May Officefest AAR

Traveled over to the east side of Michigan for PJ Norton’s 25th ‘Officefest’ this past weekend. PJ has been hosting this twice yearly event for many years and I’ve managed to attend almost everyone one of them. The first Officefest was where I broke into the real world of ASL. Before then I had just played solitaire or with my brother. PJ was also the person who convinced me to head down to Oktoberfest for which I am forever grateful to him.

I arrive late afternoon on Friday and am ready to roll dice. Looking forward to anything – PTO, Desert, Night, or a regular East front scenario. Doesn’t matter. I’ve gotten in 27 games so far this year and am well on my way to breaking last year’s record of 51 scenarios and a campaign game. I’m hoping to get in three or four games in, but I can’t stay too late on Saturday as I have a gig early Sunday morning.

I walk in the door and can see that there are already several games going on. PJ and Fred Schwarz are back in a corner playing ‘Huns of Steel’ from the latest module release. Looks real interesting and definitely one I want to play in the future. Mark Pitcavage has a game going and there are another couple of games ongoing but I can’t recall specifics. A shout from the hall and my attention turns to a beaming Glenn Houseman (Glennbo from Strat Forum and part of the East Side Gamers design team). Apparently I’m on his ‘hit list’ along with David Lamb and Mark Pitcavage. Good company, but I’m not sure I want to be on any list that Glenn has – those are the lists that I figure federal agencies have fun with. Those of you that peruse the Strategy Forum message boards will know what I mean. But, I digress… Glenn is looking for revenge from last Officefest when he and I played L’Abbeye Blanche from the first Action Pack. I won at the end of turn 2 and it wasn’t pretty….you can ask Glenn for details. Anyway, I enjoy playing Glenn so we start to look for a scenario to play. Mark Pitcavage perks up his ear and asks us to play-test one of his “Few Returned” scenarios titled ‘All Roads Lead To Rome’ that he is preparing to submit to MMP. It is an interesting moderately-large scenario with a rather complex victory condition. He has only gotten 5 play-testings of it and he is hoping for more. We look it over and it looks interesting so there it is. We dice for sides, Glenn gets the attacking Italians, and I the defending Germans. The Germans have to defend a bridge and have more VP than the Italians. However, the Germans get VP for exiting units (full points for exiting at the far side of the board and ½ points for exiting at a specified hex within the German set-up), controlling the bridge, and keeping a road clear of Italians. The Italians win by controlling one hex of the bridge or adjacent bridge hex or having more VP then the Germans. On top of this, the Italians have a variable reinforcement chart and roll to see what they get. Working through all this is probably why play-testers have avoided this scenario. However, this is the perfect time to play this and it does look interesting. The Italian gets some armor and the German gets to play with the 105 RCL which you don’t see too often. I set up a rather up-front defense relying on my 8ML and some concealment counters to survive an Italian prep fire and keep him from moving towards the bridge on the first turn. Glenn obliges me and takes his prep fire. When the smoke is cleared a snakes on Glenn’s part has me starting with the new Italian balance – take away one 548 squad. Oh well, at least he didn’t move and the rest of my troops are in good shape. The rest of the 8 turn scenario proceeds. Glenn never quite gets a coordinated attack against the bridge going. My 548’s in the woods are just too strong. A little tête-à-tête with my reinforcing 81mm mtr and his Semnovente goes no where – my mortar duding out a critical hit and his Semnovente continuously missing the mortar team and others. A portee’d 37L takes out a light tankette of his and then (in one of the few glory moments for the Semnovente) in turn gets taken out by the Semnovente. By turn 5-6 it’s a tight game. Glenn probably won’t get the bridge, but he is ahead on VP. Turns 6-7 go my way though. I start exiting troops and racking up some CVP in a little side battle across the bridge. By the start of turn 8 it is clear the Glenn cannot physically reach the bridge victory hexes and I’m now clearly ahead on CVP & EVP. Glenn resigns. It’s been about a 6 hour scenario – but worth it. Mark tells us the scenario has been favoring the Italians and Glenn is a decent player so it’s a quality win. 1-0.

It’s now about 11:00pm and I step out to get a bite to eat. When I get back, Fred’s son Eli is open. He has only played the starter kit series with his dad, but has come to pick up some more experience. Since I’m also open I figure we can set something up from the starter kit and then play it tomorrow morning. The next one for him to play is SK5 Clearing Colleville so we dice for sides and set it up. I’m the attacking US and he is the Germans. Next thing I know we go from set-up straight into playing. I brush up on the starter kit rules (hmmm…no sniper, no by-pass, no HOB…OK got it). He plays well but a risky move on his part gave me an 8fp -3 shot that I rolled a 3 on for a 2KIA taking out 2 squads and then my 9-2, 3*666,mmg stack does back to back snakes in a prep fire phase blowing a huge hole in his line which I then flooded through. Good game but the dice gods were clearly on my side. Played him to give him experience and coach him along. We talk about set-up options. For only his 5th game he already shows a good fundamental grasp of strategy and with more experience will pick up the wisdom to be pretty competitive in a relatively short time I think. Basically sharking here but had a good time. Cheesy win. 2-0 and time for bed.

After breakfast on Saturday, Chad Vanderbos and I matched up on SP53 "Thorne In Your Side". I'm the US attacking across an open field against three German conscripts, 8-1, and a 2nd line squad with a PzIV 75* and MMG (all starting HIP) vs my 7 or so 666's, mmg, 2*M5A1's and a heroic 9-1. I lose a haf squad right away and my leader wounds limiting his movement. Then I miss my special ammo role for canister and then malf the other tank’s MA. But I get a lucky break in a defensive fire shot by my heroic leader into an adjacent empty hex which turns out to be not-so-empty and contain one of the last HIP conscript squads I'm looking for. On the opposite side of the hex sits a 666 which then proceeds to break and encircle him. Anyway, the highlights are my good M5A1 crashing through a woods hex and bogging adjacent to the PzIV who then ignores the M5 (needing to take out my infantry more then the M5). The PzIV breaks a squad, but then is taken out by the M5. Finally, on the last turn I've pinned down the last conscript squad in the woods and take him out in CC to win. Another quality win as this is a pretty balanced scenario and Chad's an experienced player. 3-0 and time to go home.

Glad to see PJ keeping Officefest going after a year off. It’s always a great time to see the guys from the east side of the state and a few of the ‘buckeye’ crowd. Hope he can host it again in September.