Inspired by Norm at "Battlefields and Warrior" (see here Battlefields and Warriors: The Guards Counterattack ASL(SK) ish) I played this solo game about ten days ago but am only getting around to posting about it now - so details of what occurred may be a bit vague!
How Co Pilot suggested I arrange the table. The Soviets would attack from the bottom edge in the picture above, the left edge in the picture below
A view from where the Red Army Guards would start the attack.
German defenders in position
They had three squads, an HMG and two snipers
The Guards advance!
They had five squads, an HMG, a mortar and two snipers
On turn two, the Guards had already suffered two casualty hits
German snipers in action
Turn four, the Red Army has already picked up some significant hit markers, but have inflicted some hits on the defending Germans, too
The first Red Army assault goes in - but is pushed back
On turn five, the Germans succeeded in spotting and killing one of the Soviet snipers!
The Guards regroup in the rubble strewn street
A Red Army sniper gets a double hit!
The Guards put in another assault
Once again, the defending Germans prevail, this time causing casualties on the attacking Russians
Olga the sniper continues to support the attack as Irina keeps headquarters informed of progress!
The German defenders in the building on the right are forced to abandon their position, having accumulated 4 hits and failed to rally any off
But the other assault is again repulsed!
One of the Red Army units on four hits failed to rally and abandoned the fight, taking the HMG with them.
But another Guards unit has finally taken one of the buildings
The next turn, and another successful assault
The Guards now hold two of the three positions - URRAH!
But next turn, the Germans get off table artillery support - which adds three to the dice roll and ignores cover....
But who needs to add 3 to this score - two hits automatically on the unit that just seized the building!
Next turn, the Guards have one unit teetering on the edge on 4 hit points ....
.... and the unit that suffered the artillery strike abandoned the building and fell back!
But they got some handy rally rolls and managed to retain both units
Turns 14-16 I think were all German turns but with only one unit left, they could only try to use fire power to put hits on the Russian units and little was achieved. The Russians had taken quite a battering, but the last German unit was now on four hits
I am not sure on the significance of the dice rolls, they would indicate success for the Germans, but these are the last photos I have - maybe I accidentally deleted turns 18 or 19? Anyway, the outcome was, although they lost 2 of 5 units and had 3 hits on 2 of those remaining, the Guards of the Red Army succeeded in taking the three buildings off the Germans.
I had asked Co Pilot to create me a 28mm skirmish game referring to the Squad Leader "Guards Counterattack" boardgame scenario. I showed the results to Andrew, who said the only similarity with the original was it was based in Stalingrad and involved Germans and Russians! Notwithstanding this, I think the AI designed a nice little game, and it kept me amused for about 90 minutes.
I hope you have enjoyed the delayed and somewhat truncated AAR - I am pretty sure I got most of the details right!
No game at Julians OR Barrys this weekend, so I will likely indulge in another solo effort at some point in the next three evenings.
