| A Tragic & Homeric Fight Ending in a Draw | ||||||||||||||
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This was a 4-session play-through with the Rough & Ready, CavDo, managing the attacking German paratroopers bent on taking Heraklion from my understrength, defending Greek infantry regiment and a platoon of hard-fighting Tommies. Both of us drew flawed leaders, that then suffered heavy casulties. We played this 18 game turn, ultimately drawn, battle in Crete using the FOW, excess initiative and consolidation rules. Once again, I did penance for my countless sins by playing the harder-to-play-side - and once again did not have benefit of any armored units to use against the high morale German paras. Taking tactical advice from other AARs, the Greek/Brit garrison was deployed in the town with two units holding each the four gates, and limited reserves standing by to reinforce the bloody close assaults that ensued. In our play, the Germans nearly overwhelmed the hard-pressed, garrison and took two gates in the first 10 game turns, but then lost their momentum due to heavy casualties, a senior leader loss, and vigorous - that is to say, lucky - Allied counter attacks. Unexpectedly, German air strikes were not particularly effective due to generally, unlucky aircraft selections and oft-missed target hexes. The end result was a very costly draw as the final victory points were almost even with the Allies having just 2 more VPs than the German total. Both sides encountered considerable trouble with combat morale and morale recovery die rolling in this fiercely-contested battle. I give this one a 3, and recommend it for SOLO play, as it is decently-balanced, but overly fiddly and longer than it should be. It is a much harder pull for the defending Allied garrison, so this effort is not terribly well-suited for SHARED play. |
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| 1 Comment |
All true as written, and in spades as I was very lucky to come away with a draw in this incredibly bloody shootout, aganist a skilled opponent in old Heraklion. The good news for the German side was that the Treadasaurus had no AFVs, or opportunities for significant maneuver in this constricted terrain.
IMHO, this is a decent training scenario for urban assaults against walled objectives, but should be played with infanty units being able to move at a rate of 1 MP per clear, or town hex,and not the ridiculous 2/3 of a MP movement rule. I give it a 4, but agree that it is probably better played as a solitaire game.