For the Queen! Err, King!

ASL WO37 The Vital Hours AAR

In celebration of Victoria Day, 1st Airborne is across the river near Arnhem. Oh, wait, it’s only a stream. Bad intelligence again.

Paras, a 75mm pack howitzer and jeep vs low-class war criminals with a HIP 20mmAA Gun and a reinforcing 20mm AA Gun on a truck, the 1944 version of a technical.

End of Brit Turn 3, looking good for the soldiers of the Queen as they amoeba through the grain. No German AA gun yet, very strange. War criminalAA truck about to enter, jeep crew are making tea while 75mm pack howitzer push their gun along the woods road.

End of Brit Turn 4. The amoeba continues to amoeba. German AA truck met with a hail of long range CX hindered Sten fire that did the business with a snake eyes and a stiff upper lip so no cowering. Still no AA gun

Brit Turn 5 recce finds the AA gun and lives to tell the tale (for now)

End of Brit Turn 5. Gun crew withdraws from CC after ambushing the paras, abandoning the gun. Para 9-1 melees 1-2-7 truck crew on his own, and dies gloriously while a 7-0 is field promoted for the bad guys.

End of game, the Brit 9-2-led MMG killstack (including captured MMG) knocks out the 9-1 LMG and squad who were the final main strongpoint blocking the exit area as they fail 2MCs from a 20 plus 1 shot.

The Airborne amoeba reconfigures to a snake and squiggles off the edge of the exit area that is now more or less immune to German fire.

The Jeep crew finishes their tea, puts the pedal to the metal, and loads up with their 75mm pack howitzer colleagues, leaving the gun to be recovered by someone in the second echelon as they know it is worthless for VP purposes. Decisive British win, all VP buildings captured and a good chunk of the force exited.

The war criminals had pretty bad luck with their die rolls, particularly on the turns the Brits made some risky moves – and the former suffered also from not having the gun (or something) further forward helping to cover the stream, which the Brits got across far too easily. Also again when they lost the AA truck reinforcement to a fairly low probability IFT attack from hindered, CX Sten guns of one squad. y

The Brit pack howitzer was pretty useless, always got in position just in time to watch the Paras clear the target they were aiming at. Thought about moving it up for a WP shot on the last turn to cover the mad dash off the board, but wanted the Jeep with crew (and potentially 9-2 if needed) to be able to scoot for the exit zone as a mobile reserve of sorts for the VP exit points. Piats and Schreck did nothing for either side from several shots, including the AA gun surviving a barrage of PIAT rounds at one point. Went the day well overall.