My afternoon games of ASL have continued, although not always against the same players. This was another new opponent, a younger gentleman who otherwise was unoccupied on a hot Thursday afternoon. Seeing as I haven’t posted a report in this run for the first scenario in SK1, Retaking Vierville, despite playing it a couple of weeks ago, I thought now would be a good chance to play the scenario with a complete newcomer to ASL and see what eventuated. My opponent found the game fascinating, although he couldn’t take it all in; in particular, he managed to forget a couple of the victory conditions, although I did remind him of them fairly frequently.
He chose to play the Americans, who begin this scenario on the road through Vierville, a little town in Normandy on the day after D-Day.
My initial set of Germans cautiously approached the village, keeping behind buildings as they approached and eventually setting up in stone buildings on either side of the town; the American defensive fire having no effect. Knowing that reinforcements would be coming from the east (right-hand side of the map), I made sure that a couple of German squads guarded those advances. The Americans, unbroken from my advancing fire, ducked into the buildings. I needed to capture and hold one f L3, M4, N5 or N6 to win.
The Americans moved troops to concentrate fire on my southern troops, but the initial firing was quite ineffective from both sides. American reinforcements appeared, taking up positions in the far-east stone hut and the orchards around it, as they were wary of the small-arms fire of my squad in Q6.
The stalemate lasted a couple of turns, until more reinforcements arrived and the fire-groups became bigger. I was able to break the American units in K6, forcing them to retreat, although my advancing squads were pinned in the open and only my 9-1 leader reached the building! Meanwhile, a stack of three paratroopers and a 8-1 leader on the American side were able to break my troops in Q6 – freeing them up to advance on the town. Meanwhile, I moved towards the American squad guarding L3 and M4, hoping to be able to break it with point-blank fire-power.
Pretty much as expected, it didn’t work, with my squad being broken and retreating away. However, the Americans now had few effectual troops in the town, so my superior numbers were able to make inroads, as the east saw the Americans moving in. The major misplay by the American here was leaving their major 9-2 leader back in the cornfield, futilely trying to break my unit in P1, when he really needed to be a major part of the action.
I brought up troops from the left side of the map to make things tougher for the American squad in L3 – this time, some survived the trip, and the superior leader began to work wonders.
If I needed to take all four buildings, I was in a lot of trouble, but as far as anyone can work out, Retaking Vierville needs the Germans to be in possession of one building only. My two, double-stacked squads could exert 20 FP into L3, and broke the defending Americans, causing them to retreat back to their main force… which was becoming pretty major as the reinforcements moved up; however, with very few turns remaining, time was on my side.
In the final turn, the Americans flooded up, surrounding my positions, but those coming adjacent found me rolling the best in the game, and many units were eliminated – enough that my opponent wasn’t game to go point-blank any more, hoping to break me in the advancing fire phase. It was a long-shot.
It was a long-shot that didn’t work. Yes, he was able to break my unit in M4 with a very lucky shot, but ultimately his troops were too far away. With only L3 in my possession, I was able to win the scenario. In all, it had taken us about 100 minutes to play.