Victory Results:
 0 %
Record a victory for BOTTOM ARMY  100 %
Total plays 2 - Last reported by alecrespi on 2023-04-14 08:00:22

The U.S. 9th Armored Division had never experienced a major battle, but the German offensive of December 16, 1944, saw it suddenly engaged with the veteran troops of two elite panzer divisions. By December 18, desperate American commanders deployed whatever they had available to try to stop or at least slow the German armored columns moving on the vital crossroads town of Bastogne. Task Force Rose was one of the unlucky units formed ad hoc to try to buy time to enable reinforcements to reach the town.

 

  American German
Division 1

3 Squad Bases
- 9 Regular Infantry
- 1 Officer
- 1 Machine Gun Crew

5 Sherman M4A1s
1 M1 57mm AT Gun

1x Medic
1x AntiTank

3 Squad Bases
- 3 Regular Infantry
- 4 Elite Infantry
- 1 Officer
- 1 Machine Gun Crew
- 1 Mortar Crew

3 Panzer IVs
2 SdKfz 251 Half-Tracks

1x Medic

Division 2

3 Squad Bases
- 7 Regular Infantry
- 1 Officer
- 1 Machine Gun Crew
- 1 Mortar Crew

5 Sherman M4A1s

1x Engineer
1x AntiTank

3 Squad Bases
- 5 Regular Infantry
- 4 Elite Infantry
- 1 Officer
- 1 Machine Gun Crew

3 Panthers
1 SdKfz 251 Half-Track

Strategy Decks Artillery 1
Ground Support 1
German Reinforcements 1
Morale 1
Starting Strategy Cards 3 3
Operations Cards 002 Heavy Fog (shared) 002 Heavy Fog (shared)
Deployment Zone Any hexes on maps 6A, 5B, 1B, 8B, 3A, and 7A. Any grey bordered hexes.
Starting Initiative   Initiative Token
Objective The Americans win if the Germans are unable to fulfil their objective by the end of round 8. At the end of any round, the Germans win if they have moved at least three vehicles off of the board from the blue shaded hex on map 5B, and control the Victory Objective Marker.
Rounds 8
Actions per turn 3 3
Reinforcements - -
Special Rules The blue shaded hex on map 5B indicates the exit hex for German units. A vehicle on that hex may spend 1 movement point to exit the board.
Terrain Features The stream is Flooded.
HINTS The Americans need to have at least two Shermans attack one Panther or one Panzer IV in order to have the best chance to kill or disable them. Depending upon how the Americans set up, the Germans can forego maneuvering and quickly launch into a gunnery slugfest that Panthers should tip in their favor.

 

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alecrespi replied the topic:
10 months 3 days ago
Grand Stone (Dec 28, 2010)

I finaly got the time to play this scenario, and I must realy say, that it was a realy good scenario. I played the germans, and initially I thought that this was going nicely, as the number of sherman tanks safely got reduced in numbers without me taking any cassulties. But then, I suddenly realized that time was beginning to run out, and I had to be more offensive. I then started to push hard, took the objective, killed or heavily damaged most of the remaining sherman tanks. But in the next last round, pushing for victory, the AT gun (wich has stood far behind and done nothing the entire game) heavily damged an undamged panzer IV, and then continued with the last desperate action of a heavily damged sherman which managed to heavily damage an undamged SDKFZ 251 Half-Track, both which turned the tide.

At round 7, (out of 8) the germans was left with to four vehicles, two wich was heavily damaged vehicles, they were controling the objective and hand a handfull of infanteri squads. The US had 1 heavy damaged sherman and one unmanned AT-gun left. That is, the US was COMPLETELY DESTROYED. Anilated. Gone. Dead. Run away. Burned, killed, gone, dead dead dead. But since I needed three vehicles to exit to win the game, I was one short, and the US won. They won, despite being eliminated on the battlefield. ****! ****! ****! (but great scenario)

Maybe I shouled have done some different actions right at the end, but I geuss both sided made mistakes. Still though for choices for both sides. The germans will get into time problems, and thus needs to be somewhat aggressive. On the other side, they dont want to be to aggressive, cuz loosing only a single panther would be a big setback. I also recommend the germans to be carefull with their half-tracks. Although i love using them to swiftly move an infanteri forward ending with an assult action, they are way to valueble to just waste a way. Maybe it is better to simply have them stay behind doing nothing. Cuz, they might be needed in the end. Also, the german has the advantage regarding troops, first because they german has quit a lot of elites, secondly, because of reinforcements. Placing reinforcements in section 8B was a wounderfull move, as it allowed me to place infanteri right behind their defensive line. The reinforcements deck is realy nice. However, using it also ment that the US had the initiative most of the game. But I didn't find initiative to be to important since the US played fairly defensivly anyway, and most of the time they did not have to many shermans to attack me in the first place. But, then ofcourse, in a different situation with a more aggressive US player, loosing the initiative might have been an disaster.

If the US is too aggresive, it might make it to easy for the germans to kill of all tanks, and the german tanks is a heck of a lot better. But being to carefull might just lead to the german slowly grinding their way through. But then, time is on the US side, so a defensive US might be good. Carefully positioning the shermans such that they are never alone is important regardless. A lone sherman is a dead sherman.

However, one question, in this scenario the US gets to specilizations for each division. However, to use them both, the US must place a mortar and a MG on the same squad, which is increadibly stupid. I allowed my oponent to use and MG engineer, because I foud it to be to stupid to place a morter and a MG on the same squad. You should not be forced to do an increadible gamey combo just to be able to use both specilizations. What do you think? Maybe the single mortar could be replaced with to regular infanteri??? A single mortar is not that powerfull anyway, or increadible important for the US in this scneario?
pino replied the topic:
11 months 2 weeks ago
Interesting scenario. The german have some good units, but american firepower superiority is really cumbersome.
alecrespi replied the topic:
2 years 2 months ago
Posting here some comments found online.
www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/37980/tid...1-player-comments-ba
  • This scenario is tense and well balanced.
  • The German player has some tough decisions to make and the American player just has to save time and stay alive. 
  • Given the German superiority in numbers and tank quality this is hard enough for the Americans. The American player cannot simply lean back and watch the Germans do their thing.