Hull Down

After several pbem games I had started with another ftf opponent on start kit and when one of my previous opponents noted I was playing again offered to re-start. This was the first of several games over a year or so. Back into the maelstrom of Festung Budapest my next game had me taking the gallant Soviets trying to crush Nazi scum in the Steam Railway station whilst a strong force of SS and Hungarian Assault engineers tried to rescue them. It took a while to try and ‘grok’ all the various rule even beyond the usual ammo shortage but grok them we did and setup occurred. My plan was very Soviet. The German forces in the Steam Wheel station are under ammo shortage 5! so lots of shooting should start whittling them down even if I miss all my shots in return. Therefore I resolved to throw all my forces forward to draw fire and let the ammo shortage do its work. I reinforced my ‘Eastern’ forces slightly to help both hold back the German reinforcements and stop squads escaping over th...

This turned out to be my final game with FargoGamer. Posted first in August 2014. Fargo had been involved in a row with some other ASL players on game squad concerning the Scottish Independence. Fargo was ‘for’ and several others were ‘against’ and it got very nasty. He decided to take a break from the game soon after. This had a bit of a rushed start but eventually I was given the setup. This is a fast, low turn, action scenario with not a lot of time for more delicate manoeuvre. I am playing the Russian’s attempting to seize by coup de main a section of Budapest and using my favourite nicknamed Russian Tanks (the evocative ‘the Bitch’) to do so. Issues are that the Hungarian defenders have a lot of toys and fortifications, the lack of smoke, difficult victory conditions and short time. In this game the Germans had set up an aggressive forward defence, most of the Hungarians out of the buildings did pin at start due to some horrible die rolling. Setup: I did my best to sta...

This re-post marked (I guess) the souring of my gaming relationship with one of  my opponents. The end of this game left my irritated and annoyed. Which is quite rare for me in ASL. The AAr actually stopped when I got really annoyed. I actually still won the game (last roll thing) but was so peed of I did not go that far.  This actually stayed with me for a while and did not ‘come out in the wash’ , I think, until a later post which I will get into when I get into it. Anyway the game was the latest against my then regular main opponent FargoGamer. It was first posted mid-July 2014. See if you can play the game of guessing why I was annoyed..In fairness to Fargo it was more me not being willing to say ‘no’ For our next game we decided on a large one on a HASL map and went for Festung Budapest’s ‘Stalingrad Redux’. I received the Germans and setup much like the series replay, mainly as I did not know what to do. If I am clueless I often check out other AAR’s to see if ...