Scraping Off The Rust.

  Getting ready to play J154, Cradle to Grave, this weekend. First ASL in many months. I'm probably more excited about it than a 44 year old man should be about playing a game, but here we are.

  Jim chose this one from the short list of suggestions I made, and I was hoping he would pick this one. It's a West Front battle designed by the prolific Pete Shelling. It features a combined arms German attack on a mixed group of first and second line Americans who are joined by 8 squads of French partisans.

    This scenario caught my attention because the more I looked at it, the harder it was for me to imagine how it plays out. I really have almost no idea what will happen in this one. I just know that my attacking Germans have two jobs: capture stone building hexes and kill partisans. 

   The twist is that I have to split my force in two, having some enter on the north edge, and some on the east. I have to do this before seeing the allied defensive setup. That's an interesting challenge, because the defender has a lot of options here. I can't possibly try to guess what Jim will do defensively, I just have to come up with an attack plan that makes sense and be ready to adjust it.

   To make things more interesting, the American turn three reinforcements also come on along the north edge. Four first line squads and two gyro stabilized M5A1s will be running right up the heels of my northern group. 

  Will the slippery partisans evade and frustrate the German attack? Will the American tank destroyers rack up dead Panzers? Or will the big German firepower overwhelm the allies and hold the day? 

  Seriously. Tell me. I have no idea.