I played Jason Eikmann in this during the second round of the ASLOK mini-tournament on Saturday (for those of us out of the Grofaz running.) I had the Rumanians and he had the Ruskies. I set up both mortars on my right (northern) flank and the guns northeast of V3. I did not realize the importance of placing the guns where I did until later, and then I noticed it too late. (They were out of LOS from the level 2 observer in Q10, so they should not have been hit with his OBA, but I did not notice that until after a K/2 result had eliminated the only active crew and malfunctioned its 100mm ART.
My HMG was in the 2nd level of the big victory hex building with my LMG squads ready to place firelanes down roads the Russians my want to cross. My mortars kicked ass the entire game until they finally fell to the Russian onslaught. Jason played a nearly perfect game with his infantry, but three times tried to place his AR in a hex where he did not have a LOS to its base level. I caught two of these and he lost the mission because of that. The third one I missed until we were well past that and it probably cost me the game. A.2. Oh well.
My mortars beat up and slowed down the Russians that tried to outflank me through the northern woods mass. I wounded their leader, broke a couple of squads, created a berserk HS and a hero. My mortar killed both the hero and berserker, while one ART gun broke another 4-5-8 squad. My HMG broke on its third shot followed by the OBA breaking the manning infantry too. I moved my LMG units well and kept Jason's infantry from getting into the town too quickly. I skulked until he moved a squad adjacent to me in one hex and his 9-1 led MMG kill stack in another adjacent hex. Instead of continuing to skulk, I tried to break them with a 4FP (+1), 6FP (+1) and a 2FP (+1) shot from another unit. Both units had no effect on the Russians and broke never to rally from the return fire. I should have skulked and I probably could have held onto one of the 3 buildings the Russian needed to control. Because of the threat of the OBA I had some units needed to protect these buildings get caught outside of the roadnet surrounding two of them. I desparately needed one or two more squads in there to slow the Russian down.
When in mid to late game, Jason placed an AR among my ART guns I failed to notice the level 2.5 building blocked his LOS. I lost one crew and another failed its 1MC while the last one pinned. The Russian along the northern edge had regrouped and charged hard into my guns. Had I had the one gun the OBA took out, I could have hurt these units pretty badly. As it was, my one remaining gun scored a KIA on a Russian with prisoners. The RS dr eliminated the prisoners with the KIA then breaking the Russian squad. Again had the dr have eliminate the Russian squad, the prisoner would have CR'ed and been able to reclaim one of the guns and man it PBF into the woods in the adjacent hexes.
As it was, I was forced to try and blitz my 8-0 leader with a HS around to retake one of the three victory buildings. I did not have much hope of these units stopping the forces converging on the guns. Somehow they passed every MC on their first turn heading for the town center, but they were cut down when they tried to cross the roadnet and failed to rally during my last turn. During the Russians last turn, he eliminated my SMC in CC to take the last VC building and eliminated my last crew in CC. During his last RPh he picked up the gun to capture the win. Despite my making several key mistakes, I had a slim shot at the end to win it. Had I played smarter, then I may have held onto one of the buildings or one of the guns. Also, having Jason draw 5 black OBA chits really hurt. When he lost two missions for not being able to see the base level, I dismissed it as a threat, but he defied all odds and kept getting black chits. Ouch!
Jason was a fine opponent and did an excellent job of committing just enough forces to the task they needed to accomplish. Early on, I though I had stuffed his northern flanking maneuver, but his 4-5-8s quickly rallied and kept coming at my low morale troops. Once my troops broke, I never could self-rally any of them. So slowly, the momentum swung to the Russians for a last turn victory.
I would readily play this scenario again as either side. The Rumanian really needs to avoid losing his concealment for as long as possible while placing firelanes to slow down the Russians. The Russian is leader poor, so I thought if a leader breaks the supporting troops should be at a disadvantage. But with 8 morale troops they do quite well on their own.
The Rumanian also needs to use his broken units to slow down the Russian advance and to make him spend time mopping the buildings up instead of moving forward. The ASL Record may show this as strongly pro Rumanian (13-3), but the Russian definitely had enough of a force to pull out the win. I would play either side with only a small preference to be the Rumanian (mainly to redeem myself.)
Chuck Payne