Voici pour la partie "Tournoi" (c'est la fameuse partie en Anglais) :
Hi there
here's an AAR from Grenadier 2017 which I was fortunate enough to win.
It's the second time (and 2 times did I win French Ring Tournament) even though I am not among the really tough players
around the world, such as Pleva, Falk, Sidhu, Pilling or Tournemire. Yet, ASL has reached such a high level that we are many
able to win a tournament here or there, and each of our games to the summit is a disputed one for the whole base of ASL players
has improved through VASL and Tournaments that widespread good practices. So all this is good news and we must focus on bringing
in new players and participate to tournaments now and then.
I was not supposed to go to Grenadier having a concommittant ASL event in France but, recently, the French gathering was pushed a few
weeks later and I could attend afterall. Which I always like to do, if only to meet all the old friends from past editions and combats, and,
particularly Mike Koch who's an excellent person and organizer, as used to be our regretted Christian Koppmeyer.
So I basically showed up with no preparation whatsoever. Which is to say : yes, you can always show up and participate. You can even win, with help of dice and experience. But that's not important : you can show up, have fun and give your opponent's a fair fight. So, do not postpone
your coming for lack of time to preparate or anything. Just come. We all have great time.
Round 1 :
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Matt is a fellow from Manchester. A nice guy to play with and we had lots of fun.
We took "Death on the Eismeerstrasse" (DB124) which is a fun and original scenario playing in snowing weather in the woods.
I think that we rolled for sides. In any case, I got the side which I prefered : the tough Russians with all the special
additions of the SSR (no cowering, deploying, etc.).
I made a set-up which would send a message to the Attacker : go round the tough nut and rather attack through North. That route
would buy me time but would also -you can't get it all- close the exit VC option. I harmed the "entering directly through North" group while they were waiting for their comrades. I also harrass those comrades and my dice were nice to me.
The one exception was the 11 on the DC resolution where a good roll would have sealed the fate of the German. Other rolls compensate for
and I was able to exploit some of them to apply some sort of Motti Finn tactic and cut into pieces isolated ennemies in the woods.
And it started looking desperate for the Germans.
1-0
Round 2 :
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Collechio, against Christian Herde. We've met many times over the years but I think that we were yet to play together.
Christian proved to be a very tough opponent, cautious with his troops, which served him well in this super scenario.
I realized soon that I had actually played this one some years ago so I sort of knew a few things about it.
I got the attack probably through biding and I must have bid low (even 0) to get the attack.
I was aggressive in the beginning and Christian cautious so that I covered a lot of ground at first. Then things got worse.
I discoverd the Flak 88L through MG fire and stayed out of that flank... or was I ? I spotted a possible LOS to one of my tanks, a very
difficult to spot one... and I fire to check... and LOS there is ! How stupid of mine to show him, right ? Well, ASL is often unfair
and my tiny tank won the battle breaking the crew ! Then came someting that we can often seen in ASL too : rebalancings through the
careless attitude that accompagnies the player who's beeing lucky !
All of a sudden, in my mind, a flank which was forbidden to the tanks became accessible and there went my Sherman... Christian reminds
me that Germans have... PF !! How stupid of mine ! So enthusiastic about supporting my own guys with AFV...
Christian had a conscript in the street, one that would survive several MC in a row amond which a 2MC which ended in a Hero creation...
Well that same conscript found a PF and scored a hit... Boum. My tank was gone. How stupid of mine...
(BTW : I discovered then that a Conscript guy finds a PF and hits with it as good as any other troop!).
I recovered and went hard on the German main stand, leaving behing the nut number 2 which was hanging to the last VC building on my right.
Christian reinforced heavily that second nut and, with the help of good AFV maneuvering by him, bad maneuvering of mine with my AFV and good fortune against my own guys, he became the hunter there and started regaining the buildings wich I have controlled.
That meant that I had to clear completly the left part of the board. Which I could very well, having already a 10-2 in the Church with troops gathering along and tank support.
But Christian was very tired at this point as he is a "slow player+hard thinker" kind of guy. He did not want to put his efforts to trash by moving poorly out of tiredness and gave me the win. On the other hand, there was still 3 full turns to go and it would have been pretentious of me to tell that the fight was over so I told him to let it as a tie. A bit frustrating not to go to the end of that nice fight that we had !
But I could also sleep on it as I was getting tired too !
1-0-1
Round 3:
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Snova Snare, against Hennie.
Well, many know Hennie. A very nice guy and a very good player too.
Even though I had play none of the tournament scenarios before (exc: Collechio), I have heard that Snare and Killing had balance issues.
I still wanted to leave PTO aside for it's been too many years with too few PTO games and I felt it wouldn't be reasonnable against
such a good player as Hennie is. We wind up playing Snova and I bid hard (R2?). I got the Russians and did a good set-up as it would prove
later, with a few (big) mistakes like puting my ATR where it could get OVR by the PzIV (fierce panzer vier...).
You can win this one on left corner (building control), on right corner (building control) or the center (hanging on).
I decided I would defend the left corner with Gun, ATR, tanks, FoxHoles, leaders, A-T mines : almost everything. With all dummies on right and even a fox hole, to oblige Hennie to put some assets that could not arrive in time to the left last stand. It worked.
The A-T mines were key stopping two Panzers while a ht was taken off by MG TH.
Last round saw pretty much everybody on both sides massed in the left corner but ASL rules are such that bodies, even DM can block the way to other infantry so that Hennie could not really reach the last one hex building.
Round 4:
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Next I got paired up with Andries, a young (relative notion, I know) player from Netherlands. So two Dutch in a row.
A nice guy (Dutch all are I guess !) and an impassive player (I'd say that this applies to Hennie too... but may not to Dutch-Candians LOL).
We played Old Friends, an excellent scenario from Mike, the TD !
I wanted the Americans, to attack fiercly with all those neatty AFVs. I felt I could find a way to counter the two dreaded Panthers and pushed hard for the village. Alas, I bid too low and my opponent got the attaking Amis.
I was a bit anxious of this for bidding high would mean eagerness to attack hard and this what this is exactly what the scenario calls for, IMHO.
As it turned out, Andries fell in a quite common trap that I shall reveal here to newer players so that they stay away from it : sometimes we do a reckless move and the dice punish as. We should not deduce that our strategy was reckless if only our single move was ! Andires moved a nicemost M4A(76L) Sherman in the LOS of my Panther who killed him right aways (with good dice, for I needed say a 6 or so). All of a sudden, the whole attack stalled and he started doing AM/Advance 30 hexes away from VC zone. That took time away from him and gave me to deal with the more advanced troops (and AFV!) in which soon proved to be a doomed situation.
I'm pretty sure Adries is already able to do much better, and I'm pretty sure he'll improve a lot too since he's been playing for 3 years or so so far !
3-0-1
Round 5:
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At this point only Bjoern and I remained unbeatten but he had no ties so he was ahead of me in and, more important, if I were to lose, with a meager 3-1-1 I would certainly not be second nor third. And I wanted a good place by now, with all that good series.
I also wanted to win the ASL Playing Cards which looked so nice.
Bjoern is a guy I first met through VASL while he was still starting and I am impressed how quickly he moved up to top notch players !
We both wanted the scenarios in the same ordre, so we got to play The Golden Arrow, a nice fighting withdrawal situation where Germans need to keep alive enoug MMC on the hills (once a stream is crossed) to offset the ones that the Amis could be able to bring in.
German reinforcements spice up the whole and the Americans must be careful to prevent this group to short-cut them in their way to the hills.
I wanted the Germans bad (I think that I bid G2 and when I discovered that Bojern had bid A0 I was thinking to myself that I had
done a mistake...
We both did I think what we intended to and put up a fight up to we can each do. It was a well played scenario with litlle mistakes on
any side. We also were very easy letting the other do a forgoteen action (SW pick up, SR after another rally and that kind of stuff). We let
each other retake a move when it was a stupid one too. I really like it when things are that way.
That led us to last turn and it could be both ways. I had the dice though more than him. I succeed in the two street fighting CC so as to prevent his tanks to broke and/or freeze my guys. I think I needed 6 once and 8 the other but had to pass the PAATC and still, one can easily roll a 7 or a 9. Little things like that. A 7 SR would give him an extra MMC on hill but he failed, etc. After the final assault and the DFPh when I manage to break/PIN enough it was almost over. A desperate CC turned to my favour and that was it.
An excellent game. I won but could have lost on the last turn. It was very even and the dice had it for me at the end. Could have gone the other way : a perfect game of ASL.
4-0-1 and the cup (actually a very nice Pershing)
Thanks to all of my partners who were very fun to play. Thanks to Mike too.
I may want to be on the open playings next year though since I tend to like it better as I grow older. But what a blast.
I really recommend this tournament to all.