Notes - played over Skype (audio only) with Alan Sawyer (aka campsawyer). Took around 3 hours, not counting a couple of short breaks.

Background

Alan has been one of my key site supporters for a long time, and is even team leader on our Annotated Rules feature, which will go live in the not too distant feature. So we communicate a lot, and it was inevitable that we sit down to play a VoIP game one of these days. My schedule cleared up this weekend, he scraped together some free time, and the stage was set for my first foray into Elsenborn Ridge.

The scenario in question is only 16 turns, takes place at night, and has few counters (though what are present all pack a punch). On paper it's tempting to toss it on the "once is enough, no variation possible" pile with a lot of the Airborne scenarios. That'd be a mistake.

Season to Taste

The Germans are restricted to setting up in or adjacent to town hexes, coupled with the 2-hex visibility, I suggested to Alan that we try something skin to "single-blind" play: he'd (as Germany) set up and play as normal, but I (as America) would enter the board with a blank map. It was up to him to keep an eye on spotting/collision/OpFire situations and announce them accordingly.

Picturing this scenario in my mind, you've got an American force approaching a hamlet under cover of darkness. They know it's defended, so we give the Germans the setup restrictions. The Germans know the Americans are going to attack, so we give them the initial setup and full battlefield omniscience. Because the Germans are either hidden in town or dug-in at night, it's reasonable to expect they'd spot the Americans before the Americans spotted them, so Alan plays with full view and I play with a blank map until I stumble into somebody.

Alan agreed to this arrangement and away we went.

Aggression Can Only Get You So Far

From the get-go I played this scenario aggressively. I split my forces into two groups - HMGs and a few PARA platoons with the best officers would advance straight up the road towards the main town area, and my armor and some supporting PARAs with crap officers would swing west for an attack from the rear. I felt pretty confident with this plan, and I must say it looked great on the map as I spent the first few turns advancing under cover of darkness.

I soon discovered that Alan had concentrated the bulk of his strength in the center of the hamlet, which my 2xPARA + 2xPMG waltzed up to. His "hidden" units got off some surprise shots but to no effect. My western group completed the pincer and I now had all of my forces on either side of the bulk of his. I was still feeling pretty confident at this point.

As I moved in for the kill on the central town hex, Alan continued to put up a hail of defensive fire which continuously missed. Truth be told, I clearly benefited from the luck of the dice in the first half of our scenario - both when he was rolling for attacks and when I was rolling for morale checks. Another good roll by my men sent his main town garrison into some serious morale trouble and I moved in for assault.

And that was the first real mistake I made. Had I waited one, or even 2 more turns and softened them up a bit more I'd have steamrolled that town and created a force imbalance he probably would never have been able to recover from. As it happened, I jumped in, didn't inflict any step losses, took some of my own, and watched him fully rally all his men.

By mid-game I was contesting the most important town hex, but I clearly lacked the strength to take it with infantry alone. My only hope then was to eliminate his armor while retaining mine, which would restore that force imbalance I needed to root him out of the urban hexes. I took advantage of some initiative wins and moved my armor into a lovely flanking fire position, only to see a brilliant shot by Alan reduce my 2 armor platoons to 1. With the flanking fire threat removed, he quickly finished off the remaining armor platoon and the writing was on the wall.

My men assaulted several more times, but were now doing so at a continuous disadvantage, and even the most lucky of rolls would not have saved the day. It was time to concede.

How To Win This Scenario As America

I've been thinking about this all morning, and I think I've come up with about as foolproof a plan as you can get:

Because the VP weights for steplosses and town hexes are the same for both sides, and because the Americans can move pretty freely due to the short nighttime LOS, you can win this scenario by:

1. keeping your entire OOB together
2. swinging left around the field and massing from the west against the central 1 hex town
3. leaving a stiff garrison there to deflect any German counterattacks from the 2 hex complex
4. mopping up the northern 1 hex town, if it is even garrisoned (it may not be, at which point you're really in the clear)

Why it would work: when you dislodge the Germans from the 1 hex town you're inflicting more steplosses than you're receiving because of your massed firepower, which gains you VPs. Then, having captured 2 of the 4 towns you've negated the German player's VP advantage there. Taken together, you'd probably be +3 or +4 VPs at this point and set to win the scenario. If the German player counterattacks, he's doing so against units defending from towns, and he's doing so with less firepower than you now have.

I'm extremely confident that this would result in a US victory. The only real counter is for the German player to immediately move out of his towns and mount a forward defense to try and burn up the turn count as quickly as possible. I challenge anyone to try this scenario against another human and employ my proposed plan of attack. I'd love to read your AAR!

Final Thoughts

The "single-blind" decision was a good one. Although I quickly uncovered Alan's units, I definitely would have played it differently if I had known his setup the moment I entered the board. The uncertainty did nothing to help my chances at victory, but I play PG for the experience, not for another notch in the win column. I highly recommend this sort of arrangement be used any time it is appropriate to do so.

I'm off to a great start in Elsenborn Ridge. I've already added a few more scenarios to my Want to Play list. Playing over Skype with Alan was 95% as fun as truly playing face-to-face, and I didn't have to clean the house beforehand - that's a definite plus! Mr. Sawyer is a gentleman, and a sharp PG player. Next time I intend to think of a great plan before we play! ;-)