[DS] AAR (or what I did in my Holidays) [Long]

Well, inspired by Frits I'm writing up a couple of games I had over
Christmas. As my youngest has now reached the age where instructions to
"leave daddy and uncle Bill's toys alone" now has an effect, we decided
to
have a day's gaming.

We took the cover of my youngest daughters bed as its a) green, b)
marked
with handy 6" squares, c) about 6' x 6'. We then draped this over books
to
get the hills and dug out the scenery. In the end we managed to get in
two
battles both using the same scenery.

Both battles were attack/defense games pitting forces with roughly equal
numbers but different technological bases.

Looking at it from the defenders' base line the main feature was a
wooded
ridge on the left side which crossed half the play area. In the middle
stretching from the attackers baseline to the defenders was an autobahn
with
a two level junction slap in the middle of the play area connecting it
to a
smaller road network crisscrossing the entire area. To the right of the
autobahn and closer to the defenders baseline was a major urban area
with a
railway connecting it to the defenders baseline. To the right of that
was a
wooded river valley stretching from one baseline to the other. There
were
two other built up areas, a small village on the slope of the ridge on
the
left nearest the attackers baseline and a farm complex near the river
between the major town and the attacker.

In both cases the objective was to clear the autobahn of any unit that
could
bring direct fire on it or of any unit that could observe for off-table
artillery. In practice this would mean clearing about half the town, the
village and the wooded ridge. Objective markers were placed in the
village,
the autobahn junction, the railway station and the part of the town
closest
to the autobahn.

I made up a map and recorded the movements of each platoon as we went.
Comments about Bill's intentions come from the after battle discussions.
I
still have the maps and have stuck them through my scanner so they are
available if any one is interested.

In the first battle Bill was attacking and I was defending. The
attacker's
were GW eldar figures, some of which, like the CBR vehicle were
conversions.
They are the old style plastic Eldar that are IIRC no longer available.
I
was using Irregular human forces with GW plastic space marines as my
infantry although we did not count this as Powered Armour.

Bill's Forces
(All Grav mobile, except walkers, primarily HEL equipped with Superior
ECM,
Superior Firecons with some DFFG or MDC and most with PDS (SUP))
Battle group HQ of 2 command vehicles
1 Infantry Company of
1 IFV and 1 AEV and
3 platoons of 4 IFV and 8 line infantry teams
1 Heavy tank platoon (3 vehicles)
1 SPG battery of 4 medium artillery + 1 CBR vehicle
1 Recon platoon of 4 grav bikes
1 Walker platoon of 4 walkers (2 with GMS/H (SUP), 2 with DFFG/2)

My forces
(All GEV mobile with Enhanced Firecons, Enhanced ECM, RFAC or HKP and
some
PDS)
Battle group HQ of 2 command vehicles and 2 hover jeeps
1 Infantry company of
2 vehicle HQ and
3 platoons of 4 IFV and 8 line infantry teams
1 medium tank platoon of 4 vehicles
1 SPG battery of 4 medium artillery
1 recon platoon of 2 'armored cars' and 2 GMS carriers.

Quality wise the forces were much of a muchness with the chits being
pulled
at random out of a cup. I deployed my tank platoon in the wooded ridge
and
my best infantry platoon (Elites with a 1 leader) in the village just to
their right. The rest of the infantry deployed in the town. The recon
unit
was set up in the woods by the river. The artillery and BG HQ set up in
the
marshaling yards by the railway station.

First Turn

The action opened with the heavy grav tanks approaching the wooded ridge
where my tanks were lurking, when the firing stopped one grav tank had
taken
a mobility hit and two of my tanks were history. The infantry company
swooped onto the play area and took up positions on three sides of the
village with the infantry dismounted and ready for an attack. The
defending
platoon let rip with every thing they had and called down an open sheaf
artillery barrage on one of the platoons. All the attacking infantry now
had
under fire markers and one IFV had been taken out by MAK rounds. The
missiles fired by my IFV's had all been chopped out of the air by the
PDS on
the grav IFV's.

Bill's artillery parked itself on the baseline and the walkers appeared
heading towards the farm complex, my recon platoon rushed round to take
them
in the flank and destroyed one and got a mobility kill on another
however
then then got completely creamed by the grav bikes which got behind
them.

Second Turn

At this point I realized that I had made a mistake, my tanks were on the
forward edge of the wood and thinking like a track head I had assumed
that I
could now withdraw them through the woods, but of course they were GEV
MBT's
and woods are "impossible" to GEV's, whoops. They either had to stand
and
die or risk running in the open across the front of and entire platoon
of
heavy grav tanks. They stood, they died. All three of Bill's infantry
platoons activated together to assault the village. One platoon failed
its
check but the other two went in, in a close run fight the attackers
prevailed and pushed the defenders back into a single building (a
church)
and destroyed 3 out of 4 IFVs. Bill used his follow through activations
to
close assault again this time driving the defenders into the woods
behind
the village and destroying the last IFV, in a final follow through
attack
one of the two attacking platoons failed its check but by this time the
defenders were down to three stands so they went in again. At the end
the
attacking company was spread out from the village to the top of the
wooded
ridge with both of the platoons that had attacked being shaken and
having
taken some losses, the defenders were routed and down to two stands. The
rest of the turn was an anti-climax with the grav bikes moving down the
river valley and the surviving walkers approaching the town - both in
the
hope of finding a position from which they could spot for fire.

Third Turn

The 3 mobile grav tanks moved into a position from which they could
bring
the railway station under fire and Bill's infantry company reorganized
itself into effectively two strong platoons. My artillery and HQ shifted
to
get out of the line of fire of the grav tanks but not before one SPG had
been destroyed.

Fourth Turn

Bill's artillery dropped a barrage on one of the infantry platoons
holding
the town and the grav infantry company moved into position to assault
it. My
artillery dropped a barrage on the infantry as they got out of their
IFV's.
Lots of chit pulls but very little effect. The Grav bikes moved to a
position where they could fire on my artillery.

Fifth Turn
Bill's infantry assaulted the town but only just managed to get a
lodgment.
At this point I decided that discression was the better part of valor -
I
thought the infantry could hold out but their line of retreat was being
threatened and next turn would be covered by fire from both the Grav
tanks
and the Grav bikes - so everyone piled into their IFV's and retreated
off
the board.

This was a definite victory for the attacker but the infantry company
was so
beat up that it mustered about a platoon of infantry although they had
only
lost 2 IFVs.

I managed to salvage about half my force, 2 platoons of infantry got
away
along with BG HQ and 3 of the artillery pieces, the two surviving stands
from the platoon that defended the village also escaped. I had quickly
decided that the grav units were just too mobile for me to use an active
defense, I had to try and get Bill to come to me in a situation where I
could nullify his advantages, in effect I had to fight an urban battle.

In the second battle I was the attacker and I used the same force that I
had
been defending with in the first battle. Bill took a force taken from a
1980's style lorried National Guard battalion, the figures were mainly
Heroics and Ross with some Skytrex mixed in. Unlike the first battle
this
was an encounter but we both expected the NG to move into position and
then
wait to be attacked.

My forces
(All GEV mobile) Enhanced Firecons, Enhanced ECM
Battle group HQ of 2 command vehicles and 2 hover jeeps
1 Infantry company of
2 vehicle HQ
3 platoons of 4 IFV and 8 line infantry teams
1 medium tank platoon of 4 vehicles
1 SPG battery of 4 medium artillery
1 recon platoon of 2 'armoured cars' and 2 GMS carriers.

Bill's forces
Based on a early 1980's lorried National Guard unit, no or basic ECM,
Basic
firecons

Battle group HQ of 2 jeeps
1 Infantry company of
HQ of 2 infantry teams and 2 jeeps
3 platoons of
	1 infantry team and 1 jeep and
	3 lorries each with 2 infantry teams and 1 APSW team and
	1 mortar platoon of 3 light artillery stands, 3 lorries and 1
jeep
1 tank platoon of 4 M48's Slow tracked, HVC/4, 3/2 armour, basic firecon
1 recon platoon of 4 jeeps with APSW and 4 jeeps with RFAC/2(BAS)

The quality of the forces was decided as before by random pull, but I
seemed
to get the better of it with Bill getting a couple of Green-3's and most
of
mine been regular 1's and 2's.

First Turn

Both recon units raced down the Autobahn towards the junction with the
intention of using its ramps as cover, mine won - when they fired on
Bill's
recon unit (which was a green with a 3 leader) it panicked.

The Bill's infantry company headed for the town along with the mortar
battery, the M48's headed for the wooded ridge. Two of my infantry
platoons
headed straight for the town and the third moved down the river valley.
My
Armour headed for the ridge as well. My artillery parked itself near the
village along with HQ.

Second Turn

The recon unit called down a converged sheaf barrage on one of Bill's
infantry platoons who had already used their activation and were
debussed -
there were lots of chits draws (4 guns in a battery, 3 chits per gun, 10
infantry stands and 3 lorries and a jeep in the platoon) and then there
was
no infantry platoon (2 stands and a jeep survived). My recon unit fired
on
the survivors Bill's recon unit who fled down the autobahn and off the
board. The other two NG platoons had debussed in the center of town and
BG
HQ had setup in the railway station, however 2 of my infantry platoons
had
also reached the town. My Armour crossed the ridge and spotted the M48's
moving towards them in a flurry of fire they killed 2. My third platoon
moved into a position from which it could attack the railway station.

Third Turn

My recon unit moved into a position where it could support my infantry
attacking the town. My Armour killed the last two M'48 then moved into a
position where it could fire at any units attempting to withdraw from
the
town. My two infantry platoons in the town close assaulted two of Bill's
platoons counting on the support of their IFV's to counter the fact that
they were outnumbered (8 stands vs. 10 stands), this actually worked
although one platoon lost all it's IFV's. The third platoon made an
attack
against the BG HQ, which pushed them back and left possession of the
railway
station disputed. Bill repositioned one of his NG platoons so that it
could
support the BG HQ. In all the assualts my attempts to do a follow up
failed.

Fourth Turn

The platoon attacking the railway station attacked both Bill's BG HQ and
another platoon, the HQ was pushed back again (considering that 2 stands
and
2 jeeps were fighting 4 stands and 2 IFV's they were doing pretty well).
Bill's 2 platoons in the town mounted their lorries and tried to escape
along with the mortars taking some fire as the went.

Fifth turn

It was all over bar the shouting - Bill's BG HQ, mortar platoon and the
survivors of the other two platoons left the board while my infantry
took
possession of the town.

This one was a bigger win for the attackers, in retrospect we should
have
let Bill set up in place, in that case he could have used the number of
infantry at his disposal to suck me into a mini-Stalingrad (which was
what
he wanted to do) he just hadn't realized how slow "low mobility wheeled"
vehicles would be when moving off road. Possibly another way of doing it
would have been to put a road between the town and the defenders
base-line
to allow units to quickly enter the town.

Lessons Learned

Neither of us had any specialist artillery observers, VTOLS or
Aerospace,
when the artillery did work it was pretty spectacular but a barrage that
dropped on a large number of elements would lead to a lot of chit
pulling.
On the other hand neither of us had any extra ammunition and in the
first
game I was quickly down to harassing fire and one MAK marker for
"emergencies". In the second game I don't think the mortars got off a
single
round. It took them 2 turns to get to a position that was sheltered from
my
direct fire and then the next turn they were in danger of being overrun
by
my infantry. I think we'll be using specialist Artillery observers and
buying more ammunition. In a fast moving battle on-board artillery is
just
too vunerable to someting like a grav bike or VTOL getting behind the
flanks
a forcing it to move.

I got pretty frustrated trying to use GMS systems against units equipped
with both PDS (SUP) and ECM (SUP). Now if there was an ECCM system.

The best way to demoralize a unit is hit it repeatedly in close assault
unless you mange to panic a green unit with a bad leader.

Systems superiority can be a great multiplier, a tank with a superior
firecon and a HEL/4 can be pretty deadly.

C. Downes-Ward