Withdrawing from Close Combat

Discretion is the better part of valor...

When ugly danger reared its head, he bravely turned his tail and fled...

Close combat is arguably ASL's most macho and testosterone laden phase. Defenders will try to gun their way out of trouble, making attackers claw through a hail of residual firepower and even final protective firing to keep out of close combat. Once enjoined, no good order squad ever ventures to withdraw. Partially, it seems unmanly. But it is also dangerous, allowing an opponent to apply what is usually a deadly -2 to his attack roll.

However, scenario designers frequently reward attackers by requiring defenders to be “good order,” excluding defenders held in melee from meeting victory conditions. It has become a gamey tactic to move troops into close combat in order to prevent good order defenders from meeting victory conditions. Not really sleaze, but definitely gamey. This is particularly true if you are eligible for some form of human wave. Waving is a great way to tie someone up in close combat and take away their status as good order. Realistically, there isn't much chance that your Red Army guys will be organized enough at game end to pull this off, but for less restrictive national characteristics, like banzai or dare death, this is an excellent tactic.

And this of course works both ways. While defenders in melee are not good order, they are “unbroken.” This means a subtle change of wording makes the ante higher. You not only have to get into close combat, but you must be able to kill your opponent off. Also, to take control you have to deliver sufficient strength that your opponent won't kill you off. Finally, getting someone into melee isn't sufficient to take building control away from your opponent—unless you can kill him off completely.

Still, if the defender has to have a certain number of good order units within a certain victory area, tying up his units in close combat seems like a good way to accomplish victory conditions. Conversely, when defending avoiding close combat seems to be a well reasoned strategy. So why do so few players simply attempt to withdraw from close combat?

I will explore the mathematical probabilities of success momentarily, but before I do, let me point out that this is an excellent situation for hectoring your opponent. Most ASL players don't think close combat is violent enough. This is one reason that scenarios that feature hand-to-hand are popular. There is also, I think, a machismo element that makes it seem unclean to take a victory by backing down from a mano-a-mano close combat fight. Japanese withdrawing from close combat? Marines? The shame. If you can win by tying him up in melee, it is a reasonable psychological weapon to goad your opponent into remaining in the hex and hoping for a low roll to wipe you out. As I said, it goes against the grain of most ASL players anyway, so anything you can do to keep him from a dispassionate analysis of the various odds and probabilities will, generally, work to your benefit.

The end game is a game of psychology. Often, a player goes through a process of “personal morale check” where they wrestle with the diminishing possibility of being able to meet the victory conditions with the elements they have left. Personally, I always try to rally an opponent through this phase, unless he was a real dick or it is past 11pm (I need almost as much beauty sleep as Tom Jazbutis.) To me, it is an unsatisfying win if an opponent gives in while he still has a chance at victory. And, yes, this has cost me. Once I had an opponent fail his personal morale check, I rallied him only to need at least a 7 on three different CC rolls—failing on all three attempts and losing the game. However, if an opponent is vulnerable to this psychological warfare the best thing you can do is stay confident and scoff at his heroics. Further, an opponent who is superstitious can generally be persuaded his dice are going to fail at the appropriate moment. If you are a scurrilous swine who doesn't mind winning this way, endgame is the time when you want to exert psychological pressure. The time for insulting his counter storage system is over—you need to go right after his dice, his nerve and even his mother's loose morals.

Now, let's examine the situation. You've set up your “Alamo” and have your troops falling back into the victory area according to plan. Your opponent, however, is in position to move up and cover all of your last reserve in a wave of bayonet wielding maniacs.

First, go back and re-read the victory conditions. It may seem like you need to keep the victory conditions in mind throughout the scenario, but it is quite possible that the specific situation changes your tactics at the end game. “Keeping the attacker out of building X3” is a general condition that you can keep in your mind, but building control rules are more nuanced and provide you with some opportunities that are not apparent at the start of the scenario. Knowing, specifically, what you have to do needs to be refreshed before you allow your opponent to start moving.

The key to your defense is effective defensive fire. If it is the last turn, you just need to pin his units. Laying down residual that he must run through will maximize your chances of pinning people, so spraying fire (if available) is generally a good idea. The bad part of this is that the units that pin will still get to shoot back at you in advancing fire. Nevertheless, in a situation where a unit that is in melee is no good to you, it will probably pay off to go for more pins rather than a big break. A barrier of residual firepower is very helpful. I find that while the CC phase is the most macho of phases, the movement phase is the most timid of phases. A player who will reinforce a 1:2 melee is usually loathe to take a 1fp -2 shot. And hardly anyone will walk into a 6 residual firepower attack. Here, too, is a chance to use psychology. Usually in end game, it doesn't matter how many casualties you take if you need a building or to lock someone in CC. So you are going to have to eat that residual firepower shot. So as the defender, you want to surround yourself with a fluffy, warm blanket of residual firepower. However, usually, you can't completely cover all the areas you need, so be strategic. The important thing is to scan for remaining units that could move to your location and block their movement with residual firepower. If you can't prevent them from moving close, it is always helpful to make them double time and therefore become CX. You will also use defensive fire from other, less strategic locations to block paths to the victory area with residual firepower. Remember, a firelane directed down a road can actually force an attacker to take numerous low-firepower attacks, any of which can pin him away from the victory location.

As the defender, in addition to laying down a lot of residual, it really helps if you can keep one unit concealed. Depending on your proclivities, you may wish to use a half-squad or even a leader to keep concealment in order to help with ambush or to blunt the effects of advancing fire or close combat. Leaders are tricky, because you need the residual fire power and you don't want to cower. Usually, it isn't worth the risk as the leader may lose concealment in the AFPh anyway. But an extra half-squad that stays concealed into the CCPh can often be the difference between victory and defeat. It is also a good idea, if at all possible, to keep at least one accessible location available for withdrawal. Your opponent will rout before you do, so if he is in the victory building with you, breaking those units which would otherwise keep you from routing or withdrawing from melee is still important.

As far as attacking the Alamo, there are a number of background calculations you need to make. No time in ASL is more like chess than end game and it is vitally important to move units in a certain order that will maximize your chances in CC. Before the movement phase begins, you must think through where you want your units to end up at the end of movement phase. Generally, it helps to use your lower morale/lower value units first, moving them to direct residual firepower away from the place you want your more effective units to end up. That said, if you are trying to trap units in close combat, you will want to approach the unit from as many possible different directions as possible. There will be cases where a pinned unit adjacent to the target unit remains valuable—preventing your opponent from withdrawing from close combat or infiltrating into the occupied hex. Which units go first? As always, it depends on the situation. Calculate the close combat odds. If he needs a “good order” unit in the victory hex, you just need to make sure he can't win the close combat with a middling roll. If he needs an “unbroken” unit in the victory location, you need to ensure that you can kill him with a middling roll. If you need to control the building, you must be able to kill him AND survive CC. You don't want to overstack and if possible you want to cover all infiltration hexes that could allow him an escape rout. But these aren't just decoys—your opponent will be forced to fire at them or they can get into close combat just as easily as a good unit and are generally just as valuable in CC—two conscript squads are equal to an elite squad in CC! So swarming the victory location with low-value units forces his hand. Even if he uses spraying fire to hit an empty hex, it's still better to take the residual attack than taking a full attack (usually with a -2.) It helps a lot to force your opponent into FPF opportunities. It is gut wrenching to take shots when the result can break or pin you and you need to survive a close combat to win. Even elite units stand a horrible chance of breaking when FPF is necessary, which could well end the game. Psychology, again, is your friend. A single squad, final fire, faces a hoard of crazed attackers filled with bloodlust. It really wants to avoid CC with too many of these fanatics. There are very few times in ASL when a bad decision is made more often than to FPF. If you are the Chinese, now is the time to use your Dare Death squads. You will force a great deal of defensive fire at these units with a 10 morale and it will free up movement for your other units. Keep moving units against the strategic location until all your unit have moved. You might not be able to move them all in, but all of them can help with Advancing fire.

When moving, also think about a Human Wave. This requires you to assemble a plan the turn before so you have the requisite number of units in the hex. A Japanese Banzai is not as complex. Like the Dare Death, this will allow you to surge toward the victory location in a way that will give you heightened morale and more movement points. By initiating pulse movement, it makes defensive fire strategies much more complex—especially if you have follow-on units.

And Advancing fire is your next key. Let's assume that you have made it to the victory location with at least a few unpinned, good order units. If you have planned your movement correctly, you may even have an encircling shot. Breaking the unit is gravy—pinning the unit is good too.

Which bring us to the rout phase. This isn't very important in the end game is it? After all, you sometimes don't even have a chance to rally, do you? Haha! It IS important. Imagine that your opponent has surrounded your victory location and is poised to advance in, ridding the building of all good order units by trapping you in CC. If he can destroy you in CC he will seize control of the building. But wait, you can rout a unit upstairs, can't you. Doesn't matter, he still won't be good order. But maybe the leader that routs with him will be good order. That leader is sufficient to prevent the oaf from controlling the building! This is definitely not sleaze. It's the way the game is played. It may even be possible to self-break an MMC and take the leader along to another part of the building, which may be sleaze, I'm not sure. But I'd still do it and have done against Pete Phillips! It is a good tactic to use if you are sitting on one pinned half-squad who is just going to mess up your ambush roll.

You can also rout out of a CC location, so you might even be able to self-break a unit and get away with a good order leader to maintain control of the building. It's even more amusing because your opponent can't even advance the banzai/human wave/dare death unit.

Another aspect to routing is to create prisoners. Prisoners hamper a unit's close combat by halving the guard's firepower vs. non-prisoner units. Therefore, it is always best to abandon prisoners before advancing into close combat, which one can do before advancing.

Routing is truly an ASL skill. And a skillful rout in endgame that allows you to save a leader which otherwise faces tall odds in CC is definitely fair game. Don't even be embarrassed. It is important to remember that before a CC is established, the Rout Phase is your last chance to get out of the location before a CC starts—at which point you can't withdraw unless a melee already exists.

However, now let's get down to business. Your opponent has moved in on you, advanced into CC and is ready to give you the old entrenchment shovel treatment... How do you maximize your opportunities? First, you've got to know how to work your ambush modifiers. The assumption is, here, that you are in a building. However, it is important to keep in mind that if you are not in a building or woods (for example, in an entrenchment or if the victory conditions are such that you only have to be within X hexes of hex Y) that you need to account for the fact that there will be no ambush. This means you either have to kill his units (if you have to be good order) or stay alive (if you only have to be unbroken).

Ambush is purely luck of the die and remember that there is no ambush where a CC already exists—so this is another reason to do a human wave type attack—no ambush means one less chance for him to get lucky and infiltrate into another victory location (assuming one is available.) If you are defending a building with lots of locations it is very important to remember which are accessible to you. If the building has a stairwell, and you aren't in it, it isn't accessible and that is easy to forget when the stacks start piling up. The only strategy you can use to help you for ambush is to manipulate the ambush modifiers in your favor.

It is also your last chance to get out of a close combat situation that has just developed, because before a melee exists you can't withdraw. Ambush withdrawal replaces the normal withdrawal from melee option. Obviously, winning an ambush and withdrawing is a no-brainer (even with the bonuses conveyed), but the point is that you need to maximize your modifiers with a unit that keeps its concealment, a negative modifier leader or hero, or the withdrawal of lax or pinned units. There may also be situations where your unit wins an ambush, but has no accessible location to withdraw to that meets the victory conditions.

If you have been human waved (in any form) you don't get an ambush, so if you can't self-break and take a leader with you to win, you will have to fight it out.

Withdrawing from a melee requires a gut check. It is not how John Wayne does it. You don't get to attack back. You will have a lot better opportunity if you leave some of your troops behind to cover for you—be prepared to write a lot of letters home to those cardboard wives and mothers. And, if you are at a tournament, you will have to face the scorn and ridicule of your comrades over beer later. Probably most importantly, there is something unsatisfying your way about backing into a win. But if you want to win the scenario, you have to be prepared to sacrifice a little pride, or, if you are at Double One in Chelmsford, a lot of pride.

The first round of close combat does not constitute a melee, and, therefore, you may not withdraw from it. However, if a melee currently exists in a location units may attempt to withdraw from it. Why focus on the defensive fire, routs and advances surrounding from a situation if you can't withdraw from CC? Well, it reinforces the importance of staying out of close combat in the last couple of turns for the defender and getting in to close combat for the attacker. It also speaks to the problems of trying to win a scenario in the last turns. In any event, it is critically important that you keep in mind that you not only have to get into close combat, but survive a couple of rounds as well. In any event, for the defender it is vitally important that you not count on withdrawing from a close combat before it has developed into a full on melee.

The attacker declares his/her attacks first, so the attacker should designate whether he/she wants to withdraw first. What would be the benefit of this? There are a couple of reasons that the attacker may wish to withdraw from melee. First, it defeats the defensive tactic of withdrawing from the melee into a single accessible location. The rule book is not crystal clear on this, but since the attacker gets to withdraw first following the melee combats, this may leave the defender with no accessible locations without an enemy unit to withdraw to. Theoretically, it may also allow the attacker to withdraw into an unprotected victory location and claim it as well—effectively giving it a free move after an advance. This is, clearly, grasping at straws—but it is a possible way to get out of a seemingly no-win situation.

You must designate that you are attempting to withdraw. Think about why you are withdrawing. In defense, building control will go over to you if you survive the final CC. In order to have a “good order” unit, you will either have to successfully withdraw or kill all your opponents in the final CC. You may want to withdraw from a melee into an accessible location in a different building in order to take or keep control of that building. This is where keeping the victory conditions foremost in your mind is important. Do you have to be good order? Or simply control the building?

Also, consider how many of the units you need to withdraw. The more units you can leave in the CC hex, the better. This will enable them to cover your retreating units. Your withdrawing unit does not get an attack, which is largely irrelevant unless you need to defeat your opponent.

An important thing to remember is that if you are the attacker, you don't want to leave a vehicle in the location. This suspends the simultaneous nature of CC and makes it sequential. Any non-withdrawing unit(s) will get to attack before you attack the withdrawing unit, possibly doing so much damage it defeats your chance to kill all the defenders and claim the building for yourself.

Think, too, about firing into the melee. While it is cruel to your cardboard troops, the general rule of thumb is that if you have a higher morale in the melee than your opponent, you may want to take the chance. But keep in mind, this is literally a role of the dice. A one point morale advantage is not a really big advantage. Having a 14 to 16% better chance to pass a morale check is not huge. Plus, if you are pinned and he/she is broken, you are drastically reducing your ability to kill it off as it withdraws. However, an enemy conscript in CC with your guards unit is annoying and does present a problem that can be solved with a shot that is likely to pin. If you are not in melee, you can even fire to encircle the unit (without becoming encircled yourself.)

Backing out of close combat does make sense. Most players are terrified of that -2 modifier for withdrawing. So let's look at the math. Essentially, you need to look at the probability that you can kill all the enemy units in a hex (thus making your own units 'good order') vs. the probability that your withdrawing units will survive. Your chances of killing an opponent completely are:

	One attacking squad	Two attacking squads	Three attacking squads
One defending squad	17% (42% HtH)	8% (28% HtH)	3% (17% HtH)
Two defending squads	42% (72% HtH)	17% (42% HtH)	8% (28% HtH)
Three defending squads	58% (83% HtH)	28% (58% HtH)	17% (42% HtH)

Whereas, your chances of surviving CC are:

	One attacking squad	Two attacking squads	Three attacking squads
One defending squad	83% (58% HtH)	58% (28% HtH)	42% (17% HtH)
Two defending squads	92% (72% HtH)	83% (58% HtH)	58% (28% HtH)
Three defending squads	97% (83% HtH)	92% (72% HtH)	83% (58% HtH)

In order for you to win, you need both to be true. That is, you not only need to completely kill your opponent's units, but you also need to survive. Therefore, your chances of a successful outcome are:

	One attacking squad	Two attacking squads	Three attacking squads
One defending squad	14% (24% HtH)	5% (8% HtH)	1% (3% HtH)
Two defending squads	37% (51% HtH)	14% (24% HtH)	5% (8% HtH)
Three defending squads	56% (68% HtH)	26% (42% HtH)	14% (24% HtH)

This provides some interesting insights. For example, it is always better to go hand to hand than regular close combat—when hand to hand is available. This is because the chances of killing your opponent's squads in CC are generally low. Note that if you are fighting or attacking with Japanese, Gurkha or Dare Death squads, this changes. Even if it means you are less likely to survive, you have to play for your best shot at killing all his troops. Now, let's look at the chances if you instead decide to withdraw from melee. And, if you don't want to be in hand to hand, you have to remember that your opponent may have the chance to change it over to hand to hand before the end of the game.

Here, I want to explain that I am going to rule that one squad is going to try to withdraw and the rest are going to remain in the melee covering the withdrawing squad. Also, the only odds that are relevant are surviving the close combat, because the attacker must prevent the attacker from withdrawing, but also must kill the covering squads as well. The defender does not need to kill the attacking squads in this case.

	One attacking squad	Two attacking squads	Three attacking squads
One defending squad	58% (28% HtH)	27% (8% HtH)	17% (0% HtH)
Two defending squad	83% (58% HtH)	72% (42% HtH)	58% (28% HtH)
Three defending squads	97% (83% HtH)	92% (72% HtH)	83% (58% HtH)

What is surprising about this is not that withdrawing increases you chances, but the magnitude of how much your chances increase. Here, as opposed to when you remain, it is generally far better not to be in hand to hand. Close combat is generally much more complex than this, with leaders, heroes and concealment playing a big role in changing these percentages. However, as a rule of thumb we can easily see that because it is difficult to kill your opponent's squads in anything other than overwhelming odds close combat, it generally pays to withdraw—even with the -2 DRM. Particularly if you are not in a hand to hand melee, and particularly if you have at least one covering squad, get the hell out!

On the other hand, the mind game of keeping your opponent from withdrawing is an easy one to play. Having a three to one CC in the defense seems like you should stay and kill your opponent to end the game. It's the way John Wayne would do it. However, your chances of victory drop by about fifty! percent if you do. Do you best to goad your opponent into a fair fight.

As the attacker, it underscores the importance of cutting off accessible locations. If you need to take a building, you have the same pressure as the defender—the need to eliminate all his units. In fact, your mission is more difficult, because you cannot withdraw in order to make you mission easier. However, if you are in a position where you need to prevent him/her from having good order unit in the building, you'll have to withdrawal one of your units—your worst—to block each accessible victory location. And you'll have to do it.

Hopefully, this brief discussion will make you think about staying and fighting over taking advantage of the better part of valor. The rule of thumb appears to be that you always want to withdraw the minimum level of squads—but especially if you have covering squads. It is generally better to go into hand to hand if you are attacking—assuming you have the ability, but it is better to not go into hand to hand if you are simply trying to tie your defending opponent up. Keeping this in mind, as well as the specific nature of the victory conditions, can mean a rather large difference between victory and defeat.

Players tend to think of the -2 as insurmountable and reject without giving it enough thought. But you can drastically increase your chances by withdrawing, especially if you have some covering squad(s). Having a scenario come down to the last close combat is frustrating for some players, but for some of us it is a sign of a really good scenario. I won a monster Pegasus Bridge scenario once—eight to ten hours of ASL play—on a CC die roll. Hopefully, I have shown a little bit how you can maximize those chances and avoid or at least minimize your chances in the run up to the last CC die roll.