last week i studied all scenarios to choose one for playing this weekend.

soooooo, when studiing stavelot express (i hope, this is the correct name, i don't have the booklet in front of me) my first thought was:

how to stop 10!!!! german tanks ( 6 of them TIGER!!!!!!!) with only 4 anti-tank squads. well i really think this scenario is nearly impossible to win for the americans, they will never get their victory points when the german player uses his tanks in a good way....

what do you think?

klarlack said:

You cannot stop them. You need to devise speed bumps and road-blocks to slow them down. The exit is farther away than one might think. I played this scenario with the Germans, and although I am normally a crappy attacker, I wiped the floor with the Americans, but ran out of time before I could get to the exit.

well, just ignore the american troops, destroy the american transports (very easy with the german tanks) ON YOUR WAY to the exit, an the american player will NEVER get enough points to win....

i can't see an american strategy which may works.....

I played this scenario only once, so I can not provide a general succesful strategy for American victory, but as it was said above: the Americans have to SLOW the German tanks (halftracks), because the Germans will gain most of their VPs for tanks/halftracks that will manage to leave a map.

Similarly you (as the American player) will gain most of points for trucks that did manage to leave a map or if you manage to keep them for possible the longest time within 2 (given) map tiles. It may be complicated to decide whether to leave with trucks early or try to keep them on a map (those 2 map tiles) longer and hope that they will manage to escape.

How can you slow/stop a tank (in this scenario):

a) use combined fire of AT squads, you have 4 of them (do not forget 2 Take down the beast cards). Single unit attack hardly penetrates German tank armor.

b) use laying smoke, thus bloking enemy LOS (usually after you have fired on him) and providing a cover for your transports (retreating or hiding)

c) dig trenches on hexes through which tanks will probably pass and put there squads in OP-fire (they will shoot at short range, they may not be overrun, though enemy must spend more MPs for passing such a hex)

d) you may replace lost AT/engineer squad by a card from Supply deck, which grants you specialized token of your choice

e) try to detroy the German tank ace (+3 VPs)

Other source of VPs like holding victory hexes or preventing the Germans from capturing a fuel depot, does not need an explanation.

My result was that the Germans won, but the ratio between their VPs and Americans VPs was not much significant (5 or 6 points difference).

I do not remeber it exactly, but I think that the Americans left with 3 or 4 trucks (the rest was destroyed). They managed to keep the victory hexes quite long.

The Germans: 1 or 2 of their tanks were heavily damaged (maybe 1 of them detroyed) , 2 others remained on a map (by the end of scenario). Cca 1/2 or 2/3 of German halftracks also managed to escape. Germans managed to capture a fuel depot and late in a game also held some victory hexes.

What Artemis said is correct. Also if you add the facing option to the game, the German tigers are reluctant to take flank shots from American squads in entrenchments and or woods. I played this scenario as American, destroyed 5 German tanks heavily damaged 3 and lightly damaged 2 others. They also lost 50% of their halftracks to my halftracks in the woods on the right flank. I lost only because I exited my trucks way to soon. A tiger while formabidable, is not invinceable. Now a Panther is something else.

Just looking at the units available in this scenario is only half the picture. There is a lot more that balances this one out.

1) Time: The Germans only have 7 rounds to traverse the board. Compared to other similar scenarios with similar board sizes this is not a lot of time. The Siegfried Assault scenario gives the Americans 10 rounds to cross the board.

2) The Americans start with 4 concealment tokens. These are very useful if you are on the defensive.

3) The Americans have two engineer tokens. In a defensive situation those additional entrenchments are very useful. Gaining +2 cover in addition to any standard cover the hex provides is huge. Engineers can also lay smoke in this scenario which provides an additional +2 cover and blocks LOS.

4) The Operation card Heavy Fog is in effect for the first 3 turns of the game. It gives +1 cover to everyone.

5) The Americans have initiative.

6) The Americans will almost always be getting 7 command for at least 3 turns compared to only 2 command for the Germans.

7) The Supply and Moral decks are very well suited for defenders, especially those with lots of available command points to spend.

Essentially the Germans have run into some very dug in defenders and don't have a lot of time to mess with them. They have to hit and hit hard to try to breach the defenses and get a breakthrough. If they can't get their at least a couple of their tanks off the board they will likely lose, and Tigers are SLOW. But when you combine 4 anti-tank specialists, concealment, smoke, fog and entrenchments most of the American defenders will be rolling 4-6 cover dice per attack. That makes a breakthrough all the more difficult. The Germans have to breach the line and try to quickly even out the command token distribution. The left flank is the most logical point for this by default since the entire center and right of the battle line is impassible to the German vehicles.

The Americans have to keep their transports on the two set-up maps as long as possible. If they keep all the transports on these boards for 3 turns that is 15 points. Keep in mind that only the trucks need to exit the board for victory points, no the halftracks. Also remember that during set-up the Americans can set up their units on the half hexes of the two set-up boards. This makes positioning your trucks for a quick exit all the easier.

If you use Leadership decks--may I suggest the tank buster deck for the Americans?