To The Last Round

Hi all,

My occasional FTF opponent Andrew Robin and I played "To the Last Round" out of Critical Hit's "Hell's Bridgehead" set last weekend. I had the Germans and Andrew took the Russians. In this scenario, the Germans defend with a mixture of guns, tanks, OBA, and infantry against a wave of Russian tanks and infantry. The goal for the Russians is to take any three TVP locations, or a collection of buildings. The scenario uses the whole map, which features: substantial elevation changes; *large* patches of woods, brush, and grain; several up-slope areas to see across the hindrances; and a deep valley with village. Very interesting terrain, allowing for up-close battles as well as long range duels.

Germans have a bunch of 658s, a couple of 838s, a collection of SW (HMG, 2 MMGs, DCs, FT, etc), a 75L ATG, an 88L FlaK, 2 PzIVHs, one PzIIIL, a SPW 251/sMG, and OBA. The Germans also have fortifications such as 36AP mine factors, and quite a few wire and trench counters. They also can HIP one squad with SW/SMC. Russians get 5 T34s, 2 T70s, a mass of squads (including 447, 458, and 628), 2 76L ART, several good SW (DCs, FT, .50cal), and OBA with a pre-reg hex.

I set up strong in the center woods, with most of my infantry and the SPW 251/sMG. This center woods is the key to the battle, as troops on the crest line can see across pretty much the whole map and thus cover the approaches that the Russian need to use. The 88L went in the orchard toward the southwest corner. This upslope position gave it command of the entire Russian setup area as well as most of the approaches toward the vicotry locations. In the upper right woods was my 75L, the OBA observer (both HIP), and a squad and a half manning LMG and MMG. In the extreme upper right hand corner in the grainfield were my three tanks, concealed. Since the Russians get the opening move, and have the 2 76L guns, the German tanks need to be out of LOS of the Russian setup area or they will get pasted on Turn 1.

With all this on the map and setup areas not too far from each other, this one got nasty fast. Andrew plopped smoke on the likely setup area for some of my HIP stuff...the northeast woods area. He effectively blinded my HIP 75L gun and my OBA observer who was HIP with a field phone. Then he boldly moved into the central woods where I had most of my force. I set up one squad too far forward and it was frozen by a T-70, then surrounded and eliminated. Andrew moved the other T70 into bypass of another 658 on the woods edge to freeze him, but I rolled up an ATMM and knocked it out. This forced Andrew to move another tank (T34) into that location to freeze the guy. 

And then things really went south for me.

Andrew drove the other 4 T-34s straight into his smoke concentration on the top of the map. Time to un-HIP the 88L, I say, for a long range shot at an unsuspecting T-34. I needed a 5 to hit, but that was my APCR number so I figured I'd take the shot. If I hit, the T-34 would be dead. If I "missed", there would be not shot and I could save the 88 to shoot at his infantry as it moved across open ground to get to the central woods. My to-hit roll came up boxcars! 88L is out of the game on its first shot. Andrew thus moves his T-34s unhindered into his smoke OBA, but unwittingly parked one of them out of the smoke, and 2 hexes away from my HIP 75L in the woods at the top of the map. My gun immobilized the tank and forced the crew to bail out. As he moved his infantry up, one of my PzIVHs took a long range MA shot at some squads moving in the open. Another boxcars. So I lost about 50% of my AT weapons in the first player turn, in the first 5 DRs I made! Since I needed the AT power of the MA, I tried repairing but it came up 6 for the recall...

As the smoke cleared from the turn-1 OBA mission, Andrew was still working his way through the ridge line in the central woods. Thus, my still-HIP OBA observer had loads of juicy targets sitting in airburst terrain. Phone contact roll: boxcars. This would be a theme in the scenario.

The remainder of the scenario turned into a very sharp battle for my trenches in the central woods. This was very nasty, with several CCs and quite a few KIA rolls...I took several 30FP(-1) poinblank shots, which  altogether KIAd three elite squads and a leader. But being outnumbered, Andrew steadily pushed me back.

There were also some cat-and-mouse tank battles in the open areas to the northeast of the woods. The 75L managed to knock out two T34s before succumbing to one of the 76L ART pieces. My two remaining tanks knocked out a T34 and a T70 before getting blown up by Russian ART and T34 fire. 

Eventually, I shifted men out of the river valley toward the central woods, where all the action was. Andrew moved a couple of squads and a T-34 down (across the front of my malfed 88L, with the crew reduced to being able to do nothing but shout insults) to block them and sweep into the town in the valley. The only two squads left defending the valley broke under an overrun from the T-34. So I had to move the squads that were heading toward the central woods BACK down the valley. Also, the 88L finally repaired (Turn 5, after malfing on the  opening player turn) and popped the T34 that had overrun my squads.

But by then (Turn 5 of 8) I was out of tanks, the 88L was no longer relevant since it didn't have LOS to anything, the 75L was dead, and I was down to less than 5 squads. Andrew still had quite a few squads, one tank, both 76L ARTs, and was in control of the three victory locations that he needed.

I lost through attrition, as we both agreed that I had played a decent positional/tactical game. I just lost too much stuff, and a significant portion of those losses came through my awful dice.

<WHINE MODE>

Several weapons went out of commission due to boxcars: the 88L went out early and was a nonfactor for the key portion of the scenario; the OBA went away on the first contact roll; one of my two PzIVs was gone in turn 1; one boxcar morale check on a MMG/HS eliminated him (a key unit in the defense of the northeast woods); two other boxcar morale checks reduced two squads in the central woods; two boxcar rally rolls on two squads reduced them; In two *BACK to BACK* rally phases, boxcar self rally rolls first wounded my 9-1, then killed him; two boxcars on IFT attacks broke a LMG and a MMG. 

After rolling 2 boxcars in the first 5 DRs of the game, I decided to keep track of my rolls (something I never normally do). I have now decided to retire the dice I used. I made 123 DRs in the game, and 12 of them were boxcars. 10 percent! Statistically, I should have rolled 3, maybe 4, so I rolled 3.5 times "too many". Anybody else have this happen in a game with so many DRs...you can get freak swings in small scenarios, but to be so far off with so many DRs is really bad.

</WHINE MODE>

Andrew did have a small amount of bad luck, but not enough to really cause him trouble though. A lucky sniper attack took out his stack of a leader and two squads manning the .50cal and a MMG. 

And there was this: Best "good luck then back luck" event of the scenario:

Andrew in one rally phase in the same location rolled two snakes to battle harden two 628s to fanatic. The next rally phase, that same leader rallied a 458 with HOB for another fanatic. That was amazing. Then those 9ML baddies with their hero-of-the-Soviet-Union leader moved out to assault my trenches with DCs and FTs. They moved in adjacent to a 9-1/HMG/658stack and ate a 24FP(-1) attack. I guess Andrew figured that an average roll of 7 would produce a 4MC, something that at least one of the super-squads would probably survive. Or just break and soak up DFF and be adjacent preventing longer-range subsequent first fire. But I rolled a 3 and zapped the whole stack. ;-)

So, although I myself took out half my firepower, I was still able to last until turn 5, knock out 6 of 7 tanks, and stall his infantry attack in the central woods. Had several key weapons not conked out all at once, I think the scenario would have gone right down to the wire.

The map is great. It offers both some terrain for point-blank battles in the village or the central woods as well as for some long range tank dueling. In any one fire phase we would take a few pointblank IFT shots, then launch some shells at a tank 25 hexes away.

Playing this one makes me very interested to play the rest, and the CGs look interesting too.

Mike