[GZG] GZG ECC XII: Sunday Morning AAR

_______________________________________________
Gzg-l mailing list
Gzg-l@vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu
http://vermouth.csua.berkeley.edu:1337/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lREF
: Damond and Jer  GAME: FMA WWII Paratroops meeting between lines on way
back from patrols

Each side had about 10 guys, with one MG, an SMG or two, a few grenades
(too
few I think) and a bunch of rifles. Both sides had to exit guys off the
other side and the board looked about 6x6 or 5x5. Tree stands and a
house in
the middle.

Bob Makowsky, Greg Davis and I were the Fallschirmjager. I draw a blank
at 2
am on the names of our opponents, but mean no disrespect. I'm just tired
and
bad with names.

The German plan was:
1) Get MG into firing position fast to cover road, house, and mid-board
2) Get Sergeant up with MG for reactivations
3) Get Corporal and two soldiers into house

Well, our plan failed miserably. Bad dice helped a lot, but so did good
American decisions. Americans beat us to the house (dice, I think) and
then
proceeded to throw back (to our detriment) every grenade we lobbed into
the
house. We eventually hurt those guys a bit with massed gunfire, but it
took
a long time.

Meanwhile, grenades and gunfire cost us that entire flank - 2 riflemen
and
the corporal.

The MG got to fire once all game then the allied MG and rifles put so
much
fire on him that his stress precluded any reactivations (note stress was
not
being removed by failed activation tests!). He just became useless. The
sergeant ended up activating riflemen until he was shot dead with one
shot
from a US rifleman.
Survivor of Crete and the Eastern Front, some 82nd AB yahoo killed him.

Our remaining rifles took position and fired until seriously wounded
(one
guy shot through both legs seriously, another with a head wound) and
until
ammo was running low. We stressed a few Americans and killed another,
but
our side lost morale with the MG down, all NCOs down. Some started to
melt
away and some held on against bad odds, which usually ends badly.

The game was an American victory by a combination of sensible tactics,
mutual support, good grenade return skills, and their early kill of our
corporal and later mid-game kill of our sergeant. The German tactics
seemed
valid enough, but just didn't pan out.

Critiques included how easy it was to chuck back grenades (including
ones
not directly at your feet) and how a figure with a bunch of stress that
can't activate but not enough to autofail to a lower morale status can
languish for the entire game doing nothing.

This draft is a modified 2003/4 FMAS draft, so probably not much like
that
currently in testing (or so I suspect). But it was good and playable,
with
the few complaints. Bob and I both thought it did a good job of a lot of
things and that it would make a playable game more or less as Damo had
it
written up with the issues we mention above addressed.

Thanks to Damo and Jer for a good game (as usual), nice terrain and
figures,
and a fun end to my convention.

And a BIG THANKS to Jon Davis, Mark Kochte, Jerry Han and anyone else
doing
organizing and helping out. ECC would not exist without these noble
souls
and that would be a big loss.

Thomas B

-- 
http://ante-aurorum-tenebrae.blogspot.com/
http://www.stargrunt.ca

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy
from
oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that
will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine

"When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty
quits the horizon." -- Thomas Paine