Learning ASL Starter Kit Part 4

As we move into Turn #4 things are balanced quite well, but the British forces are due to arrive from the South to support their American allies. Will it be too little too late?

American/British Turn #4
I needed to get my arriving British squads into action pretty quickly and double-timed them to take up positions to the South, South-South-West and South-West of Avola. I wanted to attack GaryB's Italian positions from a number of directions and try to water-down his fire-power as much as possible.

GaryB's positions still looked quite strong, but I felt that I could take advantage of some of his squad positioning in the South and exploit hexes not covered by his fire-lanes.

British Advance in Turn #4

The British would need to be quite reckless in their movement in order to take these Southern buildings, so I needed my American squads to breakthrough in the North and get into supporting positions as quickly as the could.

As it turned out the Americans did much better than I'd expected. They supported the melee at (A), broke units in the buildings around (B) readying a close combat opportunity for Turn #5 and eliminated the Italian squads and leader to the West of town (C).

The Italians take heavy losses in the North of Avola

These were major losses for the Italians and I was beginning to feel confident about the final result for the first time in the game. Further progress around (B) and (C) would cut-off Italian fall-back options for their Southern squads.

Italian Turn #4
Licking their wounds the Italians dropped PREP PHASE FIRE into a number of British and American positions and were unlucky with their rolls. They did however manage to recover a 3-4-6 Squad at (D), coupling it with an 8-1 Leader, but their MMG in this area was still broken. Elsewhere they recovered and retreated a 1-2-6 squad creating a 6+1 Leader in the process (E). 

British defensive fire at (F) broke the Italian squad there and it fell back a hex awaiting the onslaught.

American/British Turn #5
The squeeze was on! Again forgoing PREP FIRE I assaulted from the South, squad by squad to take up positions around (H), (I) and (J). The British took some heavy fire here, but came away with only two broken units, a 4-5-7 and a 9-1 Leader. By the end of the turn I had engaged the Italians in close combat in both (I) and (J) and forced them to break and flee from (H). (J) resulted in the Italian squad's elimination.

"The Squeeze!"

Meanwhile my Americans took up positions to fully cover the town's square and eliminated an Italian Leader at (G). Things were looking great for me, but I still had to break of destroy ALL Italian units to achieve a victory.

Finale!
As we closed out Italian Turn #5 the American's were picking off fleeing squads and readying themselves to take the final few buildings holding Axis troops. The final turn of the game was American/British Turn #6 where the Allies focused their assaults into two areas shown on the map below. The resulting close combats, although not conclusive were enough to break/eliminate the remaining Italian units and the game was called. Victory to the Allies!

Last Stand of The Italian 146th Infantry in Avola, Sicily

S9 Ambitious Assault 
Result: Victory for the British/Americans (GaryG) vs. the Italians (GaryB) in Turn #6.

Conclusions
GaryG - The scenario is a good one and I especially enjoyed the mixture of terrain available and the two-flank attack from the Allies. You really do have to push hard from the very start when playing the Allies. I was lucky with some of my rolls around Turn #4 and still only managed to beat the Italians in my final game turn. 

I'm fairly happy with my coverage of the rules. We did get a few small things wrong, but on the whole the sessions played smoothly without too much downtime to check the rules book. We'll probably play one further infantry scenario before moving up to first artillery and then vehicles.

GaryB - Pending

<<< Part 3

Learning ASL Starter Kit Part 3

Moving into Turn #3 of starter kit scenario S9 - Ambitious Assault and every move for my Allies seemed to becoming more and more critical. With only four full turns ahead, I had to keep up the pressure and give myself a fighting chance at victory.

American Turn #3

It took us a full evening on VASL last night to complete turn #3, an indication of the amount of careful consideration we were putting into each move and the amount of fighting now taking place. The British still wouldn't arrive until turn #4, so it was down to my strong American parachute infantry to build on their early momentum.

Board Position At The Start Of American Turn #3

The map above shows the board position at the beginning of turn #3, with the green arrows indicating the positions that my American squads would try to assault this turn.

A Miserable Assault Attempt From The Americans

The Italians had failed to recover their broken leader in N7 (above) and I elected to have no PREP FIRE instead moving straight into the MOVEMENT PHASE.

From the East side of the map (left) I needed to move down to Close Combat his 3-4-6, so I sent my 3-3-7 across the street and into the building beside the 3-4-6 Italians (A). I had cover from the units at (C) and knew that the building would give me good protection against his 3-4-6 despite the point-blank shot. He rolled a 1,2 (2D6) and I failed my morale check breaking the 3-3-7 and leaving 2 residual fire-power in the hex.

I still had an 8-0 leader and a 7-4-7 squad to move and stupidly decided to avoid the residual fire-power and moved them as a stack (to get leader movement bonus) over the edge of the hill at point (B). This of course brought them into line-of-sight for his groups on hill (C).

A Couple Of Pinning Shots Couldn't Slow The Americans

The 8-0 leader made it to the building, but the 7-4-7 got pinned on the hill by his 3-4-6 squad with a LMG. His other roll from (C) with 3-4-6, 8-1 leader and MMG would fail and malfunction his MMG in the process, so I figured I'd gotten off lightly for my mistake... Not so as GaryB would later target this isolated unit, PREP FIRING from (C) during his turn to eliminate my 7-4-7. Nightmare!

I need to be more careful when moving.

Board Position At The Start Of Italian Turn #3

I had better success in the West of Avola although only after a shaky start. I assault moved a 7-4-7 squad into the trees at (D) only to see them pinned by a fortunate shot from the hill at O9. Close Combat there would need to wait. Elsewhere I assaulted squads across the street (E) to take the units and building around (F). The Italian squad there malfunctioning their LMG in a desperate defence.

By the end of Allied turn #3 the board postion was as follow:

(G) - American 3-3-7 had routed back to building hex L2

(H) - The (soon to be eliminated) 7-4-7 sitting exposed on the hill, with my 8-0 leader hiding in the adjacent building.

(I) - GaryB's central Italian squads had a malfunctioned HMG and failed to repair it in the RALLY PHASE of turn #3.

(J) - An American 7-4-7 squad, with MMG and a 9-2 leader have all but taken buildings in this area.

(K) - A 9-1 leader with two 7-4-7 squads waited to fire on O9.

Italian Prep Fire Phase

Italian Turn #3

During the Italian RALLY PHASE they failed to repair their HMG and the Americans recovered the lost Italian LMG in M8 only to find it unusable. The Italian 7-0 leader in N7 also recovered from his broken state.

Most of the Italian action was concentrated on PREP FIRE (right) as they gained one major success in eliminating the American 7-4-7 at position (L) on the hillside. The rest of their fire that phase was largely ineffective.

During MOVEMENT they assault moved their 7-0 Leader into O8 (M) in view to moving him into the buildings on the opposite side of the street.

In his eagerness to put pressure on my broken 3-3-7 in building hex L2 (below) GaryB moved his 1-3-6 from P2 to try and move towards Close Combat. He missed my LOS from the 7-4-7 / HMG stack in M6 (O) and took heavy fire, breaking just as he left the building (N). His unit missed it's ELR and dropped to a 1-2-6. Looks like we both need to be more careful when moving :)

Italians Caught In The Open

Heavy Fire From The Americans

It would be the DEFENSIVE FIRE that would prove most costly for the Italians as the Americans used some heavy fire-power targeting (P) and (Q) forcing both units to break. The 1-3-6 at (P) low crawling into O7 and the 3-3-6 at (Q) routing into the relative safety of hex P9.

By the end of Turn #3 my Americans had made a little progress and were in a reasonably good position. How critical would the loss of the 7-4-7 on the hillside to the North prove to be?

In Turn #4 the Americans will have the support of a significant British force made up from elements of the British 50th Infantry Division. They arrive at beginning of Turn #4, but have some distance to cover before reaching Avola.

British Forces Arriving On Turn #4

 With just three full turns left here is the board position at the end of Turn #3.

Board Position At The End Of Turn #3

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Learning ASL Starter Kit Part 2

We've walked-through some of the examples from richfam's excellent aslsk tutorial and GaryB has completed his Italian set-up to hold the town of Avola, Sicily.

In this scenario, Ambitious Assault (S9), elements of the Italian 146th Regiment are defending the small coastal town of Avola against units of the American 505th Parachute Regiment (arriving on Turn #1 from the North edge of the map) and elements of the British 50th Infantry Division (arriving on Turn #4 from the South edge of the map).

In setting up his Italians GaryB had to place them up-to seven hexes from S6, indicated by a yellow square on the map below.

GaryB's thoughts on his set-up "I was a little overwhelmed when I sat down to organise my defensive set-up, I had gone over the basic rules with GaryG and understood the counter designations and so on. Having never played before I did not have a feel for how fast the units would move, how far they would turn one etc. I settled for choosing what I thought would be the best locations for my support weapons and then would place my remaining troops in positions that would slow the Allies down. The first unit I placed was a regular 3-4-6 unit in hex O6 with the HMG, as from this elevated central location he could attack units on all the hills on each side of the map. I also placed my best leader in this location to maximise its effectiveness. The MMG I placed on hill W6 in the southern section to hold the British when they arrived. I placed LMGs in support of the HMG in O5, and the MMG in U5. The final LMG I placed with two 3-4-6 units on the road hex L8 with the intention of moving into the buildings K8/K9 as I guessed these would become key locations in the American attack. I was to rue this last decision as I underestimated how quickly the Allies would move into position"

Victory conditions state that the Allies win if the Italians have no unbroken multi-man counters (MMCs) in their original set-up zone (highlighted within the yellow area on the map above).

Turn #1
GaryB's set-up was solid enough, but I thought that I could exploit his soft underbelly by focusing my attack from the Western tree-line, just past the hills outside of Avola. This was Sicily after all!

Even at this early stage I was conscious that I needed to move quickly, so I sent two four elite units, with MMG and two quality leaders double-timing towards the trees. My other slightly weaker units would split off towards the East and make a delayed attack from that side of the town.

In response GaryB wisely moved his Italian troops into safer positions to the West, avoiding an unnecessary early encounter with the Americans. This was a delaying game for him after all, so engaging a stronger force head-on probably wouldn't be a good strategy.

End Of Turn #1

American Turn #2
In my first assault of the game I moved a 7-4-7 (with 9-1 leader) under the cover of smoke into tree hex M10 (point B on the map below). They took heavy fire from the Italian machine gun nest in the hills towards the centre of town, pinning the leader and breaking the squad. Not a great start!

I took the positions K8/K9 easily, despite fire from across the street and set-up two 7-4-7s with MMG. My key squad, another 7-4-7 (with 9-2 leader), would use the smoke and try to break across the street to get into close combat with the Italian LMG squad in M8. The roll went against me though and my unit got pinned at the tree-line under fire from two Italian 3-4-6 squads just to the South. Two turns in and I already feel like I'm running out of time...

American Turn #2

Meanwhile to the East, my 8-0 leader with 7-4-7 and 3-3-7 squads move into position having avoided any Italian attention.

Italian Turn #2
Settling for Prep fire the Italians focused their attention on taking out my MMG position at K8, but only managed to pin the unit, with other fire being largely ineffective. I had more success though in my defensive fire by fire-grouping against the 3-4-6 squad and 7-0 leader in M7, breaking both and casualty reducing the 3-4-6 to a 3-3-6 conscripts squad.

Italian Turn #2

The Americans are finally getting somewhere. Turn #3 would be a critical one and the buildings to the NW of town would need to be taken.

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