TraceyLL
United States
Parker
Colorado
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Turn 2.
Here we are again. I've been looking forward all day today to getting back to this. Too bad we have to go to work just to pay stupid bills and the mortgage.
Note to self: Regarding input from fellow players on Turn 1 AAR, Pay attention to hit markers and their respective sides. Also, move the Pawn at time of Initiative payment, DO NOT play catch up after the fact.
Begin Turn 2 Sequence: Russian sniper misses his shot. One German and 2 Russian Command Tokens are flipped to their Tactical side. Reseed the Orders Matrix. I rolled both the D10 at the same time since I'm playing solo.
Russians pay 4 to Rally.
T34 activates for 2 initiative and rolls an 18! Unconfirmed Kill Marker is removed.
Maxim MG activates for 1 initiative but fails to Rally
Rifle Platoon activates for 1 initiative, gain 1D for cover and 1D for being with Command Token, so rolls recovery on a 1d20. Easily made.
Rifle Squad activates for 1 initiative, gains 1D for cover, rolls recovery on 1d12, which is also made.
End of Order
Pawn on the German 7
Germans pay 2 for a Fire Order
Stug fires at T34 Platoon in the open, being out of Command, it pays 2 Initiative and uses Smoke Screen Asset card to fire APCR. 35 AT vs 36 DT. Just missed.
I was going to fire at the T34 on the east edge of the map thats in column when I realized the shot would be blocked, so last turn when the T34 Assault moved and fired was invalid. Be sure to check your fire lanes. If a piece of forest or and edge of building gets in the way, you can not take the shot.
Pioneers activate for 1 initiative, firing into melee, gaining a +1D for being a Platoon and another +1D for being Pioneers. This is going to hurt! BARELY! 11 total is rolled, they needed a 9. 1 Rifle squad Shaken.
Grenadiers also activate for 1 initiative, firing into same melee, gaining +1D for being a Platoon, 2d12 rolled, netting a 12 where 11 is needed. Other Rifle squad is also Shaken.
End of Order
Pawn on the German 1
[ImageID=1172347mediun]
Germans pay 5 to Assault
Stug in the NE activates for 0 initiative after Mission Command Token placed with Grenadiers 2 hex's away. Moving south 1 hex, it draws Op-fire from the in-column T34, paying 1 initiative, missing and becoming spent. Stug advances 1 more hex and fires APCR, using up the Heavy AT Rifle asset card. 2d10 - 1D for firing while in Assault move +6 for APCR range of 3. 34 AT vs the T34 which has +4 cover (building), which ends up with DT 35. Another near miss.
Grenadiers and MG move south 1 hex each, paying 1 initiative each.
Second Stug moves with all T34s taking Op-fires at it, paying 2 initiative each, with all 3 missing and becoming spent. Stug fires at T34 Platoon, 38 AT vs 33 DT. T34 Platoon is hit, becoming immobilized.
End of Order
Pawn on the German 1
Germans pay 5 to Assault (again)
Stugs activate, 1 at 0 Initiative, 1 at 2 Initiative. MG and Grenadier activates for 1 Initiative each.
Stug fires again at immobilized Platoon of T34s. 31 AT (2d8 for assault firing) vs 36 DT. Missed again. Immobilized T34's return the favor in Op-fire, +2 initiative: 39 AT vs 35. T34's hit the Stug Platoon, making them Immobilized as well. The 2 T34 squads both op-fire, miss and become spent, wasting +4 initiative.
The Stug in the NE rotates - drawing op-fire that misses +1 initiative for T34, moves 1 hex closer to the in-column T34 Platoon, which fires again at another +1 Initiative, this time hitting. Stugs draw Unconfirmed Kill!
Grenadier now move in Assault formation, closing in on the 2nd house with Russian Riflemen. Paying +1 initiative, gaining a +1D short range fire bonus, the Russian op-fire, 35 AT to 28DT. Grenadier draw a suppressed marker and can no longer fire. Rifle Platoon in the next house over pay +1 Initiative to Op-fire, but miss.
MG unit crosses south over the wall.
End of Order
Pawn on Russian 3 (going back over this, it should be on German 2. I'm missing the initiative moves from Op-fires apparently. The thick of battle and all that;-) )
Russians pay 5 (Sniper) for a Fire Order
T34 in-column fires and misses, paying 1 initiative for the privilege
Immobilized T34 pays 2 initiative to miss.
Both T34 Squads pay 2 initiative each to miss
Rifle Platoon pays 1 initiative, gaining a +1D close range bonus, hitting the Suppressed Grenadier Platoon, eliminating it. Second Rifle Platoon also pays 1 initiative to fire at the now two squads of Grenadiers, hitting both of them, which eliminates the suppressed squad and pins the other.
Shaken Rifle Squad in Melee fires, hits Grenadier Platoon, which becomes broken.
2nd Shaken Rifle Squad in Melee fires, hitting the Grenadier Platoon again, eliminating it.
Stay away from Shakey Russian troops I guess.
Expensive Fire Order, with a total of 16 initiative points used up, but the Russians finally did some decent damage. And, for those who didn't realize like I just did, the Germans never took the opportunity to Return Fire!
End of Order
Pawn on German 13
Germans pay 9 for Regimental Support - drawing Counter Battery and Stuka Dive Bomber.
End of Order
Pawn on German 4
Germans pay 1 for Asset
Stuka Dive Bomber
Air support is already flipped to the Germans, so they get 2 Aircraft Barrages.
The Immobilized T34 Platoon would be choice, but is out of LOS, but the Rifle Platoon in the building next to them is not. A 12 is rolled, which places the bombardment in the middle of the forest, with a semi-circle of Russians around it. The Broken Maxim MG is the only piece not under cover, so they are a natural choice. A 10 is needed to hit them and a 14 is rolled. MG Platoon eliminated to 2 squads, one retaining the Broken marker.
2nd Stuka attack - aiming for the Maxim MG squads which are also in LOS - a 2 is rolled, placing the marker right over the two T34 squads. A 20 is needed to hit, and a 30 and 21 are rolled. Both T34 squads are rattled.
End of Order
Pawn on German 3
Germans pay 6 (Advance) for a Fire Order
Pioneers and Grenadiers each pay 1 Initiative to fire in Melee. Pioneers receive a +1D for Platoon and +1D for Pioneers, rolling a 2d20. A 9 needed to hit the Shaken Rifle Squad, a 17 is rolled. Rifle squad eliminated. Grenadier Platoon receives a +1D for Platoon, rolling a 2d12. An 11 needed, and an 11 is rolled. Second Shaken Rifle squad is eliminated. Germans gain sole control of building hex.
Immobilized Stug fires (paying 2 out of command initiative) at immobilized T34 Platoon, using Counter Battery asset card for APCR of +6. 38 AT vs 33 DT. Immobilized T34 Platoon is hit, resulting in two T34 squads, one retaining the immobilized marker.
Pinned Grenadier Squad pays 1 initiative to fire at Rifle platoon in adjacent building, which gives a +4 cover bonus to the Russians while the Grenadiers gain a +1D Close Range bonus. 29 AT vs 26. A hit! Rifle Platoon is also Pinned down.
End of Order
Pawn on Russian 5 (Should be on Russian 8)
Russians pay 6 (Advance) and order a Rally
All 3 T34s with hit markers activate to rally. 1 fails, staying rattled, 1 passes, becoming unrattled, and the immobilized squad fails, but the Russian gives up the Fate card to reroll, only to fail the reroll. T34 squad is eliminated. Maxim MG rallies, as does the pinned Rifle Platoon, with a +1D cover bonus.
A total of 14 initiative points were used in this Rally attempt. Don't ask me how I back on track.
End of Order
Pawn on the German 6
Germans pay 1 for Asset Order with no Assets to use
End of Order
End of Turn
Pawn on German 5
This battle is definitely see-sawing back and forth. I really need to find a way to remember to Return fire. Op-fire is obviously easier to remember. If it moves, shoot it! Also, I need to pay even closer attention to moving the initiative Pawn. I get so involved in the battle scene that that part of the sequence gets forgotten for a short time. Hopefully thru more play this will resolve itself and become easier to remember. Probably won't be able to continue this AAR until Saturday. Thursdays and Fridays are long workdays for me. Again, hope you all enjoy this 2nd installment of my learning to teach myself AAR and look forward to all critiques and suggestions you may have.
Best Regards,
Tankboy
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TankBoy wrote:
I really need to find a way to remember to Return fire. Op-fire is obviously easier to remember. If it moves, shoot it!
If it shoots, shoot it! 
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Sean McCormick
United States
Brooklyn
New York
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You may want to re-think those rally attempts on your immobilized tanks. They can still act as a gun platform (provided they are facing in the direction of the threat and/or have loose arcs of fire), while the odds are good that your rally attempt will fail, leaving you with nothing.
Definitely don't want to forget return fire, especially as the Germans. It's an important way to establish fire superiority cheaply, so long as you fire units in mission command.
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TraceyLL
United States
Parker
Colorado
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Good one Tycho. I made myself a nice reminder, which I'll post a picture of here tonight after I get home from work. Thanks for the tip Sean. I didn't consider how hard Rally attempts would be, even though I should have with playing Panzer Grenadier these past few years. I'm extremely impressed with this first "Teaching" Scenario. Even though I'm making a fair bit of mistakes as I play thru it, I'm learning (I hope) thru making those mistakes. (except for moving that Pawn, which is now mocking me
 )
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Sean McCormick
United States
Brooklyn
New York
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TankBoy wrote: Good one Tycho. I made myself a nice reminder, which I'll post a picture of here tonight after I get home from work. Thanks for the tip Sean. I didn't consider how hard Rally attempts would be, even though I should have with playing Panzer Grenadier these past few years. I'm extremely impressed with this first "Teaching" Scenario. Even though I'm making a fair bit of mistakes as I play thru it, I'm learning (I hope) thru making those mistakes. (except for moving that Pawn, which is now mocking me )
Yeah, the teaching scenario may actually be the best one in the playbook. Scenario 1 is a dog, as it is more or less impossible for the Soviets to win, and I think the orders/matrix system breaks down somewhat when you are looking at a big battle, as you have to give uniform orders across a large map even when the situations are quite different in different sections. But in a small scenario like Scenario 0, it works very well.
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It's just a ride
England
Bury St Edmunds
Suffolk
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seanmac wrote: Scenario 1 is a dog, as it is more or less impossible for the Soviets to win
I've won this one as the soviets on a couple of occasions.
seanmac wrote: and I think the orders/matrix system breaks down somewhat when you are looking at a big battle, as you have to give uniform orders across a large map even when the situations are quite different in different sections.
I agree with this to a certain extent, although I think the larger scenarios are just within the playable size limit. Any bigger though, and that would certainly become a problem.
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Sean McCormick
United States
Brooklyn
New York
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Shauneroo wrote: seanmac wrote: Scenario 1 is a dog, as it is more or less impossible for the Soviets to win I've won this one as the soviets on a couple of occasions.
Wow, I would love to know how. Even if you did manage the trick, I still don't like how the scenario works. The Russians kill everything that moves for one turn with the Germans unable to do anything, and then the Germans turn around and kill everything that moves for the rest of the game.
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Igor Kwiatkowski
Poland
Warszawa
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I have rarely seen the Germans even come close to winning. The Russians take the two village objectives on the first order, and then even if the German throws the kitchen sink at them there is simply too many of them to clear the hexes in four turns.
Admittedly I won as the Germans once, but then it was against a complete newbie. How do you guys do this? Which objective do you attack and with which units?
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It's just a ride
England
Bury St Edmunds
Suffolk
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seanmac wrote: Shauneroo wrote: seanmac wrote: Scenario 1 is a dog, as it is more or less impossible for the Soviets to win I've won this one as the soviets on a couple of occasions. Wow, I would love to know how. Even if you did manage the trick, I still don't like how the scenario works. The Russians kill everything that moves for one turn with the Germans unable to do anything, and then the Germans turn around and kill everything that moves for the rest of the game.
I admit it's not my favourite scenario. The first turn is not fun when playing the Germans.
When I won as the Russians, I seem to recall I set the Russian tanks up to cover the potential German entry points as best I could, and twatted them with APCR when they arrived.
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Jeff Kuhn
United States
Garner
North Carolina
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I think it is pretty well balanced. My opponent decided to park his StuG hull down behind the wall on turn 1. It pretty much commanded the objective hexes (which the Russians had indeed occupied) and the adjacent field. Given the short command radius and open ground, it was really difficult to get close enough to effectively engage the StuG, and the T34's are pretty useless against it at range unless they can maneuver it into a flank shot. After the StuG softened up the Rifle squads for a bit, the ground troops went in and just about pushed the Russians out. It was very close. So the Russians won, but really I could have seen it going either way.
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Jeff Kuhn
United States
Garner
North Carolina
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TankBoy wrote: Russians pay 5 (Sniper) for a Fire Order
T34 in-column fires and misses, paying 1 initiative for the privilege
Immobilized T34 pays 2 initiative to miss.
Both T34 Squads pay 2 initiative each to miss
Oh, I wanted to also point out that all of your initiative costs recorded for the T-34s are likely wrong. Being radioless vehicles, they cost double initiative. I could be misinterpreting, but from what I can tell in your write up and the pictures, many of the shots are OOC shots which should have cost you 4 initiative apiece.
The above should have been 2-4-4 instead of 1-2-2
But of course, I made some of the same mistakes, so don't feel bad! 
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Mark Buetow
United States
Du Quoin
Illinois
Best game company ever?
GMT Games, of course!
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Xookliba wrote: Oh, I wanted to also point out that all of your initiative costs recorded for the T-34s are likely wrong. Being radioless vehicles, they cost double initiative. I could be misinterpreting, but from what I can tell in your write up and the pictures, many of the shots are OOC shots which should have cost you 4 initiative apiece. The above should have been 2-4-4 instead of 1-2-2 But of course, I made some of the same mistakes, so don't feel bad!
Speaking of mistakes...
Radioless vehicles are only double initiative for Moving and (I think, not in front of me) Assaulting. The orders so affected are marked on the Order Matrix with the circle-R symbol.
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Jeff Kuhn
United States
Garner
North Carolina
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Oops you're right! Well, I guess that I did not make as many mistakes as I thought!
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Igor Kwiatkowski
Poland
Warszawa
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Xookliba wrote: I think it is pretty well balanced. My opponent decided to park his StuG hull down behind the wall on turn 1. It pretty much commanded the objective hexes (which the Russians had indeed occupied) and the adjacent field. Given the short command radius and open ground, it was really difficult to get close enough to effectively engage the StuG, and the T34's are pretty useless against it at range unless they can maneuver it into a flank shot. After the StuG softened up the Rifle squads for a bit, the ground troops went in and just about pushed the Russians out. It was very close. So the Russians won, but really I could have seen it going either way.
Parking the StuG behind the wall is what I usually do. It's just that its HE FP is about the same as Grenadiers' and worse than the Pioneers' (if I remember correctly), so it doesn't do much damage.
Killing the StuG, or losing the T-34s doesn't help or hurt the Russians at all, or barely. This scenario is won and lost by the infantry, because objective hexes are either impassable to vehicles or in buildings on roads, so that they have to enter in column and are easy target for enemy infantry.
I've played the scenario five times probably and the only German win I saw was by me (a somewhat experienced player) against a total newbie, and even that was very close. I am willing to admit I am not a very strong player - what I usually did after the Russians took the two village hexes was just blasting away at them, but as I said there is just not enough time to clear them by ranged fire, and melee takes more orders and opens you up to getting meleed yourself - it's not likely you will be able to pull Advance and then Fire without the enemy reacting in between. I should probably try going after the other objectives, but they all seem as hard or even harder to get.
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TraceyLL
United States
Parker
Colorado
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Quote:
Radioless vehicles are only double initiative for Moving and (I think, not in front of me) Assaulting. The orders so affected are marked on the Order Matrix with the circle-R symbol.
SWEET! I got it right the first time around.
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Chadwik
United States
Santa Rosa
California
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
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Quote: It's just that its HE FP is about the same as Grenadiers' and worse than the Pioneers' (if I remember correctly), so it doesn't do much damage.
Yes, but there's one important distinction: Soviet infantry can return fire on those Grenadiers/Pioniers, possibly causing harm; not so with regard to the armored StuGs.
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Jeff Kuhn
United States
Garner
North Carolina
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waffel wrote: Parking the StuG behind the wall is what I usually do. It's just that its HE FP is about the same as Grenadiers' and worse than the Pioneers' (if I remember correctly), so it doesn't do much damage.
Killing the StuG, or losing the T-34s doesn't help or hurt the Russians at all, or barely.
This hasn't been my experience at all. As you said, the StuG is not really any worse against inf. than your other units. But there aren't really many pieces of the board which are effective against it. So, pretty much you can operate without too much fear of reprisals, that's pretty huge. Plus, you don't need massive damage, all you need is to put a hit marker on a unit. Their impact is independent of the FP of the attack.
In my experience, when I see (or when I am tempted to say) a statement such as: "such and such a scenario is un-winnable by one side/severely unbalanced", it usually turns out to be some bias in the way somebody is looking at something. Balance usually comes out in playtesting, and especially in this case, Chad is pretty darn good about that aspect.
EDIT: dangit Chad beat me to what I was going to say!!!
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Igor Kwiatkowski
Poland
Warszawa
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I'm doing my best to stay humble as I know I'm not a strong player (I often get pummeled at this and many other games), and I never said the scenario was unbalanced. I honestly seek advice on German strategy. So exactly what do you do when the Russians take the village? I usually press with the Grenadiers and the Pioneers aggressively, the StuG parks at the wall and the LMG stays in the woods near where they start - they have the village in LOS and range with Hindrance 2 from the Rough. I usually press along the road and the buildings - going throught the woods never did me any good. I also totally neglect the tank stand-off on the far side of the battle - it's too expensive to put a Command marker there, and it's too expensive to activate the tank to fire out of command. Or isn't it? I tried it (placing a command marker there) and it didn't pay off. Is there a trick to it?
If the StuG platoon tries to get aggressive it can easily get caught between two T-34s and dies, but when it stays behind the wall it has very little impact - just one more shot at low odds (I think its HE FP is lower than Russian morale with building cover).
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TraceyLL
United States
Parker
Colorado
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Here we are. Why use a rock hammer when a 10lb maul does the job quicker
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Chadwik
United States
Santa Rosa
California
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
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A fine player aid!
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Post it in the gallery !
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Sean McCormick
United States
Brooklyn
New York
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waffel wrote: I'm doing my best to stay humble as I know I'm not a strong player (I often get pummeled at this and many other games), and I never said the scenario was unbalanced. I honestly seek advice on German strategy. So exactly what do you do when the Russians take the village? I usually press with the Grenadiers and the Pioneers aggressively, the StuG parks at the wall and the LMG stays in the woods near where they start - they have the village in LOS and range with Hindrance 2 from the Rough. I usually press along the road and the buildings - going throught the woods never did me any good. I also totally neglect the tank stand-off on the far side of the battle - it's too expensive to put a Command marker there, and it's too expensive to activate the tank to fire out of command. Or isn't it? I tried it (placing a command marker there) and it didn't pay off. Is there a trick to it?
If the StuG platoon tries to get aggressive it can easily get caught between two T-34s and dies, but when it stays behind the wall it has very little impact - just one more shot at low odds (I think its HE FP is lower than Russian morale with building cover).
My strategy with the Germans is to systematically concentrate fire on one building at a time, preferably from just beyond Russian range. If the Russians send their armor to the eastern part of the board or do not commit aggressively, you can use the Stug to roll up right next to the infantry and start pumping away with D12s, knowing it is invulnerable. Otherwise, you use the Stug to keep off the T34s and make the block reduction an infantry-only affair. With their firepower superiority, I tend to find that the Germans can cut through the Russians like a hot knife through butter.
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