AAR Rheindahlen

Ok,
I clearly opened a can of worms with the close assault questions.
I'll read the rules again really really carefull before continuing.

In the meantime, here is a small AAR of the Action 2001 show at
Rheindahlen
JHQ. Derk has probably some corrections and extra tidbits.

Rheindahlen is about a 3 hour drive from where I live in Delft(Holland).
As we wanted a relaxed weekend, and nobody was participating in the DBM
tournament we left Delft at 9.00 on Saturday morning. Just before
crossing
the border we had lunch at a McDonalds in Venlo, after which we arrived
at the JHQ at about 13.00. The show was already in full swing as a lot
of
people had arrived the previous evening.

The show was held in a sports hall and was much bigger compared to when
I
attended two years ago when it was help in a much smalled venue.
There were about 6 traders with different goodies, a lot of clubs from
Germany,
Holland, Belgium and even the UK, and a huge bring and buy.

I shot some photos on film, and I will put these up on the Murphy's
Heroes
website when the film is full.

There were two really noticeable demos. One was a huge 1/300 demo of a
coastal
invasion using epic miniatures. This consisted of two tables of 2x8
meters
each with a small isle in between. These guys probably robbed a bank or
something to be able to afford all the stuff that was on the table.

The other was a small, but really nice looking, participation game of
Megiddo(?) by the Lance & Longbow Society(?). I always get confused by
all
those societies:-) This was only 2x2 feet big, but the landscape looked
really great.

In total there were about 20 demos. Unfortunately, most were only demos
and
not participation games. We were guilty of this ourselves as well with
Stargrunt. We didn't actually invite anybody to participate, and we had
too
many rules discussions to make it fun for casual participants anyway.

After saying hello to everybody we set up our table and were ready to
start
the first scenario at about 14.00. This was an ambush scenario were an
attacking force had to cross the table diagonally and the defender was
hidden
all over the table using counters. The attacker had 4 squads, a walker
and one
sniper. The defender had 3 squads, 2 snipers, 2 minefields and about 10
dummy
counters. This scenario was great fun for everybody, even for the
attacker
who got a bit paranoid after his sniper got too close to one of the
minefields(
we didn't tell him the range was 2 inches). His sniper wasn't even
wounded, but
he was a lot more carefull after that in scanning everything and
clearing out
the table step by step. It didn't help much that both his eyeball Mk1
and
enhanced sensors didn't have much success in identifying counters.
The scenario ended at about 10.00 or 11.00 late at night when the
defending
players last squad was badly mauled.
The one mistake with this scenario was that I didn't put a timelimit on
it.
This meant that the attacker could take his time clearing out positions
before
advancing a bit, instead of taking more risks/casualties and crossing
the
table in good time.

Scenario 2 was one I downloaded. There is an airstrip with lots of
buildings
and a control tower. The control tower has to be taken within a time
limit
so that a landing can take place. The defender had 1 squad of
technicians who
had to be kicked out of the tower before they could perform any acts of
sabotage and a few other squads. The attacker came in with 4 squads and
a
walker. The original scenario specified more armour which we didn't
have, so
we increased the time limit from 15 to 20 turns. This was a really close
scenario which eventually was won by the attacker with only 2 turns
left.
This scenario was ultimately won by a close assault from one of my
squads on
the building with the technicians. They were kicked out, but my squad
was
badly mauled as well. After that an enemy squad in a nearby room close
assaulted me. This really was an example of a close assault being very
dangerous. My squad failed its reaction test and retreated. In the
followup
he caught me and we did a hand-to-hand combat, which my squad
fortunately won.

During this scenario we had several problems with close assaults and the
use
of buildings. We used buildings as hard cover, while we should have made
them
armoured point targets. I found some additional info on bildings on the
web,
so we'll try to accumulate a lot of info before trying something like
this
again.

This scenario took a long time so around 2.30 at night we called it
quits.
As it was a military base breakfast was between 8.00 and 9.00. To be
able
to get anything before the food was either cold or gone we had to get up
at
7.30 (argh!). We continued the scenario at 9.00 and were finished around
11.00.

After that we started the 3rd scenario which was a rescue mission. Even
though
we didn't get to finish the scenario before the show ended at 14.30, we
had a
lot of fun as the outlook for winning the game changed a few times
during the
course of the scenario.

Setup: a table with lots of cover and a big clearing just to one side of
the
center of the table. Close to the center of the table a group of VIPs
has
crashed who have to be rescued. Most of them are wounded, so they have
to be
treated before they can be moved.
The enemy has several squads, a walker and a sniper who arrive at random
times
at random points on the edge of the table.
The rescue mission consisted of 1 command squad and 3 other squads who
have
to be dropped on the table. Each squad had a medic.

I chose to do an orbital insertion in turn 1 for my first squad so that
I
would have a secure position around the VIPs. The other squads would
be parachuted in turn 3 or later. The orbital drop was right on target
on
the VIP's position. It took me only one turn to get most of the squad
reorganised around the VIPs and another turn to get the remainder in
place
as well. Unfortunately the medic disappeared head first into a nearby
swamp,
so I had to wait a few turns for a medic from another squad before
starting
the evacuation.
I chose the drop point for the other three squads near the edge of the
clearing
so I could secure a route of the table for the evacuation.
The first squad that was parachuted in landed relatively close together,
except for the medic who hit the only rocky outcropping nearby. Splat!
Around this time an enemy squad entered the table near my projected
evacuation
route, which wasn't good as they were also very close to the drop point
for
the remaining 2 squads. My command squad landed on one side of the
rocks,
while the enemy had moved up to the other side. Of course the medic
chose
to do something exciting and landed in the middle of the enemy.
Fortunately
I had the initiative, so the medic could run away to his squad. On the
other
hand his squad was now pinned down behind the rocks, so it was unlikely
they
would reach the VIPs anytime soon.
About this time a second enemy squad entered the table at the same
corner and
reinforced the first squad. This wasn't good as my last squad landed in
the
middle of the clearing and immediately caught fire. The took two
casualties
but eventually managed to get to safety.

Things looked grim. Four out of five VIP's were wounded and no medic in
sight.
The commanding officer made a potential disastrous career choice and
decided
on field dressings. Two VIPs completely recovered, one was stabilised
and one
died. This left enough VIPs to carry the wounded and dead one, and left
the
squad free to provide security.
>From this point on things began looking better. The other three squads
together
with the accompanying squad managed to suppress and contain the two
enemy
squads. The VIPs and the accompanying squad managed to move around the
safe
side of the clearing and were about halfway to safety, and the remaining
enemy
was late in arriving on table.
At this point I found out how fast a walker can walk. The thing did a
double
move(24") and came into sight of the VIPs, who promptly
panicked(green3).
After that the walker only caused a suppression before being blown to
bits by
a LAW. However, it had done its job in that it took the VIPs 3 turns
before
getting unpanicked. By this time another enemy squad and a sniper had
closed
in on their position.

We had to stop at this point as the show closed. However, the outcome
was far
from sure. One of my squads was moving to reinforce the VIPs and their
accompanying squad. My two remaining squads were trading fire with the
first
two enemy squads who were by now unsuppressed because I had to
concentrate on
the walker. On top of that an enemy squad was close enough to begin a
close
assault. These were green as well, but I didn't know that.

All in all we had great fun, but we had some problems interpreting the
rules
(close assault), and we also did some things wrong(buildings).
After the first two scenarios we introduced some rules for overwatch
which we
felt was something that was clearly missing. After browsing the internet
I
found some rule sthat were fairly similar to what we did.

Frits
-- 
Frits Kuijlman			   F.Kuijlman@{its,cs,twi}.tudelft.nl
Delft University of Technology			      The Netherlands