Parachutes Over Crete, scenario #10: Agia

I picked another scenario with an actual parachute drop, as I love starting out with that type of action, that is why I designed Nihon Silk, Korean War: Counter-Attack with them. Also, Leyte will have some actual paratrooper drops and if AP ever does Gela, it will as well.

After picking four airborne drops for the Germans, I setup the Greeks, all in the town on map 96, except the four units that have to be on map 98. But those four units and one leader I put on the 60 meter hill hex on map 98 cause the Germans a ton of problems and maybe even held them up enough to win the game.

Some errata I noticed, first the Greeks don’t have a LT Colonel so I used an actual Colonel instead. Also the victory conditions mention map 97, but it should be map 96 and that is what I used.

The Germans landed pretty well, but one 20mm gun and one leader landed off the map so were eliminated and I counted the units lost in landings as part of the victory conditions. The German heavy weapons land so far away from the actual battle area, that I left all of them behind except on 75RCL gun the I had one Infantry unit and one leader drag them the whole game across the map to only get eliminated right when it got into action at the end of the game.

After overcome the Greek blocking units on map 98 the Germans surround the town of Agia on map 96, going around the lake in front of it. It all boiled down to one town hex with two turns of assault, that still left one disrupted, reduced Greek Infantry in a contested assault, for the Greeks to hold on, to the most narrowest victories I have seen.

The Greeks won a minor victory, by still contesting this one town hex and they eliminated exactly five German steps after I counted them up and two leaders. While the Germans eliminated nine Greek steps, three leaders and controlled all the town hexes but the one mentioned.

We played with most optional rules (not Logistic shortfall) but no rocky terrain since it is not clear where these rocks are located exactly.

Nice middle size scenario showing Germans arriving by parachute against valiant Greek soldiers. The Greeks set up mainly in Agia while some of their units (HMG, mortar) dug in on top of the highest hill of board 98 and in the vineyards all around to greet the enemy with decent defensive fire. The German choice of landing sites was more risky than I (Greek) thought: very close to Agia and even closer to the board edge without fear of being lost, drowned in the lake or killed by defensive fire. However, the German player rolled 4 times “1”, in succession, as accuracy of the parachute drops and most of his troops landed safely except for 2 units lost over the board edge. Greek defensive fire failed desperately. Next, the Germans began to gather and advance on Agia. The paratroopers who were farther north, in the hills, attacked the dug in Greeks at serious disadvantage (attacking uphill vs dug in infantry…) and … rolled very low destroying the Greek positions. The Greeks counterattacked in force but the Germans kept winning all assaults with incredible success. Even a lucky kill die roll by an aircraft destroyed a Greek HMG at a critical moment. At that point, the advantage the Greeks had on the casualty tally began to disappear so that the possible Greek tactic which was to evade combat, run and hide in the vineyards, and abandon Agia became invalid. The Greeks will have to hold the town! However, the bad series went on: the slightest German fire (column 2) seemed to be able to badly hit the Greeks with clockwork regularity; large firepower attack systematically stroke 3 or 4 with the dice and on top of that the Greeks rolled awfully high on morale checks (several “12” at critical moments). The remaining Greeks still fought on in Agia trying to delay the assault since victory was possible if just one Greek unit remained in the city. Then the long overdue Greek luck strike happened and one German big stack was badly shaken in Agia. The Greeks charged to finish the demoralized Germans and buy some more time. Alas, the demoralized German units answered by a new “12” in assault, killing more Greeks… The Paratroopers then rallied, went on with new assaults, fired again low; the Greek HMG rolled “12” on a normal morale check, a mortar friendly fire (column 2) rolled a new “12” on one of the last Greek units that rolled “11” to be eliminated. Etc, ad nauseam. Despite all the luck, the Germans only won on turn 17 just before the end on turn 18. This seem to indicate that the scenario is decently balanced. And it was interesting fighting.

It’s true! This may be the fastest win in PG history: One turn! I may do over or play longer. Here’s the story

The German’s had gthree groups of paratroopers. The object was to capture the town of Agia, a small town full of good pious villagers near the northern border of board #97.The Greek 8th Regiment was much weaker than the 4 companies of paratroopers of the German 3rd Regiment, which included a variety of heavy weapons. The Greeks did have 10 points of off-board artillery and a mortar platoon. A lucky shot might have disrupted a German platoon. An interesting 4 hex lake overlay ran in front of Agia, adding a natural barrier. Of course, the object was to capture the town.

The Germans never touched the Greeks; no shots were fired. It’s a good thing. My opinion is that the 8th wouldn’t have stood sa chance with its puny 3-2 infantry platoons. But a miracle happened! A great wind from the west suddenly blew half the paratroopers off the board– 12 steps, 4 leaders and all of the weaponry off the map with a 9 nex deviation. Sent the bad guys right into the Mediterranean! The people of Agia rejoiced and today celebrate every May 20 with the Festival of St., uh, Olive Oil.

Game Over!