Played ftf with Hugmenot

Warning, this is very tough for the Indian player to win. There is just a little bit too much for them to do and although the Hyderabadi forces will evaporate upon contact they can pop up in some very unpleasant locations. The armored cars are faster than anything you have and they can threaten any place on the board. Given that your victory conditions are to clear the road and the town while taking few losses you really have your hands full. I believe that Daniel did VERY well to have two victory conditions in hand (of the four). Unless the Hyderabadi player decides to have a stand up battle with the Indian player this one seems destined to go to the Hyderabadis.

The situation is this; the Indians have entered the battle area with a large force of high morale infantry supported by a company of Shermans. The Hyderabadis have hidden masses of Razakars in the woods (and they are hidden under rule 16.6) with the regulars holding a road block through the woods and some substantial forces located in the town at the far western end of the field. They will receive 10 armored car platoons during play as reinforcements.

The mindset of the Hyderabadi player must be to have surprises in store for the Indian. the first surprise was two companies of Razakars waiting for the Indian infantry at the very entry to the wooded road. This caused the Indians to have to break formation and immediately assault the Razakars who performed beyond my wildest dreams and actually caused several losses and disruptions. They were, however, short-lived as the Indian eventually destroyed all but the Lt. who spent a large chunk of the game circumnavigating the Indian force to rejoin the main force.

A second force of Razakars hid deep within the largest forest causing the Indians to have to sweep the woods in search for them. When they got there the Razakars were able to be joined with some Humber armored cars who made the ultimate reduction of the force difficult and time consuming as the Indians no longer had morale superiority (the armored cars have identical morale to the Indians). Reduction of some of these forces caused the Indians to commit their Shermans to the woods giving rise to the next surprise.

Some surprises have to await the right conditions. If I said that sending some armored cars through the woods was a well planned strategy I would be lying. I noticed that there was a hole in Daniel's line coming through the woods caused by some assaults tying down his forces. I snuck a Humber through and into his rear areas. At the same time, given that the Shermans were held up in the woods (I rolled an obscene number of 6's in assaults which, even given the low strength I had forced Daniel to constantly worry about disrupted and demoralized Indians in the woods), I ran a Stag around to the south and also into his rear areas.

These fast moving intruders caused a lot of effort to be spent hunting them down. It wasn't that the forces sent to do so were huge but that the early activations had to be spent on them. Fog of War (an unintended ally of the Hyderabadis in this circumstance) caused the main advance to stall during the third quarter of the battle.

Yet another surprise awaited the advancing Indians. The Razakars were not done. A final group of two companies of Razakars were hidng in the woods on the final board. These were put there not to contest the advance of the Indians but actually on the concept that they would be bypassed as the Indians attempted to clear the road and then they could swarm to the Indian rear and through numbers alone overwhelm whatever security awaited them. It almost worked as Daniel ran into them trying to get into position to eliminate another of those pesky armored cars and in the ensuing fight the Razakar leader was demoralized and therefore only light forces were needed to keep the Razakars from their task. Even then only a poorly timed FOW roll on the next to last turn resulted in their failure.

Meanwhile back in the Indian rear areas the armored cars were dancing around threatening the road and causing no small amount of fuss for the Indian. Eventually the need to cause the tenth step loss to the Indian made me try to get aggressive with these units, a mistake I was to rue as both units were ultimately destroyed, one to the Shermans guns and one to an assault. In both cases I counted on getting the initiative, a bad bet when one is down 1 on the initiative roll.

The last surprise was the ever present long range AT gun. In his rush to destroy one of the last Stags on board Daniel let his Sherman get exposed to the 17 pdr which was holed up in the town. This caused a step loss and kept the Shermans from being a factor in the final battle. I was not able to cause the last step loss (Daniel ended with 9) and therefore Daniel was able to claim two victory conditions (light losses and a cleared road on the first two boards). Both of those conditions were fairly won but endangered throughout the game. As a matter of fact, afterwards Daniel mentioned that he thought that after the AT gun hit he had already lost that condition. The only reason that the road condition was not lost was my aggression with the Stag and Humber, both of which got too close to the road and ended up getting caught by the Indians. In retrospect this aggression was unnecessary and may have cost my a major victory.

The Hyderabadi has to consider themselves a bit of a flake in order to be most effective in this battle. The armored cars are powerful (well the Stags are, the Humbers are at least fast) but fragile. The primary strength of the Razakars is that they can be hidden in the woods. And the ONLY place to have a true stand up fight is in the town. Harrassment, surprises and evasion are the main focus of this battle. I certainly had my share of great die rolls during the fight but even at that the eventual result, a Hyderabadi minor victory seems assured.

I had a great time with this one thinking out of the box. I imagine that it was frustrating for Daniel but that may be the point. It wasn't that the Hyderabadis were effective fighters but that there were so darn many of them. The armored cars are their elite and performed as such in this one. I give it a "4" for ftf. It might be tough to pull off the same surprises solo but the result will probably be the same.

Played ftf with Matt W in one afternoon (4-5 hours).

If there was a scenario after which my head was spinning, this would be it. Matt set up problems after problems for me to overcome. A small force jumping into the road to create a roadblock, skirmishers leading me in a wild chase in the words, motorized units infiltrating my lines, hidden units I could not find until late in the game, this one had it all!

In the end, creativity won over strength.

Commanders of the Hyderabadi forces should do well to read Matt’s AAR because he describes some of the surprises he set for me. In my opinion, this string of surprises and constant pressure to deny me my terrain objectives is the way to go. There is not a moment in the game where I felt I could safely regroup and move forward to the next objective.

The hardest decision, the one I gauged incorrectly, is how to split the Indian forces to go against multiple groups of mobile defenders. The decision is more difficult than usual because the Hyderabadi have better mobility and can keep some units hidden until they are ready to break for the roads.

A fun scenario full of surprises which I highly recommend for ftf play. The Indians will likely lose but nevertheless gain the satisfaction of having solved multiple problems.

I rated it a strong “4”.

Played this game over the course of a year against Tony L, the scenario has strong Indian forces pushing westwards along a road, the key to the game is the fact that the Indian commander has four objectives, clearing the road along three maps count as two objectives, taking the town right at the end of said road and not losing 10 steps and he has to get three of these for a minor victory. The Indian forces race down the road brushing past the minor road blocks the Hyderabad commander had placed initially in the way. However of the numerous RAZ militia reported in the are little was seen, they were hiding in the numerous woods and forests that surround the roads in that area. A skirmish between the Stags of the Hyderabad Lancers and the Indian's Sherman's left a couple of burning tanks but far more of the lightly armoured cars were destroyed the Lancers too retreated into the woods. The Indian commander then deployed his mortars to good effect destroying both the enemy A/T gun positions and began to move his units against the remaining road block commanded by the Hyderabad leader himself. After an hour of bitter hand to hand fighting the Hyderabad COL was seen running away (Double 6 on a rally roll) the road to the town was open. Actually it was not as the RAZ and STAG units moved from their positions on the road and cut the Indians line of communications. The Indian commander grunted in frustration and wheeled his forces back to deal with the stay behind units thus conceding victory to the rebels. Not a bad scenario, however it would take a lucky and good Indian player to get a win hence the low rating. In fact Tony did have most of the luck in the game except for FOW rolls which resulted in three very short turns just at the critical part of the battle.

Despite the Title of AAR sounding like a complaint or dislike, it rather represents the large, painful task at hand for the Indian player to secure his victory conditions. I did enjoy the scenario and though it took us a better part of a year to complete, it was an interesting battle to play and despite the nearly unattainable victory conditions, it was fun.

The victory conditions are all dependent on 4 objectives needed by the Indians which basically boiled down to having all roads and town hexes clear of undemoralized Hyderabadis, while managing to absorb less than 10 steps of elimination for the Indians.

Most of my forces were setup to move down the main road towards the ultimate goal of the town. The Shermans were ordered to split into 2 groups of 2 platoons, with one group going around the north end of the woods on board 6 and the others going around the south end. The mortar group followed the Shermans to the south. Knowing that the woods held many hidden Razakars (the "boil" in this scenario), we had to proceed with the intent of protecting the roads while still pushing to get to the town hexes with enough time to clear them. Standing in the way was regular Hyderabadi troops as well with a 17-pdr and 6-pdr A/T guns to keep the Shermans honest.

Over the course of the battle, the battle group of Infantry and Sappers moved down the road through the woods and were successful for the most part to clear the forest road, with several units splitting off into the northern and southern woods to chase down any hidden RAZ fanatics. The Shermans to the north had to stay out of the 17 pdr range as it was well placed in a field between the woods and the town. The Hyderabadis also had Stags and Humbers that reinforced the infantry troops after several turns. The southern group of Shermans along with the 3-inch mortars made their way around and setup the mortars to try and barrage the dug in units on the road as well as attempting to take out the 17 and 6 pdr guns, which eventually they were able to do. All while this was going on, the Stags and Shermans played a game of cat (Shermans) and mouse (Stags) with the mouse getting a few scratches on the cat but for the most part, the cat was able to pounce several times and the mice pretty much stayed in the woods after taking numerous losses.

At this point, The Indians made a final push to the town. the Shermans, after running off the Stags, began to patrol the roads and kept good lines of fire. Despite the valiant efforts of the woods sweeping units keeping the Razakars on the run and demoralizing them at every turn, there were just too many to deal with. As the Indians moved in after causing the enemy LT COL to run away, 3 short turns in a row (with FOW coming at almost the minimum number of activations) near the end of the game did not allow enough time to secure the town. In addition, the Razakars made a dash to secure the roads on all boards, thus sealing the major victory.

In the end, the Indians were only able to secure one objective of suffering less than 10 steps of elimination. The scenario was a fun and interesting exercise that, if the turns had proceeded to conclusion without the FOW, an Indian minor victory is possible.