Played the first of what will hopefully be many games over at Russ
George's this Sunday.  We had agreed on "Le Manoir" from Paratrooper ahead
of time, but as neither of us had a particular hankering for either side, we
diced for it and I got the Germans.
        Russ graciously went outside to water the yard while I pushed my 2
1/2 squads and three foxholes around.  The easy decision was to take
advantage of SSR 3 and Deploying everything I had.  I considered some
forward positions as they had great lines of sight right across the
inevitable line of the American advance.  I also considered puting a
half-squad and MG next to the 4O6 building and advancing them in there first
thing to really put a thorn in the American advance.  However, with only 2
1/2 squads to play with, force conservation won out and I went with more
interior sites that I might actually be able to rout back from.
        The 9-1 leader got a half squad and the MMG in 4O5 with a foxhole
with the idea of ducking behind the bocage if necessary.  One of the HMGs
went in 4T4 with a half-squad and the hero in the foxhole since it had
wonderful LOS and a victory building right behind it.  The other went in 4S2
looking right down the road on the other side board 4, and the likeliest
avenue of advance.  The remaining foxhole went in 4V3 with a halfsquad to
tie down the left, and the last half-squad went in 4O3 to tie down the
right, with the 7-0 in 4T3 as a rally point.
        The Americans lined up in a big green line at the limit of their
setup area, and as typical, preceeded their assault with a bombardment from
his two mortars.  By turn two, things were looking pretty desperate.  Three
of the half squads were broken, two of them being MG crews, and the hero was
wounded.  However, the Americans were only making slow progress towards the
victory buildings, desperately wondering where the second HMG was (4S2).
        The tide turned again when all three half-squads rallied a turn or
so later, the 9-1 started marching his crew back into position, one of the
others went forward and recovered the HMG and brought it back to 4T3.  4S2
had opened up by this time, and the value of stone buildings was shown when
an American MTR fired on it, kept ROF about five times, and still never
managed to get a result on the IFT.
        The Americans attempeted to set up a rally point at 4N5, an
expedition that ended in disaster.  The 7-0 showed up with a 747 escorting.
The 747 was broken by the half-squad in 4O3, and the 90 day wonder 7-0 was
too liberal with the whiskey while rallying and the squad went berserk.  The
MMG crew regained their postition just in time to mow them down in their
headlong rush at the half-squad.
        The generally useless shelling of stone buildings contined along
with the Amercan advance with the Germans slowly racking up a score in dead
Amercans.  This was exaberated when, in a hurry to get to a rally point,
about three squads suffered causualty reduction from Interdiction.  Along
about turn six I glanced back at the victory conditions and noticed the
German instant-kill VC when the Amercans go under four unbroken squads.  A
quick look at the board showed the Amercans had about seven unbroken squads
left.  It was a race to see who lost first.
        At about the same time, the Amercans finally got a couple of squads
into the abandonded foxhole in 4T4.  The countryside fight quickly took on
the overtones of a city fight with a pair of high FP stacks next to each
other with +3 modifiers.  The Amercans gave as good as they got, each side
having a squad breaking, and the hero finally dieing of another wound.
Unfortionately, the Germans only had one squad (or rather, two half-squads,
as I'd never remembered to recombine them and get some extra range) in the
building, and routed out, leaving the HMG to the Amercans who already had
one of their MMGs along.
        The two half-squads both rallied only to be shot up by the new
uber-stack in 4T3 and individually suffer ELR-failure.  The HMG crew in 4S2
also got shot at and died.  This left two half-squads, one manning the MMG
and directed by the 9-1 to interfere with the Amercan advance across the
road.  My one true mistake in the game was neglecting to advance the still
unbroken 7-0 into 4S2 to pick up the HMG and offer a last ditch defense of
the building.  As it was, my luck was not sufficient to halt the Amercans
and they took the building, and the victory on turn 8.
        I might have been able to retake the building myself in my last
player turn, but the victory is awarded *immediately* upon capture of both 
buildings.
        Lessons learned:
        * Foxholes in woods are beter than nothing against mortars, but not
by much.
        * Light mortars lack the firepower to be much of a threat indoors.
(Especially true with those 50mm German ones.)
        * Bazookas are damn near useless at range four.  (Score: Bazooka
hits 0, eliminated Bazooka 1.)
        * Five half-squads are not nearly as helpless as they seem.
        Well, this puts my personal ASL score at 0-2, with two more games in
progress.  The scenario is a good, tight little situation, that I wouldn't
mind trying again.

	James Lowry

	"Will Uncle Virgil be all right?"
	"It takes time to recover from bravery."
	Cathy Hill -- _Mad Raccoons_ #1