War of the Rats and SoloCon Wrap Up

Saturday night, I spent about an hour walking through a tutorial on using demolition charges, flame throwers, and machine guns in Advanced Squad Leader Start Kit in preparation for playing the second scenario included in the #1 box: War of the Rats.

This scenario has the Germans trying to capture some key buildings in 1942 Stalingrad. They outgun the Soviets in every possible way - including the aforementioned demolition charges, flame thrower, and machine guns.

The Germans closed fairly quickly - suppressing the Soviets with prep fire from the MGs and placing smoke grenades to cover their advance. They focused on taking one objective at a time, rather than spreading the force too thin attacking all three at once.

In retrospect, my initial Soviet defense could have used some work. This walkthrough gives some advice that I'll apply next time.

Even with reinforcements, which arrived on turn 3, the Soviets were on the verge of collapse. Or so it seemed.

As the Germans advanced, I had the Soviets fall back until eventually they formed a defensive line to protect the final objective. There they put up a last stand worthy of the ages - pinning and breaking Germans on nearly every die roll.

A final push by the Germans to close assault the objective -something I thought would be a slam dunk - led to their being ambushed, which resulted in the loss of a leader and three multi-man counters to a single good order Soviet MMC and a 9-2 leader at 1:2 odds (the two broken Soviet MMCs only participated in the defense not the counter attack)!

The game ended on turn 5.5 with the Germans unable to take, let alone occupy the final objective.

I started late and finished around 3AM, so by the time I woke up Sunday, it was time to return to the real world of grocery shopping, ignoring the 17 tons of leaves covering our yard, cookie baking - it's the holiday season after all- and dad life, when my son returned from his holiday excursion Sunday night.

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In addition to playing all of the games, I watched quite a few movies. Not all of them relate to gaming interests, but I thought I'd list them anyway:

Is Paris Burning? (Amazon Prime)
Operation Crossbow (Turner Classic Movies)
Panfilov's 28 (Amazon Prime)
Niagara (Turner Classic Movies)
Kansas City Confidential (Turner Classic Movies)
The Mask of Dimitrios (Turner Classic Movies)
The Shop Around the Corner (Turner Classic Movies)

Is Paris Burning? is a phenomenal film that I can't speak of highly enough. It's about the French resistance in Paris just prior to the city's liberation from the Nazis. However, Niagara, is Marilyn Monroe's first appearance in Technicolor - so that alone ties it for the top spot (it's also a good noir. I used to live in Western New York and visited the Falls too many times to remember, and it was fun to see places I knew, only as they were decades before I ever saw them). 

Panfilov's 28, while not the best Russian war movie I've seen, is a gripping last stand scenario and is ripe with wargaming inspiration - plus if you like tanks, there are a ton of them. Finally, The Mask of Dimitrios featured Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, and I just automatically love everything they do (I often joke that Sydney Greenstreet is my spirit animal).

There was an other  movie I watched, starring Katherine Hepburn, that I can't recall the title of and I did not enjoy all that much - to my surprise as I generally like everything I've ever seen her in. Frankly, I think I watched the whole movie only because I expected it to get better at some point, but it never happened.