MAIN EVENT VI! Red Devil vs. [hirr]Leto

[British Tommy]

Rarely, a crew will leave its vehicle with full ammo for their pistols, they can be pretty handy if things get desperate in defence.

No I'm right :)
Check your baled out crews. This was fixed in one of the patches as players were using them as infantry.

[Joonny]

Here we have my M8 greyhound crew, ammo 15.

Crews have reduced combat and spotting abilities, so stopping you using them as scouts, they are also automatically rattled so they break easier. Also weapons crews also keep their ammo and are again handy in defence if the situation requires.

[Liebchen]

I gave up on tactical games of the Cm/SP type for the selfish reason that I jealously guard my free time and I loathed doing the purchase and set up portion of things.

Actually, there are many, many excellent scenarios out there (in addition to the stock ones) that do not require players to purchase and set up. I actually prefer them, as they are usually thought out with great care by their designers, as compared to generic quick-battle race-to-the-flag type games.

[Jobu88]

Yep. Our site has its own library of tested scenarios, and there are several good sites out there with hundreds more. Like this one:

http://www.the-scenario-depot.com/index.html

[Steel God]

Guys, I am aware of all the fine scenarios out there, and in SP I was a big proponent of player designed scenarios. But for all that, the mark of an SP craftsman was his ability to buy and deploy a force to his specifications and handle it with skill. I suspect it is likewise in CM.

In any event though, I don't want to hijack DK's Main Event thread any further. Let's get back to Randy and Pete doing the sand dune shuffle. ;)

[Der Kuenstler]

I'm glad for all the discussion and comments, guys - it just helps me know you're interested. Next we have minute four, and we open with Red Devil's first losses of the battle. Here in the South, he runs his two lead engineer squads to the edge of some brush and then starts walking them towards Leto's German setup zone. Not sure why he didn't use "move to contact." Both squads come under enemy fire from town. A green tracer can be seen in the air. It is a MG 34 HMG - too far away for them to see - but a man gets killed in each squad. Caught walking and out of command, both squads immediately pin. Their HQ unit is coming up the road over 200 meters to the rear, and by the time he gets here these men could well be routed.



Meanwhile to the North, RD's truck column gradually restores order and two lead trucks pull up at the Northwest 100 point flag. But they can plainly see the Germans are aleady in the Oasis and are sunning under the umbrellas at the hotel, sipping lemonade. There's no way Red Devil will get any farther with just one platoon on trucks against a platoon in cover.



Red Devil is going to need some support to get that Oasis, but the only support coming is wearing swastikas. Leto's high plains column is speeding towards the Oasis loaded with HE and two more infantry platoons. RD's trucks and men would be smart to try to hide at this point.



Leto splits off part of his central force on the high plateau and turns them to face Red Devil's Southern threat. A platoon of Marders, a 75mm ATG, and an 81mm mortar set up a defense. Leto's IIIJ(Late) is still trying to unbog at the bottom of the hill.



To the West, Leto uses caution at Randy's British holding town. Two of his green IIIJs start shelling an empty building downtown (out of view) while these other two tanks deftly sidestep RD's deadly AT minefield.
We see Leto's small infantry force working their way around the cliffs also.



To the East, Randy leaves some AFVs on watch while he sends his Stuarts back towards his setup zone. This move seems to confuse Leto. He writes: "Interesting turn of events. RD now seems predisposed to link his forces and move against me… but where. Very chess match style game so far."

But personally, I think he is just sending those Stewarts back to pick up some men.



RADIO CHATTER
RANDY: "excellent decision to come across that plateau, we have a pleasant outing for you planned there that ATR is Rambo... be careful where you tread next mister..."
PETE: "Actually, that British delaying flag is the only one I don’t plan on taking. My boys are just there to ensure your boys are stuck sitting on their teapots and are setting up a perimeter. No worries, we shant upset your mines for you. : ) The ATR fellow you are referring to with the soiled knickers is Sgt Clifford Wamsley Rambo III esquire, I presume… Graduated from Oxford in 1939 with an honors degree in ancient Sumerian philosophy with his studies concentrating on identifying the links to the foot fetishes of the gentry class in the Uruk period and its relationships to pottery that is shaped like the phallic shaped big toes of dingir-dingir deities. Right. I do not think he is any relationship to the Rambo from the movies, and since he has now lost his glasses and shat himself, I suspect very little disturbance from him, outside of a need to collect him up as he begins frantically waving around his snotty white handkerchief in surrender."
RANDY: "too much dust other wise you'd be in some serious shat yourself :)"
PETE: "I’m like an evil being that moves around concealed by shadow…. But instead of fog of murky darkness, I am protected by a pig-pennish cloud of dust that smells like sauerkraut and stale pee. : )
Hey! Beating a path back to Egypt so soon? You must have heard that a fresh shipment of kumkwats just arrived at the port of Cairo and just can’t help yourself… right?"

All of this chatter can have an effect on the mindset of those playing the game. I've never used it much, but I admit it can have a psychological impact. Chatter can be used to mislead, intimidate, confuse, or frustrate an opponent.

From the positions of their forces, it seems both players have pretty much committed themselves now - Leto must go and win the Oasis to the North. And it looks like Red Devil must give up on that possibility and try to take everything else.

[Der Kuenstler]

In this first pic we can see what I expected in the East - Red Devil's Stuarts are picking up men. The arrows show they are turning around. Funny - one of Randy's Stewarts already had a 1/2 squad on it when it left to pick up more men. He must have tried to give them disembark orders while the Stewart was in motion. (They won't get off that way.) When the Stewart arrived back South and stopped to turn, the riders got off and started walking all the way back to where they were!



At the West side of the Oasis, Red Devil's lead truck takes a face full of small arms fire from the house in the distance marked with an arrow. (There is a German 1/2 squad in there.) The truck dies and the drivers abandon it. It looks like Randy is going to try to make a stand there - his infantry are getting off the trucks and headed for the cover around the flag. Judging by the large German dust cloud rushing towards him he'd better get the rest of those trucks out of there immediately.



Back at Leto's German setup zone to the Southwest, we see he has noticed the British attack force to the East has halted. He does a little rearranging by backing his AFV's up. (Is he afraid of RD's men tossing satchel charges over the cliffs?) The two British squads that Leto's MG 34 was firing on earlier have turned into generic icons in the brush. He elected not to have the MG 34 continue to area fire them, so they will recover.



Here is an overhead shot of Leto's Oasis defense to the North. He has his platoon HQ in the hotel and all of his men split into half squads and widely spread out. None of them are in commmand. With this arrangement they will be able to see well what is coming and from where, but not stop anything. Leto no doubt is counting on his approaching reinforcements for that.



In this last shot we can see that Leto's IIIJ on the hill has managed to unbog itself and is backing to join the others. In the distance we see Leto's central force is getting closer to the Oasis....



In RD's holding town Leto continues to bombard one of the empty buildings with two of his green IIIJs. His two other IIIJs there moved a little closer to RD's AT minefield to try to get a glimpse of the trucks up the road, but there was still too much dust for LOS.

[Der Kuenstler]

Leto sent in a nice overhead pic and explanation of his current thinking:



Leto says: "Here are some of my strategic thoughts on the battle so far. Take them in the context of “if the world were over run by brain eating zombies, I may be one of the only people with little to fear”. So take the following very lightly if you expect it to be strategically educational in any way.

Area 1

We must all remember that FOW can cloud the judgement of the enemy. With RD’s massive push towards Area 1, and my move backwards with KG B, I am hoping that he suspects that I do not have any armour at all in that group, and that what he may be up against is more infantry in trucks or HT’s with some recon. If that is the case, then by moving my KG B back to the safety of the town, I may be telegraphing to RD that KG B is not heavily armoured and thus try to entice him into the trap I have set up for him with the 3 AT guns. Now, the only way that RD can find out what I have there is by attacking en force, or sending scouts. If I were him, I would be genuinely leery of making any kind of well committed attack on my base flag in area 1. My guess is that he will attempt to use the high ground to the north east of area 1 to stage for a crossfire between his units at area 2.

My plan if I were him would be to play the man, not the ball, and attempt to find ways to destroy my KG’s without paying much attention to flags… for now.

Area 2

RD quickly pulled back, but the dust registers no real movement backwards to join up with his units in area 1. My hopes is that RD has decided to bivouac the men and order them to bake a few oversized blancmange cakes and then deliver it unto my doorstep knowing I have a love of cakes, and knowing that I would most likely bring the blancmange inside my defences… well, you see where I am going with this (yes, the blanc-mange almost won Wimbledon, so one must respect its destructive powers).

For those of you who do not get this eclectic reference: http://cake0rdeath.blogspot.com/2009/07/...ve-we.html

I think this may just be a “biding his time” move in order to get some of his infantry out to recon. The next few turns will be interesting in terms of watching the “dust” fly. Also note, that even on slow movement commands, dust will be created, although not as self evident. Thus there still may be ways for RD to attempt to use stealth. Problem for him is time.

Area 3

It appears that RD has moved several half squads to this small flag. They have received a warm welcome from my panzertruppen, and we’ve shot the hell out of one of his bulldogs, causing the half squad riding in it to shat in their knickers and crawl off sobbing. But that is as far as he will get due to my own defences in the town area. He will need armour to help him break through and at this point, and there are no signs of help coming anytime soon. My armour will drop off my panzertruppen that will then scale down the cliffs (yes, they can do this, I checked by running tests… it would be a real bitch to find out I couldn’t get them down to the large flags) to hold the town and large flags and then return to the middle of the plateau and go hull down somewhere.

Area 4

This is of no real concern to me. It is a small flag with more cons than pros. My only goal is to shoot up hapless Brits that were left to defend the small flag. By circumnavigating past it using the higher plains, I have effectively sequestered this flag area and all the troops he has within it (and I am beginning to think he only has the same level of protection that I have left at my own flag). The ATR is the only real unit of concern, and I am sending a trusty HQ squad to move up and cut off any ability for the ATR to scale back to the top of the plateau and target the rear of my Marders or the tops of my panzers. The 4 panzers will also be a reinforcement group if RD does manage to sustain an attack on Area 1… the PZ III L42 50mm guns can kill the Stuarts as easy as the Stuarts can kill them, so they are definitely too valuable an asset to me now that I know RD chose a great many Stuarts for his kit, even if my PZ III’s are green.

I will continue to enact my own plans, confident that I can flexibly react to any of RD’s limited attack options without being too fretty about it. My only fear is that he masses his two groups and attacks before I can get KG AAA back to the middle of the plateau to help out KG AA.

The Desert Buttox

(those cheering for the Desert Buttox will receive a free SHAMWOW!)"

[Der Kuenstler]

Leto's green IIIJ(shorts) have come under fire from a sniper somewhere. He has a sound contact and (correctly) guesses that the sniper must be in the two story light building. He then orders all four of his IIIJs to area fire the building. (two are out of sight)



These tanks only have a HE blast of 14, but with four of them shooting at once they raise quite a ruckuss, and send poor Cpl Riggs running and routed. Some of Leto's MG 34 LMG team can be seen targeting him as he runs.



We see from this angle that Riggs makes it into some brush. Red Devil's AT Rifle team repositioned themselves on the cliffs but Leto hasn't forgotten them - he is sending infantry to hunt them down.



To the Southwest, Leto continues to back his AFV's up in anticipation of an attack from the Southeast. But look - he has left all his riders on the tanks. I would think they would have been more useful up in the rocky cliffs watching for RD's approach.



Tit for tat: Red Devil has successfully dismounted all of his infantry from his trucks to the Northwest and gotten them safely into cover, where they begin firing on one of Leto's trucks. But this party can't last long - the dust from Leto's lead Pz IIIJs can already be seen in the pic.



Red Devil to Leto: "pity i didn't pay attention to where those trucks were.. i really could of used them to a better purpose. waste your ammo on them, we'll just borrow more from the yanks..."

[Der Kuenstler]

Leto's Northern attack force stops before reaching the Oasis. His IIIJs all turn to face Randy's menacing forces to the South. Leto's foot soldiers disembark from the tanks and continue to the Oasis on foot.



Leto has a lone Marder in the center of the high plateau which has begun dueling with RD's Stuarts to the South. He gets a penetration here but it does no damage to the Stuart. These vehicles are all "regular" quality and at over 1000 meters range they miss a lot. Each miss sends up a plume of dust that temporarily blocks LOS between the vehicles, with the result that they have been trying to hit each other for a full minute with only one penetration.



From Red Devil's side here is an overall view - he has 2 Stuarts and a Grant exchanging fire with the Marders in the distance, so far with no results. He is sending his Crusader platoon on "fast" towards Leto's setup area to the West. He also has another Grant shelling the house in town containing Leto's MG 34.



In a view from the East we can see Red Devil is attempting to flank Leto's Marders with his Eastern Stewarts and Grant. So far they have no LOS but they are getting close. To the North we can see the dust raised by Leto's IIIJs turning around to meet the threat.



Meanwhile at the Oasis, Randy seems content to let his trucks get shot to pieces, despite a possible escape route to the North. He could at least get them off the map there and deny Leto the points. Leto's 1/2 squad in the hotel knock another truck out...



To the West, RD's sniper (Riggs) is killed in the brush by Leto's area firing IIIJ.

RADIO CHATTER:

RANDY: "problem with VPs (victory points?) is everyone runs to them instead of fighting :)"
PETE: "You see, that’s the thing I never understood about the way most people perceived this game. People always seem to go to the flags like moths to a flame… usually to their destruction. I am not rushing towards the flags per se… I am picking the ground on which I wish to fight. If one can pick the best ground AND defend the flags, he should most likely win every time."
RANDY: "yeh i'm coming to par-tay... not play UNO :)
looks like good ground to fight upon just wish i had another week's worth of desert gunnery training.. these boys can't hit diddly.."

Ineresting insight into the strategic thinking of these two quality players...