Victory Conditions

The Americans had to take all 3 VC buildings in 8 turns (those marked with a ‘V’).  They had 2 Shermans, 4 Stuarts and one module of 100mm OBA.  They had a 10-2 armor leader who could pop out and turn into a Hero radio guy and Gyros in every tank.  The Germans had a Dug-In Panther which started HIP, 2 Pz IV that came in on Turn 4, a 75L AT and a 80mm OBA.

Let me state up front that I made a mistake in my setup.  The 10-2 armor leader could only be placed in a Stuart, which, had I noticed, made for a deadly combination with its gyro & 17 MP.  Unfortunately I didn’t notice.  I had the 10-2 in a Sherman and when we realised the error, allocated the 10-2 to a dead Stuart.

It’s HORRIBLE.  Which other scenario gives you a zippy gyro Stuart with a 10-2 that can stick his head out most of the time?

After Action Report

We smoked the streets like there’s no tomorrow.  We also made some bold moves that teased out the Dug In Panther.  We moved across the street largely intact.  The Stuarts kept beyond the 2 hex PF range but stayed with in 3 to threaten Cannister shots.  We wanted to provoke some German reaction so our OBA had targets to zero in on.  The 75L AT Gun hadn’t made it on board yet, but we expected it down the aisle on the left.  Our Sniper helped out by taking out the MMG squad who ruled a diagonal street.  We would have to smoke the Panther, who ruled the other diagonal.

The German OBA landed on our right flank!  Not much damage apart from a slew of broken American units which would come back quick.  We continued to push down our right edge (screen left), which didn’t offer much response.  We wanted to hit the left VC building from the flank and not having to push down slowly from the top.  Plus we wanted to see that 75L AT.

We repositioned some units towards a push to the middle VC building though.  Meanwhile the Germans on our left flank had retreated to the second line.  Similarly, we would have to find a flank to hit the right VC building with.

A major disaster came upon the Americans in the form of a Mild Breeze blowing from the bottom of the map to the top!  We could no longer use our smoke (or WP) grenades forward.  Our guys had to risk units Assault Moving into open streets.  A 747 Assault Engineer got K/ on our left when doing that.  German OBA came crashing down on the guys in the middle.  A Stuart ended up in flames and a stack of Leader+Hero+Squad got killed & broken.  A FT HS nonetheless pushed to the flank of the middle VC building to keep them engaged.  Our push up our right flank was more successful, along with a Stuart.  We still expect an AT down Column EE, we just want to get our infantry close to it.  The shreck’s probably somewhere around here …

The guys on our left flank (picture right) is now trying hard to get a toehold into the second line of German defensive buildings!  We crept forward into the Debris on the flank of the right VC building in the hopes of not having to push slowly through piles of rubble.  We finally got our SR down on the middle VC building.  This was after that radio malf’d and got fixed!  There were a ton of concealed units in that building but we had the Black chits to risk the extra draw.  The troops in the meantime was trying to rally into some sort of fighting force again.  Our right flank (picture left) was doing the best.  There’s the full frontal slow push towards the left VC building.  We were also good headway down our extreme right.  The Shreck team decided to run back into the left VC building good thing we got them pinned on the street.

We decided it’s time to hit the left VC building!  The 10-2 DeathStar in FF13 broke the German MMG team.  Our squads rushed the left VC building!  Our intrepid Stuart crossed the street and sure enough, the 75L AT appeared where we expected it to be.  We managed to duck in behind the VC building but the darned German squad managed to fish out a PF and burned it!  We would have to rely on a bazooka to keep our right flank Panzer-free.  We broke the Shreck team in the street though.  We got a Sherman between the left and the middle VC building, just to keep that lane Panzer-free as well.A 9-1 MMG team managed to ripped us up badly as well.  We finally got a grip on the second line of defensive buildings on our left (picture right).  It seemed like our tanks would have to brave the Debris to help people move down the flank of that right VC building.  American OBA came down on our own folks as we struggled to bring to play.

The truth is, the OBA had little ‘real’ effect on the Germans as they get +3 or +4 cover in those stone buildings.  Perhaps I should smoke the Dug-in Panther instead but I hope that the OBA would at least unconceal some of the defenders in the middle VC building.  I was about to make a BAD mistake on screen right through.  Instead of moving the 9-1 Death Star sideways for better shooting angles (and continue to melt away the defenders).  I rushed them forward into enemy gun range and those guys got seriously shot up!  In the meantime, the Pz IVs arrived on scene.  The AT gun crew Advanced out and recovered the Shreck.  We pushed those Germans down the map.  We would have to keep these folks occupied.  We were now flanking the middle VC building.

See those drifting smoke?  The Mild Breeze was still on, preventing us from using Smoke Grenades forward and generally making a mess of things.

Yup, the bad mistake was made on screen right.  We lost the power to melt the defenders away.  The survivors routed back while a squad rushed to recover the HMG.  We had to send some management types towards that side of the map.  Those AFVs now risk bogging in the Debris to help flank the right VC building. A WP round in the middle building still didn’t do much damage.  We rushed guys towards it.  On screen left, the Germans routed across the street, we had to keep enough squads nearby to keep them there.  Those PSK guys were firing off rockets from the street!  Meanwhile our guys on the extreme left struggled to pull themselves together.

On of the Pz IVs appeared from behind the middle VC building!  Our Stuart went into motion immediately.  That WP OBA didn’t do much apart from keeping all the defenders covered (and give them a Hero).  We would have to crowd the middle VC building quickly and get rid of that nonsense.  The German OBA was done a little while back and we could see the artillery observer leader rushing from the bottom right to the left to rally defenders around the AT Gun.  Meanwhile a 8-0 was busy giving motivational talks on screen right to get that attack going again!

Things got especially busy on screen right as the lone 8-0 was frantically turning broken units back into the fight.  The tanks were helping some, a WP CH killed a 548, a clear case of smoking being hazardous to your health.  We were squeezing the Germans towards the back of the house but not quick enough.  Germans were stacking higher and higher into less hexes in the middle VC building but they were still holding on, even as more Americans crossed from the left VC building.  We tried shooting at the German 8-0 trying to cross into the left but nobody could hit the little bugger. On screen left, we tried to allocate just enough troops to top a German counterattack.  It’s getting worrying as the crew who retrieved the PSK tried to fix the AT Gun.  Meanwhile a smoke round from the PzIV stopped us from being able to re-DM the broken Germans behind the AT Gun.

We were now rounding the back of the middle VC building.  One of the Pz IV drove itself INTO it to give us more to deal with.  Germans on the left are rallying on screen left but thank God they hadn’t fix that AT Gun yet.  The Sherman kept shooting at the middle VC building when it should just rammed itself into the last hexes where Germans were crowding.  We were failing to increase our contact area with the enemy!  On screen right, we continued to eat away at the defenders.  A smoke mortar round from the Sherman and a smoke grenade from the Stuart helped it back off from another Pz IV.  Though, trying to put a Cannister round into the middle VC, it malfunctioned its gun.

A Stuart finally woke up to doing what a Stuart does!  It ran from the right, around the middle VC building and send a shot to the back of that Pz IV in the building while on the move (light grey arrows).  It missed by ONE!  That sure made me miss that 10-2 armor leader.  That is what I should have done with Stuarts (and the 10-2 armor leader and Gyro) from the start.  Meanwhile that building seemed to be catching fire rapidly.  A sapper tried to place their DC to one of the German stacks and was shot.  An 8-0 came by, grabbed the DC from the quivering troops and tried to place it, and even he got pinned!  No more help was coming from the Artillery since they seemed to have hung up.  There would be no German counter attack from the left.

The other Pz IV crashed into the right VC and promptly crashed into the cellar.  The US AFVs tried their luck too often and were stuck in the Debris, though they were in good positions.

On the right, we made it to the back of the VC building!!  Hellish firepower poured towards the remaining Germans.  We couldn’t kill them all at the end and we didn’t put a unit on Level 1 to prevent their rout (another lesson here).  In the middle, the Pz IV burned the marauding Stuart.  That Pz IV was in turn killed by an MMG at Point Blank range.  The 10-2 stack wiped out the Pz IV hex but we couldn’t get to the W12 hex and hence we couldn’t fulfil the VC requirement.

The mild breeze kept blowing.