Just played this one against my regular FTF opponent Barry Smith. I had the Germans and Barry had the Russians. I stopped his attack cold, and Barry gave up after 3.5 game turns.
I set up to be strong in the center, around the potential VC bldgs. I had a HS "speed bump" in 42I3, and a squad in J3. In K5 was the 9-1, HMG/squad with the ATR/HS next door in J5. Covering the flanks were a squad in B3 (to cover the hilltop), a squad in F3, an 8-1 LMG/squad in D5 and in foxholes in M5 and O5 were a lmg/squad and a squad, respectively. The gun went in H5 (CA=I4) to cover the road entry from board 32 and the center. I unwittingly gave Barry the balance by forgetting to include the MMG the Germans get (coincidentally, that *is* the balance).
Barry set up his 18 squads essentially running from 42D0 through 42L0. Generally he stacked these 2 to 3 high, but he put three 447s with 2 lmgs and the mmg with his 8-1 as a kill stack in 42L0.
Barry's first turn was the player turn that decided the game, IMO, although if you read further, you'll see that my dice were AMAZING Tom Mueller knows that generally the dice gods favor me :) but this was unique. Barry's mistake was to forgoe a human wave on the first turn (indeed, he didn't use one at all!). His second mistake was to attack spread out and piecemeal rather than concentrated in one area. Instead he fired his kill stack at the 9-1, HMG/squad in K5 for no result (I only failed four MC through the entire scenario) and then assault moved/advanced his guys forward a couple of hexes. In my defensife fire phase, my hmg stack blasted his kill stack with 11FP(even) getting ROF several times, along with the first of probably at least 10 snakes-eyes for my side. I left him with a broken leader and a broken conscript in his stack. By attacking spread out and conservatively on the first turn, he failed to overrun my forward positions (he never got the F3 bldg and only got as far as J3 on his second turn)
I'll say again here that while I'd like to think it was game play that won it for me, I'll readily admit that it was mostly my dice that carried the day. Therefore, this AAR is not going to be representative of how this scenario will go most of the time! But it sure was fun (for me at least!) :)
He advanced up towards my squad in F3 and started to move up through the foxholes and wheat on the other side of the board. In my Turn 1 Prep Fire I opened up with the gun on a squad in the open, rolling snakes for the KIA; the HMG broke several more units and the squad in F3 was winning the "tough-man" competition by breaking a 447 and disrupting a 426 while shrugging off 12 and 16 FP attacks in the DFPh. The HS in I3 battled hardened to fanatic after Barry fired at it. The 8-1 lmg/squad in D5 moved up to E5 to help "iron-man" out and smoked the disrupted squad in Advancing fire when Barry rolled boxcars on its MC.
After game turn 1 Barry had lost 4 squads KIA along with 4 more broken while inflicting no casualties on me. In his 2nd player turn Barry nails the HMG stack for a MC, but I pass it, creating a hero (with another snakes!) from the squad with HOB to boot. Then he used one tank to enter J3 with VBM to sleaze the squad and HS that were there. I fire the gun at the tank, but it malfs (my only boxcar in the game) and the squad and HS fail to get the tank in street fighting CC. His other tank went to OVR the 8-1, lmq/squad I had in E5. The HMG in K5 opens up and hits the tank on the side; snakes on the TK DR brew it up. I self-break the HS and squad in J3 to rout back to K5 (hint; place a foxhole in J4 to provide a nice rout path). Barry advanced a squad into F3 for some 1:1 CC. He missed his roll, and I rolled snakes for the kill and leader creation. On that side of the board, Barry was down to 3 GO squads (out of 9 that attacked in that area)
My Turn 2 prep fire see more of Barry's force crumble away. The stack in K5 now had a 9-1, hero, two 468s, one 248, and a HMG. In this Def Fire, though, he managed to wound and kill the hero and break one squad in K5. Meanwhile, the squad in O5 tried to make its way over close to K5, but got tagged by the MTR. In his Turn 3 he moved the tank from J3 to J4; the HMG got another side hit, and rolled snakes again for the brew-up. At this point, Barry didn't have enough GO units left with hopes of rallying to win via exit points, and didn't really have enough FP to go against me for the buildings. He advanced into CC in F3 again with a conscript squad, but they stayed locked in melee. The final blow was the HMG stack CR'ing and KIA'ing a stack of 3 squads with a leader in my DFPh, and getting rate 4 times in Prep fire to kill the remaining opposition on that side. The melee in F3 was ended by me firing into it, breaking Barry's consrcipt and leaving my 468 unscathed. Barry then threw in the towel, having just 1.5 GO squads and a 7-0 left on turn 4.
Although my dice were hot, even scorching dice may not be able to stop a concerted and coordinated attack started with a human wave to overrun as many German positions as possible. The Russian needs to concentrate his attack in one area and human wave right away. Perhaps through the grain is best; if the Russian can get into the woods, the German will have a tough time. I think Barry had planned to use it later, but my attacks beat him up so bad he couldn't get going. Plus he had himself so spread out that it was easier to defeat his force (he essentially threw away a lot of his numerical superiority). I liked K5 as the lynchpin for the defense; it can cover the center as well as a wave attack up the side of the board; the gun in H5 was ok, but I can't be sure since it only fired once before malfunctioning. It can cover the road approach nicely, making the Russian tanks affraid to move up. The foxhole position with lmg/468 was good; it can cover the grain edge as well as attacks up through the shellholes in rows K and L. HMG wins the MVP award for brewing up both tanks, killing 6.5 squads and a leader, and breaking numerous others.
Michael J. Licari
Sat down to play this last Wednesday with (the other) JR Tracy; a fine gentleman with definitely the most impressive collection of games I have ever seen. We picked Red Wave from the '97 Annual because it's gotten a lot of press as a good scenario and it looked interesting as well as playable in an evening.
We had heard that it was pro-Russian so we applied the pro-German balance (+1 468 for the Germans) and then diced for sides; I got the Germans. Later I looked at the Record and saw that as of August it was 4-1 pro German; ASLAR has it at 7-3 Pro-German. I think the balance was excessive.
I set up with more strength on the German left than elsewhere, but the MMG & HMG were more central and the LMGs were on the left flank. I lined up on the hill & behind the wall with ~3-4 squads and hoped that would convince him to come into the center. I HIPed the gun in brush near the board center.
JR set up for a HW on the Russian right, using the Conscripts first. He overlooked the traditional AFV overrun & sleaze-freeze in favor of prep fire, which turned out to be ineffective. His HW gained the wall quickly with only about a HS casualty and a couple of broken squads. In response, I voluntarily broke damn near everyone and ran away towards the leader positioned as the "catcher" right behind the hill.
Over the next few turns, JR focused on the exit VCs, pushing steadily down the Russian right. He had taken the Denisova option (the bitch!), and early votes had her tagged as the German MVP. She cost him more material than I did for sure. He also moved a small force, 3 squads, towards the villiage. This force became stalled and could not crack the 468+HMG+9-1 that were securing that area and laying fire lanes down the road to stop the main Russian horde. Meanwhile, a lone German HS remnant from the hill platoon held off the Russian advance guard long enough to get some of the rest of the defenders rallied and moved into position.
The swing factor came in around turn 4. The Russian tanks advanced to break the bottleneck that had formed just behind the hill; a lucky Russian ATR shot flamed the lead AFV. Although the smoke made it somewhat easier for the Russian infantry to advance, the German infantry had closed the gap and was lined up on the left of the Russian line of march, firing in enfilade, as they say. The capper came in turn 5, when I got my INF gun pushed out to where it could see the last T26 and started hammering it. I finally stunned it and the German infantry swarmed it, taking it out in CC. JR conceded on points.
In retrospect, I think the word that the Russians own this one is off. JR didn't really have any bad luck; he did get bogged down in a choke point, a common problem with boardedge creep tactics. I think if the Russians make a serious bid for the building-control VC but also send a force towards the exit zone, the Germans will have a tough time. But automatically applying the German balance is probably too much.
bw