J34 - Men of the Mountains

Hi all,

Last Saturday at the WaldenHouse gathering was the last BAASL meeting before Nor'Easter IV. So I was looking to practice something from the NE IV scenario list, and was matched up with Carl "Common" Fago in Men of the Mountains from the Journal #2. Carl took the Italian defense as I wanted to practice my attacking skills, or lack thereof. Now before you all accuse me of sharking (how can you shark the ex-playtest co-ordinator?), I gave Carl a choice of scenarios to defend, and he picked this intriguing one.

J34 features a dozen partisan squads attacking 8.5 Italians + a 75 Arty + a BMG armed tankette on Board 3.  The tankette starts out abandoned and must be recrewed, while the Arty piece is also unpossessed. The level 2 stone building is covered with a steeple overlay, meaning only 1 hex is at level 2, and that has the steeple stacking limitations. Turn 3 sees another platoon of partisans attacking in the Italian rear. <insert your favorite Italian joke here> The partisans win by possessing the ART, if the ART is eliminated, or if the partisans solely occupy the ART hex.

Standard Itie set-up has an 8-1/MMG/247 in the steeple.  My first instinct upon reviewing this scenario was to set-up the ART adjacent to the steeple, figuring any
partisan attempt to take it must first eliminate the steeple, difficult to do given the 2 & 3 hex range of the partisans, increased only by 3 russki LMGs. However,
Carl came up with a much more clever plan, putting the ART piece on level 1 on the hill on his right, but not at a crest line, so partisans would have to get to level
1 to gain LOS to it. Carl put the tankette adjacent to the ART, the MTR adjacent as well, a squad + leader to cover the Itie rear, an entrenched LMG/346 at level 2
on the forward hill right in the partisans' face, and the rest sprinkled about the town. I decide to attack with a DC toting 8-0 + a platoon with an LMG along the
board edge on my right, headed towards the steeple. I did not want to have too much here in case the MMG got hot, in which case they'd all be trapped near the board edge. The rest would attack on my left, including the 527s, a DC toting 9-1, and 2(?) more LMGs.

I then proceeded to dice the crap outta Carl in the early turns. I think I failed 1 MC and 2 PTCs in the first 3 turns, passing a multitude of others. Carl's dice were
ice cold, allowing me to press aggressively with little loss. Carl resorted to the time tested Itie defense on my right: clog the approaches with broken units, routing them only the bare minimum required, keeping them clogging up my advance. As my partisans broke into the village, they started taking losses, especially from the pesky mortar, and a couple breaks started to add up, in addition to the 9-1 boxcarring a MC, but surviving the wound. I got a little sloppy, and lost a melee on the forward hill, which now left an LMG/346 in my rear, and a conscript half-squad also rallied behind my lines. I stalled the advance for a turn, trying to protect a couple brokies and the wounded leader from these behind the line Italians. After all, 8 turns is plenty of time, and I had spectacular early success. I had spectacular luck by stunning the tankette with my first LMG TK attempt (Final TK = 4), and stun = recall for this Itie tin can. Thus foiling Carl's plan of parking the tankette _on_ the ART, which would force the partisans to take a PAATC to advance onto the ART.

With low FP and high TEM, CC was the plan of choice for clearing the village. I managed to CC his 8-1/LMG/346 in the village, mercilessly fired into the melee (4 times), broke all the Ities, then advanced in more partisans to mop the brokies up. The MMG was fairly quiet, only once getting rate, but breaking up some of the rear partisans, who were slow to rally. The next big break of the game was my sniper breaking the rear guard 346, which opened up the back approaches to the ART.  There was the additional beautiful moment of the wounded 9-1 throwing a DC at a conscript HS. Why? Because the 9-1 was trying to rally 2 broken squads, and the 126 would eliminate them for failure to rout. It killed the 126, but CR'd both the partisan squads. Oh well, half a squad is better than none.

Turn 7 came, and all the Ities had left were the steeple guys, the LMG/346 in my rear, a few assorted brokies, and the mortar + squad adjacent to the ART. The partisans were in good shape to swarm the ART, plus had the DC/8-0/LMG/337 upper level encircling the steeple. I placed the DC on the steeple MMG, which maintained incredible fire discipline, needing to protect the ART. Then came the swarm, where I finally understood the ART placement. Surrounded by open
ground, there was only 1 place I could AM next to it, the other hexes were subject to -4 DRMs (point blank, FFMO, FFNAM) plus whatever CA change penalty. It got very ugly, with 1 TH only needing a 5 for a CH (which turned a squad into a 24 -2 grease spot). I got desperate enough to rush in a 127 guarding a prisoner, which should've been a fatal mistake, as I was broken and elim'd for failure to rout, re-arming an Itie conscript HS, which promptly joined the gun defense. I did successfully tie up the MTR in melee and broke and elim'd for FTR the steeple guys.

Turn 8 and it looks like my partisans have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I had no one adjacent to the ART and only a couple unbroken squads (one of which couldn't reach the ART), but a couple decent chances to rally. Now comes the swarm, Part II. There was a little more AM'ing possible this time, and I got a leader and a squad adjacent to the gun, plus another leader + squad PIN'd adjacent to the gun. The MTR melee still held, and I engaged the rear LMG/346 in melee with the wounded 9-1! Carl wisely held off IF'ing the ART, which would turn the B11 into an X11, a 1 in 12 chance of losing the scenario immediately. I went
into melee, 8-1/337 vs 126 (D'Oh! - the rearmed prisoner) and 227. I went 2-1 vs the crew and KIA'd it, while the Ities missed.

Last half turn was the quickest ever played. Carl tried to rally a DM conscript HS, needed a snakes, rolled a 3.  "Prep?" "None." "Move?" "None." "DFire?" <small pause to decide whether to fire into the melee> "None."  "Advancing Fire?" "None." "Rout?" "None." "Advance?"  "None." OK, time for the CC Phase, I have to win a 4-1 (9 or less) and avoid losing a 1-4 (snakes, because a CR wouldn't elim all partisans). I won the melee and the scenario. Whew! 4 Journal #2 scenarios were played at the WaldenHouse that day, and 3 came down to the last CCPh!

Carl was very gracious in defeat, especially because he really deserved to win the scenario. He was completely diced, I made plenty of errors (like leaving units in
my rear and generously giving him another HS via rearmed prisoner at the end), and still took home an undeserved win.  But I will take the undeserved win and rub it in Walden's face, especially since he took yet _another_ loss on Saturday. :-)

Overall, despite the early dodginess of the ROAR numbers (now 7-3 pro-partisan, statistically insignificant, I know), and the demented bleatings from Dr. Rob that it is unwinnable by the Italians, I think this a pretty even scenario. Post-game, Carl & I talked over alternate gun placements and found one even more evil than the one he selected, so this may even be a little pro-Italian. But, this is a worthy scenario for the Nor'Easter list, fitting nicely into the tourney time slots.

3-0 with Partisans and Chinese in 2000,
Mike