DASL1 - Guryev's Headquarters

I recently managed to get together with the Scrub to play his first game of full ASL. I picked Guryev's Headquarters as our scenario for a number of reasons - it's all infantry, it's on the deluxe boards, and it's small enough for a half-day's play. When the Scrub mentioned that he had an interest in Stalingrad, that made it an easy choice.

The Scrub has posted his AAR, so an awful lot of what happened doesn't need to be repeated. The essence of the scenario is simple; 17 German squads need to break through a row of buildings and occupy the Russian HQ behind them before the Russian 6-2-8 reinforcements come swarming in. We rolled for sides and I came up with the Russians.

I had a few choices to make as the Russians. The first was whether or not to swap an officer for a commissar. Since this was going to be an educational experience for the Scrub, I decided to pull out all the stops and swapped my 8-1 reinforcement leader for a 10-0 commissar. None of my starting leaders were eligible for the swap, so I would have to wait until a lucky roll to get the commissar benefits. For my hidden squads, I placed a 6-2-8 in the rubble on the right flank of my defense, and a 4-5-8 with an LMG at the 2nd level of bE1, at the back of the building. Here I would skulk until Scrub made his move to enter GH, and I would shoot him in the back, causing misery, encirclement and failure to rout. At least, that was the plan.

When the Scrub actually set up his forces, it was clear I would have to rethink; he had gone for a heavily weighted right sweep, and too many of my forces were on the wrong flank, including my MMG. Since my boys were going to have to move, I saw no reason to keep their HIP/concealed status - they opened right up on the targets that were in their range. Sadly, they never really got a chance to move.. the MMG squad was swarmed by Germans and killed in close combat before they really made their mark, while the 6-2-8 crept into the big stone building that served as my front line.

The essence of the battle itself you can get from Scrub's excellent post. My plan was a simple one - sacrifice the lives of every one of my men to slow down the Germans while I got reinforcements into the building. When Scrub was hesitant about charging full bore into the street while I still had units available to resist him, I did skulk back for a turn to keep him from breaking the line in my turn. The slaughter was only delayed, culminating in an amazing berserk charge, but it bought me a turn in delay. The berserkers, by the way, started out as a full squad. They were killers, but they paid the price in dead bodies on the road. I did screw up by allowing them an ambush roll, but when Scrub rolled a 2, well, that was a sign that fate wanted those Russians dead. Since my boys were already pinned, my odds of vengeance weren't all they could be anyway.

The other rule I screwed up was guarding prisoners. If I had clearly remembered that guards were at half strength in close combat, I probably would have massacred the unit I captured at the start of the game (they were surrounded and couldn't rout). As it turns out, however, seeing the prisoners freed in close combat, rearmed with Russian rifles and sent back as a German conscript half-squad - only to see them disrupted and surrender again - was the comic high point of the narrative and I wouldn't have missed it for a platoon of T-34's.

When the crunch came and I was faced with a massive German force ready to rush the headquarters, I had three aces up my sleeve still. The first was an HMG with an elite squad and a 9-1 officer. The second was a hidden sqaud and LMG lurking in the upstairs windows of the big house, waiting to shoot the Germans in the back as they charged. And the last was my coloured die, the red die from my original Beyond Valor set back in 1985. It cranked up a streak of ROF that really broke the German attack apart, while generating a bunch of SAN rolls by my opponent. By the time the end came, I didn't even need my hidden squad to push back the last feeble German survivors. But shooting him in the back was still fun and a valuable learning experience for the Scrub.

So, like the Scrub, I too take lessons away from this scenario.

1) Play an opponent who isn't going to get bent out of shape if you flub a rule. There are a lot. It's going to happen.

2) Deluxe ASL makes an excellent learning platform. Those big hexes make it good and clear what's going on. It makes a good spectator platform if you're out in public, too.

3) Play an opponent who brought his camera. Those are mighty good picture's in Scrub's report

4) Take a Commissar. It may be chrome, but they were really out there, and it really adds to the narrative when he shoots an elite rifleman, and next turn, the rest of the squad is on their feet and saluting.

5) Have fun. There's a lot of enjoyment in an ASL scenario.

No question I had a lot of fun -- as I always do in ASL(SK). Thanks for the game man!