Catching Up

Well, it's been a while.

A combination of real life workload and general blog-laziness have conspired to keep Blind Hex dark for the last few months, but I'll try to breath some life back in.

First of all, The ABTF CG is over, ending in the British concession predicted by absolutely everyone.

At the end of the second CG date my British were holding only block H. We had about 27 squads (nearly half of which were walking wounded), ELR had dropped and the ammo shortage had gotten worse. The worst blow was the attrition in the leadership ranks.

The Germans on the other hand had lost the vast majority of their AVF's, and also had about 27 or so squads. However, the majority of them were elite. Most importantly there were a lot more of them available for CPP purchase, while the Brits of course can not get ANY additional infantry at all.

As I considered my strategy for the next CG date, the only thing to do would be to max-out on fortifications and dummies, and bump up the sniper. I would try to keep him shooting at ghosts and try to get some open ground shots.

As my scheduling problem drew on, and I considered the travel time between Joe's place and mine, I decided that I had to call it. I would have loved to have played one more CG date to see how it would go. As I told Joe, if we lived 10 minutes apart I would certainly not concede yet.

In the end, it just seemed like the chance for victory was so slight, that calling it a day was best the course.


I also left the SP101 Jura Juggernaut AAR hanging.

I've been unable to find my notes, but the Russians won. Here is the endgame photo:




Jim got his exit points pretty easily by the appointed time, and the game continued. My Russians were able to work the shrinking perimeter defense around the southern bridge as the Germans pressed in.

In the last turn, Russian squads at either end of the bridge were in place as roadblocks to prevent any German infantry from getting on the bridge (without some kind of miracle). However, Jim still had some vehicles that could drive through get onto the bridge.

He tried to get there from both directions. As a tank from the eastern bank was rushing through, it was engaged in CC reaction fire which eliminated it.

Another vehicle from the west rolled right through the squad guarding on that side. I thought I had lost as the tank would easily move through both bridge hexes and gain control, right? Wrong.

As Jim correctly pointed out, a vehicle can only control the location it is in. Once it leaves, control reverts to it's previous status: enemy or uncontrolled (A 26.12). Woo-hoo, Russians win!!

I'm certainly not the first to say that this is a terrific scenario. It's very spread out, there are lots of options for both sides, and there is a lot going on. I would take either side.

SP101 Jura Juggernaut gets the Blind Hex stamp of approval.

Will be posting a bunch more often hopefully in the near future as my schedule starts to settle back down.

AAR of SP101 Jura Juggernaut Part 1

It was my turn to suggest scenarios for a game with Jim, one of my regular opponents. From my short list he chose this one, saying he had wanted to play it since it was released by Schwerepunkt a few years ago. I agreed that it looked pretty cool.

This is not a the sort of small, quick and dirty scenario Schwerepunkt has a reputation for producing. This Brian Williams design pits 20 elite German squads with 7 halftracks, supported by 9 tanks of the 1st Panzer Division, againt 20 Russian squads reinforced by 7 tanks of their own. It takes place during the opening hours of Barbarossa.

The German task is to enter from the west and exit 49 CVP off the east edge by the end of turn 4, and capture all three of the bridges over the Jura River by game's end (turn 8). Jim chose the German side, leaving me to come up with a defense.

Most of the Russian force is restricted to setting up in buildings on board 49, west of the river. Furthermore, the Russians are permitted no more than one MMC per building (exclusive of gun crews).

I decided fairly quickly that preventing the German exit would be very a difficult gamble, requiring my defense to spread out. The more viable strategy for victory seemed to be concentrating on holding a bridge. Just one would do. I chose the southernmost bridge, in the shadow of hill 520.

Given the setup restrictions, there really aren't many obviously good places to put the two Russian 37mm guns. I chose to put them both in the area of the southern bridge. One in F8 with a long line of sight down the board 49 road, the other in K10. K10 itself is not a good place for the gun, but the little m12 could be pushed with relative ease into the woods of 40L0, for a good look at two of the bridges and much of the western bank.




I was pretty thin in the north, with just a few squads and somne dummies to try to slow down the German onslaught.



Jim entered all of his turn one force in the north, in a "hit 'em where they ain't attack." I opted to let him maintain concealment rather than reveal by default which units might be dummies.





Meanwhile in the South, the 9-1 and a squad with an HMG high-tailed it across the bridge to set up on the western side. They would eventually dig foxholes at the foot of the bridge, with two other squads sliding down from hill 520 and to doing the same in the grain.

More to come soon..............