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bluegargantuaHey,
So it's on to scenario 2 in my ASL Starter Kit. This time it's an early encounter in the suburbs of Stalingrad and the Germans have to have control (a Good Order unit) in each of three buildings.
Complicating the German's job are the Russian soldiers who are trying to prevent that.
This scenario introduces support weapons and the Germans get a little bit of everything. Light machine guns, medium machine guns, a flame thrower and two satchel charges mean there're toys for everyone. Their assault units even get extra smoke grenades for cover and obstruction. The Russians only get a medium and two light machine guns and that's it. Their troops are shot through with conscript units that tend to screw up a bit more than regular units too. Their help comes in the form of an ad hoc reinforcement unit (with a 9-2 leader) who shows up randomly sometime after Turn 2. The Soviets are also helped by the fact that the Germans need all three buildings to win and those buildings are fairly spread out over their half of the board.
So looking over the set-up, I figure the Russians have two options: hole up in one of the victory buildings and fight to the bitter end, or spread out and try to slow down the advance of the Germans along a broad front. In either case, the ad hoc group simply lurks until the end when it needs to rush in and grab a victory objective or shore up the defense.
Holing up seemed like too much of a gamble. The Germans would just pound on me for 4-5 turns and then take over. The only good thing is that it might take so long for the Germans to break through that they wouldn't be able to fan out and cover the other objectives in time to stop the ad hoc group. But I couldn't count on it.
So I decided to try and cover a broad front and see if I could slow down the advance and whittle away the German attackers at the same time. I broke up the Russians into three groups and set them up so that their machine guns could cover a wide area. The start zones are basically separated by this street and I made sure that at least two groups could fire on any hex in most of it.
Most, but not all. The Germans have a small gap on the West side of the map. They're exposed for one hex, but after that they can pile into cover and may actually be able to push through to one of the objectives. I set up two groups on that end. One of which had a precious assault unit to make smoke to help cover the advance of the other group. It's a calculated risk, but it's probably a good one.
The other two buildings are closer to the Eastern Edge of the map and here again I found a small area where only one Russian group could fire on me. So I bulked up and put the majority of my forces in a couple of buildings across the street from it. I get to go first so one squad will open up with lots of firepower while the other moves in to try and eliminate the Russians (possibly tossing a satchel charge on them before closing in). They'll have to be quick about it -- the main Russian group with the Medium Machine gun will move up on their turn and have a good field of fire on the whole shindig.
If this works out for the Germans, the Russians are probably going to have to fall back and make a stand somewhere. Which seems to suggest I should've set up according to my initial "fortress" idea. But I suspect the real answer is somewhere in the middle. If I'd given up the Western building in exchange for spotting clusters of troops all over the Eastern edge, I would probably be doing just as well. Or maybe not, there'd always be some counter-strategy. but more of a defense in depth would probably be useful for this scenario.
On the German side, I probably should've flip-flopped the positions of the Eastern attackers. The strongest unit should've been closer to the Russian's strongest unit so if they tried to shift over to repulse my advance, they'd get a face full of flamethrower. Still, I think I've got a good set-up. I think it's mostly going to come down to how well I can fend off the reinforcements (and hope they show up real late in the game).
later
Tom
So it's on to scenario 2 in my ASL Starter Kit. This time it's an early encounter in the suburbs of Stalingrad and the Germans have to have control (a Good Order unit) in each of three buildings.
Complicating the German's job are the Russian soldiers who are trying to prevent that.
This scenario introduces support weapons and the Germans get a little bit of everything. Light machine guns, medium machine guns, a flame thrower and two satchel charges mean there're toys for everyone. Their assault units even get extra smoke grenades for cover and obstruction. The Russians only get a medium and two light machine guns and that's it. Their troops are shot through with conscript units that tend to screw up a bit more than regular units too. Their help comes in the form of an ad hoc reinforcement unit (with a 9-2 leader) who shows up randomly sometime after Turn 2. The Soviets are also helped by the fact that the Germans need all three buildings to win and those buildings are fairly spread out over their half of the board.
So looking over the set-up, I figure the Russians have two options: hole up in one of the victory buildings and fight to the bitter end, or spread out and try to slow down the advance of the Germans along a broad front. In either case, the ad hoc group simply lurks until the end when it needs to rush in and grab a victory objective or shore up the defense.
Holing up seemed like too much of a gamble. The Germans would just pound on me for 4-5 turns and then take over. The only good thing is that it might take so long for the Germans to break through that they wouldn't be able to fan out and cover the other objectives in time to stop the ad hoc group. But I couldn't count on it.
So I decided to try and cover a broad front and see if I could slow down the advance and whittle away the German attackers at the same time. I broke up the Russians into three groups and set them up so that their machine guns could cover a wide area. The start zones are basically separated by this street and I made sure that at least two groups could fire on any hex in most of it.
Most, but not all. The Germans have a small gap on the West side of the map. They're exposed for one hex, but after that they can pile into cover and may actually be able to push through to one of the objectives. I set up two groups on that end. One of which had a precious assault unit to make smoke to help cover the advance of the other group. It's a calculated risk, but it's probably a good one.
The other two buildings are closer to the Eastern Edge of the map and here again I found a small area where only one Russian group could fire on me. So I bulked up and put the majority of my forces in a couple of buildings across the street from it. I get to go first so one squad will open up with lots of firepower while the other moves in to try and eliminate the Russians (possibly tossing a satchel charge on them before closing in). They'll have to be quick about it -- the main Russian group with the Medium Machine gun will move up on their turn and have a good field of fire on the whole shindig.
If this works out for the Germans, the Russians are probably going to have to fall back and make a stand somewhere. Which seems to suggest I should've set up according to my initial "fortress" idea. But I suspect the real answer is somewhere in the middle. If I'd given up the Western building in exchange for spotting clusters of troops all over the Eastern edge, I would probably be doing just as well. Or maybe not, there'd always be some counter-strategy. but more of a defense in depth would probably be useful for this scenario.
On the German side, I probably should've flip-flopped the positions of the Eastern attackers. The strongest unit should've been closer to the Russian's strongest unit so if they tried to shift over to repulse my advance, they'd get a face full of flamethrower. Still, I think I've got a good set-up. I think it's mostly going to come down to how well I can fend off the reinforcements (and hope they show up real late in the game).
later
Tom
