One of my wargaming buddies visited me recently and brought along Liberty or Death from GMT. This game lets you play through the events of the American War for Independance from the first clashes in Lexington 1775 to the final stalemate in the year of 1783.
The game map is an excellent piece of art. Focussing on it for the game is a pleasure. Here you can see the starting placement for the medium campaign.
One of the more interesting campaigns to me are those towards the Allied war effort in Southern Europe. The Tunesian campaign, the invasion of Sicily, the Italian war front, they all cover the development of the green American outfit into the efficient fighting machine at war’s end. They have all too offer to the wargamer that the Northwestern Europe Theatre does . That is, if you can do without bocage.
The scenario DB063 from Dispaches from the Bunker #26 pits the early G.I.s of 45th Infantry Division against the veteran German Luftwaffe Panzer-Division Hermann Göring. The situation brings us to the early days of Operation Husky in Sicily July 1943. Again this is an engagement Jeff and I play via VASL. The write up will be from the American perspective and somewhat partial as that.
Living at Aachen I have ready access to some of the most famous battle grounds of WW2. One is the Hürtgen Forest only 45 minutes from here by car. Thus BFP’s publication OBJECTIVE: SCHMIDT is a must for the ASL gamer in me. Here I will start off with a solo-play of the first scenario, a small all infantry scenario that will introduce me to the SSR and the terrain.
G.I.s of Coy L / 112th Inf Rgt attack demorilised Russian volunteers of Gren Rgt 1055. Its interesting to play a scenario where all units have morale of 6 and low ELR. I just recently read the excellent article on how to use conscripts in ASL in the VFTT#6 issue. This article I heartily recommend to all that play with or against conscripts.
While playing the OCS game Tunisia II I set my mind on finding a suitable ALS scenario to get a more detailed view of the nature of the fighting during the Race for Tunis. This scenario plays in the wet Tunisian winter of November 1942. Axis units in Tunisia are few and the Allies try to race towards Tunis in an attempt to take important logistical and air force bases.
From my solo experience and from the ROAR statistics I take this scenario as difficult for the North Koreans to win. The US fire power just seems so overwhelming. Jeff, my opponent in this game, has his own worries. The Americans are in dire straits off course as the all round LOS due to the light woods might prevent legal passes for routing. Lucky dice are probably wellcome all over.
Forgotten War is much more intersting than I anticipated. Up until now I go for the scenarios that go easy on Korean War specific rules. The first I am playing via VASL is a short 5 turn scenario featuring the elements of the US 24th Infantry Division attacked by elements of the North Korean 4th Seoul Guards Division. The situation plays on 8 August 1950 when US units were heavily engaged with North Korean forces in this at the time called “police action” far from the states.
After unboxing Forgotten War Korea: 1950 – 1953 I off course onted to try one of the new scenarios. This would also serve as an incentive to clip some of the new ROK counters. The specialised rules used in the scenario seem to be easy to grasp. They mainly concern rice paddies, dirt roads, and some specific capabilities of the South Korean Army. So off I go for the first scenario set on 25 June 1950 the very first day of the northern invasion.
