Yet Antother Frontline D-Day Session: Scenario 2 Solo

This is another session I posted a few days back on BGG. I though I'd post it here as this time it shows a detailed solo Scenario. I promise I'll stop posting Frontline Sessions after this one :p

After a disastrous failure yesterday, I went back and re-tried the second scenario solo playing the US. The first time I had been very unlucky although I had also made some mistakes that cost me a whole section early on... This time I was determined to be more careful...

I went for a pretty varied equipment with as many rifle-grenades as possible (3), a shovel, some bandages, some grenades and some flasks.

The Germans start in a heavy fortification at the top of a hill with two sections, one with a Heavy Machine Gun and another with a Flamethrower. The US forces start on open ground, with the machine gun dangerously close but thankfully far enough from the flame thrower. Also, the US has three sections: One with 4 soldiers, One with 3 and the last one with a Heavy Machine gun and 2 men.

The Germans started attacking right away, with the flame thrower's section targeting the smaller machine-gun section. As the flame thrower was out of range, the full counter attack from Livingston's section (the 3 men one) was extremely effective thanks in part to a rifle-grenade (40-6=36FP). The flame thrower was down and the other two soldiers were wounded, pinned and lost all moral. This was a great start to the mission.

Right away, the Americans using their binoculars examined the German fortifications, spotting some weaknesses. This information would prove useful right next (I recovered the card just used to counter-attack with full FP). But the Germans must have had some first-aid equipment as the two wounded soldiers were quickly bandaged and recovered not only their health, but their will to fight!

The nasty Heavy Machine Gun attacked next, but Sobel's section (the one with 4 men) was able to counter-attack again at full power. While managing to find cover behind some rocks. Bullets flew over them but they were unharmed.
Now it was Johnson's turn to fire. After setting the Heavy Machine Gun up he fired towards the German's Machine Gun section as quickly as he could while his companion used a rifle-grenade. The MG section tried to counter attack, but without enough time to reload after their last attack, they weren't too effective. Luckily for the Machine Gunner, he was barely scratched although he hit the ground nevertheless, not feeling so great as he saw one of his companions die as the other was wounded.

Sobel's section attacked too, trying to take advantage of the fact that the German's HMG wasn't firing. Because they had already used some ammo before, they weren't able to generate such a strong firepower (26) and as they started firing, the German Machine Gunner managed to get up and started to reload his gun, but at that point he got a couple of shots that ended his life. His only companion left didn't last any longer either.

So now, the only German opposition was from two confused soldiers (which I realized a while later should have been promoted to form one section... It really didn't matter much as they were pretty much powerless). The US forces advanced so they could use the grenades and ended with all the opposition quickly enough. At that point, they spotted a new force of German soldiers approaching the hill, but now terrain advantage was switched in favor of the Americans. They also had some time to prepare before the attack.

(Ok. Here I've skipped a few uninteresting turns where the two remaining soldiers would attack with low power and I would advance my sections unharmed. It was pretty easy to finish them off and occupy the hill before the arriving German section acted. At that point only Livingston's section was on the hill, with the other two behind).

Even though the new German section was pretty weak at such a great range, they tried attacking anyway, without much success, even getting a bit depressed when the Americans counterattacking from the Hill almost got them down...

At that point, Sobel's men decided to advance onto the hill, and the Germans, with even less firepower than before tried attacking Johnson's section which moved fast out of the way and into cover, closer to the hill. Livingston's section stays put, preparing for action.

Then the Germans decide to advance to close the gap, while the Americans wait, getting ready for action (I wanted to attack, but there's this rule that won't let you attack if the solo player's last action was "move" and they don't have any more sections to use during their turn...)

Livingston's section watched as the Germans got closer and fired with all their power. The German soldiers jumped on the ground managing to find some cover, but as the rain of bullets hit them, there was little they could do (FP was 42-11=31). After it stopped, only one of the Germans got up, and he wasn't about to keep on fighting...

In the end, the day was won, with 22VPs for the US and not one wound on any of them. Amazing....

Thoughts:

So I was lucky this time, especially at the beginning when I eliminated the flame thrower with a Dead result and then the machine gunner with two wounds on the one attack. But I think I also made much better use of equipment (flasks helped more than I thought they would) and cards. Of course, with the two most powerful Germans out of the game, it wasn't that hard protecting my men from the remaining enemy sections...
BTW, it's true pins aren't very effective after an attack on the AI is over, but they're still very effective if you manage to inflict lots of them in one attack because of the way they soon turn into moral hits, and then into wounds. This is especially effective on the weaker soldiers with 1-2 moral points. So while it's true the AI recovers quickly, if you hit them hard enough it doesn't matter as much...

Last, I'll say it again: This is an excellent game, both playing solo or against a human opponent.