The Last Bid

[fuselex]

German normal difficulty .
Very hard is a bit out of my league
End of turn 8.

Night is just about to fall on Stalingrad .
1 factory has fallen , the second I feel is not far behind.
Maybe we have finally broken the Russian Bear`s back .
We send squads out into no mans land before nightfall to warn us of any approaching attacks .
How many will return?
The horrors of combat are only compounded by darkness.
Maybe if we hold this night we will finally reach the Volga.
The engineers have cleared most of the factories , their courage can never be questioned.
The AFV`s have been of limited use due to the terrain , but hopefully some have finally moved into position.
We pray for daylight for the ferocity of Russian units in close quarters sends shivers down the most hardened
soldier.

[rico21]

Good work!
Give us level of loss please and do you play with new beta version 1.0.95?

[fuselex]

rallying troops became a very important part of this scenario for me.
I never worried to much about it before , but when you have high value troops such as engineers assaulting
fortified positions ,casualties and broken units will happen to the units that you rely on to take positions.
Bringing these units back into play can make a world of difference.
Those who know the rules will consider this second nature , but for others such as myself , a decent officer
rallying troops just behind the front lines enabled the attack to keep moving .

[UP844]

Fuselex's post - and the memories of nights spent playing Red Barricades - made me launch this monster.

At the end of turn #7 I am more or less in the same situation reported by Fuselex: there is only one of the VP hexes in the eastern factory still in Russian control, but it has three killer stacks adjacent to it and I seriously doubt a C* with two Elite squads and a MMG can kill all of them before being blasted away.

Loss rate up to now is as follows (German / Russians):
Squads 20/61.5+ (~1:3, not bad for an attacker in an urban environment [:D])
Leaders 1/11
Crews 0/5 (see factoid #3 below)
AFVs 1/0 (see factoid #1 below)

Some factoids:
1) on the very first turn, a Russian ATR managed to kill a StuG IIIB with a Front Hull hit! [X(] (Peter, wouldn't it be possible to have Critical Hits highlighted?)
2) the remaining lone StuG did its best, but a 75mm is not powerful enough to tackle with fortified buildings; the sIG 33, conversely, provided outstanding service and added half a dozen new rubble hexes to the landscape.
3) a Russian 45mm crew twice prevailed in CC against two infantry squads (killing 4 squads, 20% of my losses) and also spawned a C* leader, before being killed at the third attempt.
4) a special mention for the German left wing forces: even though they are made of second line troops, with only two leaders (this means most of them are often OOC), they managed to defeat their Russian counterpart and are now mopping up the last remnants.
5) I noticed there are some German tanks (Pz IV F2 and Pz III J) arriving on turn 11. This make me think there is something more substantial than some remnants guarding the last objective...
6) German artillery never fired a shot: the 80mm module became unavailable at the third attempt, the 100mm is still available, but the opposing forces are so close that a misplaced artillery could be deadly... for my troops [:(]. On the other hand, so far I have seen no sign of Russian artillery, even though I have seen a pair of radios.
7) I faced a murderous Soviet fire to place a Demo Charge and managed to place it... but it didn't explode!!! [:@] (This has never occurred in all the years I played ASL).

On a less fun note, the scenario is extremely slow to play: currently, there is a 25-30 second lag before two subsequent move orders. On the other hand, Rico warned us in the scenario description [;)].

@Rico: well done!! [&o] [&o] [&o]

[Peter Fisla]

Wow fuselex, that looks crazy!

My top two ASL modules are: Red Barricades (I have two copies) and Valor of the Guards (I have 3 copies). I also like Solitaire ASL, Jorgen and I we are playing VotG CG2 using solitaire ASL...for about 9 years now and we are still not done.

UP844: right now, highlighting critical hits would be too much work but maybe in the future

[UP844]

The factory fell at sunset, with heavy losses for the Soviets: the last few that attempted escaping were wiped out by German infantry and AFVs that were just waiting for them.

Taking advantage of the night (and of the far shorter delay between moves), the Germans reorganized and at the end of turn 11 took the last VP hex.

The only bright spot for the Red Army is the heroic resistance of two squads in a local version of Pavlov's house (highlighted in the red), who stopped the advance of the German left wing in its tracks.

Now, I have taken all the VP hexes and have just received 6 tanks as reinforcements. I left half a dozen squads in the factory and I am positioning some half-squads as pickets, to provide advance warning of a Soviet attack (I do not believe Rico would ever upload a scenario so easy [:D]).

@Peter: re-thinking about it, highlighting Critical Hits is not very important. Perhaps it is better to leave the human player uncertain about the vulnerability of his units [;)].

[rico21]

Your good performance, despite the sabotage of the enemy OBA[8|][:D], does not reflect all the players who need more time to win, who have the fairplay not to fight at night etc ... etc ... .
This scenario does not benefit from all the original reinforcements because the maximum number of units has been reached before.
So I can not upload it but I anticipated the ease of the Germanic side and ...
Rico n'a pas dit son dernier mot!(Rico did not say his last word!).[:-]

[UP844]

"Fair play" has no place in a fight to the death between Germans and Russians [:D].

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IQJY5SsJ64

In particular, from minute 0:06 to 0:30 [;)]

[fuselex]

turn 12
German intelligence( UP844 )reports minimal resistance between the factories and the final objective.
We decide to push on through the night , AFV`s are kept behind , Our resources are not to be wasted by hidden AT
guns.
Infantry make good use of the trench lines and move rapidly towards the final victory.
We encounter some mortar fire and artillery late in the night , but we are close enough to see the objective.
On the left side units mop up the final Russian defences.
They have fallen but have done their country proud.

Daybreak reveals Russian AFV`s have moved into a supporting position around the last VP.
Due to the mass infantry movement through the night our troops are close enough to engage in CC if needed. We can
bog the AFV`s down.

Turn 13
Last VP is taken with only a couple of Russian AFV`s left. They will fall.
But what is that in the background? Russian OBA?
Surely they have no more reinforcements , can they ?

[UP844]

Well done!! [&o]

[Spoiler warning] Don't read the AAR I'm going to post now until you finished playing [;)].

Are you experiencing long delays between moves?

[fuselex]

yes , it slows down late in the game when less units are in play , it was quicker in the beginning when more units where on the board .

[UP844]

In my game, the delay peaked at 40 seconds at the end of the first day (turn 8). During the night turns it greatly decreased and on the second day was stable at 25 seconds, even in the last turns when no Russian units remained on the map (apart from unpossessed SW/Ordnance)[&:].

I am going to try playing the Russians...

[fuselex]

normal difficulty .
No command and control rules , that is for those who know what they are doing
But it is great fun .
Thanks Rico.
That OBA still has me a bit worried.

[surfcandy]

Where is the mod/scenario located?

[Paullus]

It is in the submitted scenario section. See the last two scenarios in the list of the top post I'm keeping up to date every day http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=4036275