package. It is set on a half of board 11 (basically an intersection on a large level 1 hill). The SS are entrenched on the hill with foxholes, trenches, mines and wire. It is Night and the Scots have a small force supported by two crocs that have to clear the intersection of unbroken Germans in 4.5 turns.

I had the Germans and set up with the wire in I5 and G5, 6AP mines in D5 and E5, trenches (with 658s) in G6 and H5, foxholes in E6 (with an HIP PSK/348) and L5 (with an LMG/658). The 9-1 and MMG/658 were in the main building at I6, with the rest of the units and dummies strung out along the hill. Mostly dummies on the flanks and real units closer in. Two HIP 348s in D6 and J5 looking for PF shots and also an HIP PSK/348 in H7.

Garth started one of his Crocs in I2 and the other in M3. Most of his cloaking counters started near the I2 road with a smaller force over around A3, B4, B1, etc, and a few more at L3/K3.

First turn, he moves a cloaking counter to L4. I whack it with a LMG/658 in L5 and it turns out it was a stack with an 8-0 and two squads. I think this is where I got my first KIA, so the 8-0 and the remaining squad were broken. They didn't make it back into the game until it was too late.

The one Croc drove up to I3 and hosed me pretty good from there, and then to I4 and did some more damage, but the other Croc tried flanking me by heading around into the O5 /N6 area. Crocs are just too slow for this kind of maneuvering in this short of a scenario. Garth felt that this was his big mistake and what cost him the game. He's probably right, but I would add that he made a common Croc mistake. He got so excited about BBQing me with the I3 Croc that he didn't use much of the Croc's other weapons until too late, and he never used it's Smoke which really would have helped.

To wrap it up, Garth's other big stack (a cloaking counter with his other leader and a couple squads) stumbled into one of the minefields, and I got a couple good shots at some of this squads in the treeline at H3 G4 and KIAed another unit. Also, he managed to get a sqad tied up in each of the wire hexes, so the attack finally ground to a halt.

Garth didn't have as good a time as me (obviously), but we both felt it was a fun, tight little scen.

Points to ponder:

1. The Crocs have 7 MP, so there is no time for fancy maneuvering. Get them on the hill and in play ASAP.
2. Don't forget about the Crocs smoke.
3. The Scots force may not be big enough for a two pronged attack. I'm not sure. I felt part of the German's win in our playing was because I was able to squash small pockets of Scots. There was a lack of concentration of force.
4. Is there enough time or room for the Scots to play a cat and mouse game where they try to pick of the Germans one by one and try not to grant FOM if possible. I think it might be too short a scen for that kind of subtlety. But if the German doesn't set up with good lines of sight, this could happen.
5. There is also the possiblity of the German using the old "hide a halfsquad and wait until the final turn to pop it" strategy. The Scots get the last turn, so that will partly fix that, but the Scots do have to make sure there are no hidden units in the 2 hex victory area.

Anyone else give this one a go? I'd play it again. It's doable in 2-3 hours (especially if the defender is quick with his setup or has done it ahead).

Grant Linneberg