Dust Warfare: 250AP Ray vs Abdullah

With the first Singapore Dust Tournament coming up this weekend, I am quite surprised there are so few players at the store. Abdullah and I got down to 250 of Axis vs Allies action. We used the tournament pack which had a different Battle Builder. 

We selected the following: Critical Positions, Force Collision and Conditions: None. 

Critical Positions is a new scenario that we both have never played before. It actually rewards players who bring larger armies. Also, terrain placement becomes super important. You can't place the objective within your deployment zone so you will have to plan to put it just beyond allowing you to capture it early on. I had more units so made more sense for me to just camp on the objective - which kinda makes it a little boring for me. 

I have changed my list a little. I have finally dropped the Laser Grenadiers and Battle Grenadiers for the Gorillas and a Recon Grenadier unit. Let's see how they fare.

Abdullah had the choice of selecting the board corner and went for the one with the farm house. I had to use this corner and oddly enough worked in my favour. The terrain piece just beyond my 24" was the perfect place to camp and score points from Turn 1. 

Abdullah had no choice but to deploy his men away from his objective which was located somewhat further from 30" giving me the advantage early game. Now you know why terrain placement is uber important

Just a quick overview from Deployment

Abdullah got the first Command Phase and proceeded to shell shock my men. That Long Tom took out 4 of 6 of my Sturmgrenadier HQ unit. Ouch. 

Moved all his men forward to capture the point ASAP

And in my Command, I pushed forward as well. Tried to heal using my Medic but no luck

The hillock you see in the middle is Abdullah's objective. You had to put a miniature completely within the objective which made it even tougher for him. 

And I had the objective on my side firmly in my grasp. 

Only 1 unit managed to capture this in Turn 1

Point Tally at the end of Turn 1:
Abdullah 1, Ray 5

So pulling forward with such a huge margin I thought I would risk it a little by sending my melee units up front. Sent the Gorillas to threaten Abdullah while the rest of the army held onto my objective. Abdullah was coming up behind the containers

In response, Abdullah moved Rhino and his buddies back to get out of range of the Gorillas. 

And in my Unit Phase I then moved my Gorillas back into the ruins on the right (yes, they are black so harder to spot)

With no threat now, Abdullah moved his men up on the hillock to start generating points.

By end of Turn 2:
Abdullah: 3
Ray: 8

Another round of shelling from the Long Tom made my HQ unit vanish in a puff of blood and gore. In my Command phase I pulled the Apes back in to my lines to help build more points by capturing the objective. Cowardly yes, but it was the objective of the game. Win by scoring points. 

It was here that I realised that this would be a one way game. There was little Abdullah could do. Turn 2 and our points difference was 5. By end of Turn 3, this gap was going to widen quickly.

Abdullah now moved his Rattler up front

While I spaced my units out, relocating the Battle Grenadiers in response to his tank and Tank Busters (who managed to pip off 3 hull points from my Ludwig). 

Finally an aggressive move by Abdullah moving intelligently behind cover

Said Tank Buster taking a 2 shots which both hit causing me 3 damage (soft cover from forest and causing FIRE)

I moved my Zombies up to engage Rhino and buddies. I lost 4 Zombies to his reaction fire. Ouch

Should have suppressed them THEN charge in. Stupid mistake

In his turn he took out the last Zombie

And then open fire into my 2nd Platoon HQ unit leaving only 2 men remaining. 

Sniper takes a pot shot and kills off my Grenadier

And then we called it at Turn 4. 

Turn 4:

Abdullah: 3

Ray: 5

It was a win to me. Total points tally:

Abdullah: 10

Ray: 24

Clearly having more units and a skewed terrain placement put me at a strong advantage. To be fair, Abdullah did have the initiative to select the table quarter. My only beef with this scenario is that it encourages players which have higher unit count to just camp making it nigh impossible to shift. If I were Abdullah, I would not know how to crack my own army. 

Let us know how your games go and what you think of this scenario.