E Hill 621 AAR in Progress

[Rindis]

Well, Patch and I started our newest game last night. We'd talked over various possibilities while the previous game was wrapping up, and we eventually decided to visit an old classic, even if it will take a bit longer than the last couple games.

We've both technically played it before, but it's been a decade or so for Patch, and the last I played it, it was SL scenario 5.

Neither of us had a strong affinity for a side, so we rolled off and I got the Russians.

With 48 squads... it was hard to come up with much operational subtlety, so I mostly lined up at the edge of board 3, and am trying to keep everyone out each other's way until attrition shakes out a few bodies.

The pre-game MC broke two German squads, which promptly rallied in the RPh. The Germans set up near the west edge of board 4, in three stacks. With his middle stack, he made a mistake bypassing some woods 15 hexes away from the leaderless MMG I had set up in 3N1h2. The resulting 1MC was passed by the -2 leader and the first squad. However, the latter activated the Sniper who promptly Pinned that squad. The remaining two squads seeing their comrades hit the dirt pinned and broke, effectively halting the entire stack before they could get to the board 2 hills.


Situation, German Turn 1.

The broken German squad promptly rallied in my RPh. My only Prep was the MMG again, which pinned the squad that had advanced up to AA4.

Thanks to his middle group being out of position, I had a lot of freedom to move. They tried to fire a couple times with tricky LOS, but they were blocked. Overall, I had four squads broken, one by the Sniper. Not bad at all....


Situation, Russian Turn 1 after MPh.

[Honza]

Neat. I love the pictures. VASL is good in that way, you can save the pictures and reproduce them. I hope you enjoy the rest of the scenario.

[Uncle Joe]

Looking forward to this aar, the VASL pictures and arrows make them top notch.

Jeff H has just beaten the living daylights out of my Russians, and even though I still have my last turn to go and I am adjacent to the victory hexes, there are sufficient German troops and heavy metal on the top to prevent me from getting there barring some seriously lucky DRs.

Btw, my tactics for the first rounds seem identical to yours. MMG's in the stone buildings top level and everybody else run for it. Didn't work too well for me, though :-(

One piece of advice: Look out for those mean halftracks that enter as reinforcements - Jeff has admitted they really are Schwere Panzerabteilung 503 in disguise - at least they act like it.

JM

[Rindis]

Yeah, Patch initially asked if I remembered I needed a leader to fire past 16 hexes. I allowed that it had slipped my mind, but it didn't matter as the MMG was there purely to interdict board 4. The other one started in 3Q4 with the 9-1 with an idea of getting it into the multi-hex building, but the FL aborted that move to 4R7.

Halting Patch's middle stack was well worth it, but it's going to be a long slog for the MG crew to catch back up to the action.

Oddest moment so far was when the north-side group of Germans started up the hill, and I realized they'd keep concealment because there was no one within 16 hexes. First time I've had to look at that column of the concealment chart....

[Patch_Bunny]

Everything I've read about this scenario stresses not getting into a stand-up fight with the Russians on board 4. Looking at the board and Rindis' set-up, I think there's something to be gained with holding a few units back and interdicting the advance. I may use a few, but I think the time gained will be worth a squad or two.

Two squads broke in the pre-game MC, but rallied promptly. I set up interdicting positions in the 4G3 woods (blocking an end run along the south edge and around the 4I5 woods) and around the 4Y3 intersection to block the board center. The MMG is posed to flee if needed, but the screening squad in the 4AA4 woods may die there. The key to my defense, as Rindis noted, got nailed on a long range MG shot/SAN attack and stalled in 2R8. The absence of the HMG and 9-2 in 2S7 will hurt.

The broken squad in 2R8 rallies first time, so I'm back in form as Rindis begins his charge. His advance is more conservative than I expected. The MMG in 4Z2 throws out a firelane that seriously hiders the center advance, and te 2R8 stack tries some sneaky LOS attempts that unfortunately fail. I break 4 squads. Not bad, but I would like to have seen 2-3 more from the 9-2 stack, who didn't do much due to his location. Biggest flaw in my Defensive Fire was using the 8-1 to direct fire, which prevented him from using his Radio to call in a fire mission. Realized my error right after I rolled the damn dice. I much prefer calling in OBA during Defensive Fire, as my opponent has no chance to avoid the SR. Now Rindis has another movement phase to run away from it. Thankfully, Rindis fails to break any of my units in his Advancing Fire so I'm at full strength for turn 2.

[Rindis]

Patch immediately called down an SR during his Turn 2. The AR was right in the middle of the brown line, but it went 5 hexes off and into 3S1; safely out of the way—for now. The squad with the observer attempted to entrench, but only got a labor counter for their troubles. He preped with the two other North-side squads, and broke a 447, and Pinned two other squads.

Of course, the stack 2R8 moved out, and there was now nothing I could do about it. He moved one South-side squad and LMG back to a shoulder of Hill 621, while the other skulked in it's advanced position.


Situation, German Turn 2 AFPh.

My second turn took a while. I'd done a lot of the initial probing and started in on the bulk of the movement phase by email, and finishing it off still took the bulk of tonight's on-line session. My rally phase went well, rallying 3/3 and only leaving 2 brokies on the board, one in an out-of-the-way position. I decided against any sort of prep fire and started moving.

Thankfully, Patch's early shots were pretty bad, and escaped pretty lightly with my opening moves, which gave me a chance to completely swamp the forward South-side squad. As things went on, his rolls got better. Also, his Sniper was quite active, in part because of the number of fire lane attacks I had to go through. He Pinned two squads before they even got a chance to move.... My Sniper went off once, and stunned one of his MkIVs.

I knew he'd put the MMG's FL back up as soon as he had a chance, so I lead that part off with the 9-1 and MMG so they'd take the 4FP +1, instead of a 2FP -2. A good thing, the NMC pinned my leader. Of course, while the squad with the MMG passed, they were still out of movement well short of their goal.

Despite what was overall probably poor luck for Patch, he really got what he needed: a 1 -2 FL shot killed an 8-0 leader. I only have three leaders. I cannot afford that....


Situation, Russian Turn 2 AFPh. Case study in the effective use of fire lanes.

Total casualties: 3.5x527, 2x447, 8-0 KIA; 1x527, 2x447 Broken

DFPh saw the SR move into 4S3, the middle of my current concentration of troops. Not going to to be able to do much about the FFE....

CC went well for me. The 3:1 in 4G3 killed the defending German for no loss, and the 447 advancing into 4AA4 got Ambush which caused him to get a CR, and those two things combined kept him from doing any damage in return.

[Matt Romey]

Why did the German tanks enter on the West edge? They should enter on the North or South edge of board 4.

We have played Hill 621 a bunch of times in the SoCal ASL Club, and we've found that the result of the tank battle that often occurs in turn 2-3 has a huge effect on the game. Here, of course, it has been avoided since the PzIVs entered safely behind the hill.

In one of our playings, the Germans avoided that turn 2 tank battle by hiding the PzIVs behind the hill. By the end of the game there were still some alive. One of the best Hill 621 games I've ever played just because the end game was so much different than usual. The German armor just sat up there in reverse slope and ripped any Russians that dared show their faces. Of course, the flip side was that the Russian SUs had a field day! I recall it came down to the last turn, but I forget who won.

[Rindis]

Well, I assumed Patch knew what he was doing.... :P

[Bad Dice]

Interesting.

I have started this scenario a half-dozen times, and never finished it. B2hail-whatever and I are currently playing this via VASL.

It probably goes without saying that we'll both be watching this one closely.


BD

[Patch_Bunny]

Yeah, got so caught up on everyone else entering on the west board edge, I missed that the MkIVs didn't enter there.

Did that the last time I played this one, too.