KAASL I AAR

KAASL I AAR

Over the weekend of October 19-20 the KAASL (Kalamazoo Area Advanced Squad Leader) club got together and hosted the first KAASL gathering. Loosely based on P.J. Norton’s long running Officefest on the east side of the state, Doug and I had been talking about hosting something similar at his chiropractic office on this side of the state. When his tenant moved out this month we realized that this was probably the best window to see if we could pull off a larger gathering then the informal one-day ‘house’ gatherings that we had done in the past. E-mails were sent out right after Oktoberfest and even though it didn’t give everyone much heads-up (something we’ll work to improve on next time) we had a great first-time turn out. What follows is an AAR of the event.

Friday October 19

Doug closed his office at 6:00pm and he and I cleared his office, pulled out tables, and set out ASL gear and snacks (including two home-made apple pies courtesy of my wife) and drinks. Shortly after 7:00 Todd Wiley, Geoff Ferguson, and D.J. Florian arrive. All three are locals - Todd and I play weekly and we are in the middle of a KGP campaign game. Geoff is an avid board-gamer, but just recently caught the ASL bug through the starter kits. He and I have played about 5 SK scenarios so far. D.J. is an occasional ASL player and plays when his schedule allows. Todd and Doug pair up to play “T-Patchers” and Geoff and D.J. settled into a SK scenario “Ambitious Assault”. I play host and help coach D.J. and Geoff through rules issues. It also gave me time to set up my defense for the next day’s game against Mark.

T-Patchers (G25): I haven’t played this scenario before so kept looking in to see how it was going. Doug’s US troops, led by his Shermans, pushed straight up the center early in the game. It was looking pretty good for Doug early on, especially when Todd’s AT gun malfunctions. Then a major infantry stack of Doug’s hit a minefield and Todd repaired the AT gun. Some slowed-up infantry and a couple destroyed Shermans later and Todd had bloodied Doug’s nose and blunted his assault. They’ll play until 1:00 in the morning when it will go down to the last turn and Doug pulling out a win by avoiding the CVP cap by 1 CVP.

Ambitious Assault (S9): D.J. gets the Italian defenders in this one. He spreads his defense out through-out the village in the center of the board. He has to defend on both ends as on one flank the US come in and on the other flank the British enter. D.J. will throw a couple of speed bumps up on a hill to slow the US attack down. When Geoff enters on the US side things don’t go quite as planned. D.J.’s speed bump Italian squad, supported by an Italian HMG across the board, hole up in a stone building and decide to earn the Italian medal of valor by stopping cold each US squad that attempts to get past them. That single squad will alone survive 4 turns before finally withdrawing in good order back into the village. On the other flank, Geoff will enter the British reinforcements, but having only 2-3 turns with them on the board, can’t push far enough into the village to make up for the delayed US attack on the other side. Fun game to watch, but D.J.’s experience paid off dividends as Geoff struggled to get the US attack going past the Italian defense. D.J. and Geoff will finish around 10:30 with D.J.’s Italians holding out for a win.

Saturday October 20

Geoff and D.J. had job commitments for Saturday, but Todd, Doug, and I were all back along with a contingent of guys from up north – well, at least as far north as Grand Rapids. Around 10am Mark DeVries, Jim Haller, Ben Richardson, and Larry Zoet pull into the parking lot. We match up for games, pull the grill out, and start day two rolling the dice.

Terrify and Destroy (SP 146): Mark and I had arranged ahead of time to play this one. I had set it up the evening before so it didn’t take long for Mark to settle in and get his off-board US lined up. My Germans get 4 Jagd Tigers and a couple of Flakwagons with supporting infantry, but set up in three different areas that really don’t support each other. The US has three 76L armed M4’s along with two more 75mm M-4’s, a Stuart light tank, and another M4 mounting the 105mm gun supported by a halftrack and 14 elite US squads. The scenario starts off furiously with a pretty aggressive US tank attack from two sides. My defending Germans get a few breaks and by turn 4-5 Mark has lost all the 76L mounted M4’s and his 105. Another M4 75 is staring down the barrel of a Jagd Tiger as is the Stuart. All I’ve lost is a single Jagd Tiger to street fighting and I really haven’t had to give up much ground. Looking over the scenario, Mark concedes that he isn’t going to be able to kick me out of 3 of the 4 buildings needed in the time left and there is still enough time left to get in another scenario. So, we switch sides and play again. The second playing is much more intense. It goes the full distance ending in the CC phase of the last player turn with my US infantry finally taking the third building away from the two 5-4-8 squads defending it. A strange playing as I rolled something like a dozen 12’s and an equal number of 2’s. Definitely not bell-curve rolls on my end. The 12’s were frustrating – but balanced by the 2’s. A key point in the game was Mark’s 9-2 breaking on a NMC caused 6fp +3 shot from a M4’s machine guns. I also got fortunate with DI shots against two of the Jadg Tigers effectively taking them out of the game relatively early on. To his credit, Mark had an outstanding counter-attack by a Jadg Tiger and squad early in the game which bagged about 5 squads and a leader in the first two turns via a melee and then withdrawal behind me to end up eliminating several US units due to FTR.

White Star, Black Cross: Ben Richardson and Todd Wiley went head-to-head in this Scott Holst play test. Ben had brought down one of Jeff DeYoung’s 3-D boards built for this scenario. I didn’t get a chance to watch much of this game – being involved in my own scenario with Mark – but from what I saw Ben got off to a rough start with several malfunctions the first few turns. Eventually though, Ben recovers enough for his German attack to finally defeat Todd’s US defenders. Maybe one (or both of them) will chime in here and add more to this AAR.

Strange Allies: The last three (Larry, Doug, and Jim) joined up to play a three-player scenario by Steve Swann. Not published yet, Strange Allies takes place with in a couple weeks after the end of WWII in Europe. On the island of Crete, communist partisans (Jim Haller) are attacking a unit of British troops (Larry Zoet). The surrounded British send a call out to their recently surrendered German “prisoners” (Doug Lynes) and order them to counter-attack the partisans and ‘rescue’ their British captors. Strange…. Like Ben and Todd’s game, I didn’t get to see much of this one either, but from what I heard Larry and Doug didn’t have a lot of trouble containing the partisans. It sounds like this scenario needs a bit more balancing before it is published as they all thought it was hard on the partisans.

Conclusion

By about 6:00pm all the games had wrapped up. The GR guys had to head back up north so we called it a day. Between my two games I had started the grill and we had burgers and brats available as needed. Lesson learned – don’t try to play a scenario and work a grill. Let’s put it this way – no one could order their burgers medium rare…or for that matter even medium. Well-done was par for the course. Mark DeVries surprisingly finished off the last piece of pie so I didn’t have to bring any back home. It looked like everyone had a great time. We had 9 different guys show up and got in 6 scenarios. Not bad for the very first gathering and on short notice. Doug and I will get together over the next few weeks and start looking at dates for the next gathering. We’ll get the word out much earlier next time. Thanks to everyone who showed up and to all who replied to the original email with support and best wishes. Especially PJ and his phone call on Saturday. Hopefully we’ll see even more folks next time.

Update: Originally this was posted as Officefest West with deferance to PJ's Officefest that he organizes on the East side of the state. At his quite reasonable request I've changed the name of our event to KAASL and have gone back and edited this posting to reflect that change. CG

ASLOk 2007

AAR – ASLOk XXI – 2007

It was the best of times – it was the worst of times…

Murphy’s Law…

Well, that pretty much sums up my past weekend at ASLOk XXII. Last year (see my previous blog) I went 4-1 and won a mini-tournament plaque (almost won a second one!) and felt pretty much on top of my game. Didn’t happen that way this year – but that’s OK.

I drove over to ASLOk after teaching my last classes at KVCC and Kalamazoo College. I arranged ahead of time to room with Jim Taylor – we connected up with a couple games this past year and the rooming worked out very conveniently for us. When I got into Middleburg Heights I checked in at the registration table and picked up my shirt and name tag. Same tag style as last year; but with a US ‘Stuart’ tank on it. The olive drab shirt features a crewed HMG amongst some rubble and, although dark, is a nice color. I look around for the Schwerpunkt guys as I need to pick up the next Schwerpunkt pack for the mini tomorrow but it doesn’t look like any are around that evening. I do find Glennbo and he gives me a couple of the Eastside Gamers #3 packs. I play tested several scenarios in the pack for Glen and these were the comps for that. Glen, Scot and Eric have done a great job with the first two packs – and after play testing the 3rd pack I’m sure this will be just as good. I want to play the ‘Destroy All Monsters’ scenario some day – just sounds too cool.

Too late for a game so I chat with a bunch of guys and then head up to the room to watch Boston beat L.A. and go up 2 – 0 in the play-offs and then turn in to get some sleep.

Friday October 5 – Round One of the Schwerpunkt 13 Mini

Last year I won the Schwerpunkt 12 mini so I figured what the heck, lets sign up for that one again. The advantage to this mini is that no one really knows the scenarios as they are all new and first released at ASLOk. The disadvantage is that you really don’t know if they are balanced at all. Last year I was pretty lucky and choose the side that in the end would be slightly favored in tournament play. That certainly didn’t hurt my chances.

I’m matched up with Craig Houliston (Lino Lake, MN) for the first round. I’ve heard Craig’s name around the circuit the last few years and I know he won one of the mini’s last year so I’m guessing we’re probably pretty on par with each other. Looking at the list we select The Legrew Maneuver (SP 150). This scenario features a German withdrawal in front of a faster and more numerous US force. The Germans have to exit ≥ 26 EVP and at least 4 of the EVP have to be infantry MMC’s. The Germans have 2 JgPz IV(L) and 3 PzIVJ’s and 8 squads with a smattering of support weapons. The US has 10 squads and a variety of 6 tanks including one very quick M10 GMC – the little guy is literally twice as fast as anything the Germans have.

The Germans set up on board first. I pick one side – I’ll withdraw along a side so I only have to protect one flank. However, the US moves first. Craig quickly pushes down my ‘protected’ side along a woods road catching me a bit by surprise. At the end of this first turn he ends up where I anticipated he would be on turn 2 – not good for me. On the other flank he quickly moves the M4A3, M10, and 3 of the 4 M4’s into flanking positions to try and get flank shots on the area I’ll have to withdraw through. That I expect. On my turn 1 I crank up a JgPz to engage the sole M4 on the woods-road. Pull into the mouth of the woods-road and face the M4. Good odds for me. My supporting mmg team gets hot and shreds the only squad that might have a CC chance against the JgPz and the M4’s gun pretty much can’t touch my front armor; and my gun will shred him. Facing that Craig calls for a D.I. (deliberate immobilization) shot. He rolls a snake eyes to hit getting both the hull hit and (after we figure it out) the exact number he needed to hit me. I roll a 10 for my crew immobilization task check – and the crew of fools abandon the much safer JgPz for the open ground and are then promptly KIA’d with a follow-up MG shot from the tank. Murphy’s law… I’ll take this M4 out the next turn with my Psk team, but the real damage is done. This is a serious problem for me as the PzJg and crew are 7 EVP of the 35 EVP I have in vehicles. I’ve only have 28 left now.

The rest of the scenario proceeds OK – I’ll lose a Pz IV to tank fire but exit a second one (that malf’d it’s MA) by turn 4 of 5. That tank gave me only 5 EVP because of the malf’d gun but the remaining Pz IV w/armor leader (8EVP) and the last PzJg (7EVP give me enough points to exit to win (I’ve got another 6 EVP of infantry that can literally advance off the board at my leisure) and two more turns of movement left. I’ve pretty much recovered from the initial loss of the PzJg although getting the last PzJg off will be tough because he’ll have to risk at least one if not 2 shots as he exits – the PzIV can exit easily. Craig slides his armor in behind a flanking hedge to interdict my armor. I’m not worried – his bounding fire or advancing fire shots are pretty low chances and the odds are in my favor as I can spend a defensive fire phase and prep fire phase to take them out and still exit. That is until Craig decides to take a low odds BFF shot on my Pz IV w/armor leader. Boom…I don’t recall if it was a critical hit or simply a ‘3’ that he needed – but he hits the Pz IV and burns it. Gone is 8 more points and that’s game as now I don’t have the points to exit. Bummer. Out in the first round. Regardless – Craig was an excellent opponent and I really enjoyed the game. This one looks tough for the Germans because it is easy for the US to swarm around to the rear and the German tanks are slow and very vulnerable from the sides. As an opponent – the best of times. Taking a first round lose – the worst of times. Murphy’s Law – the snake D.I. and crew bailing and the BFF shot. 0 - 1

Friday October 5 – Open Game

Well, the nice thing about losing in the first round is that you can now play who ever and what ever you want to – and with over 140 fellow ASL’s in attendance getting a game is never a problem. I hook up with Rich Domovic (Chicago, Ill). Rich and I played in St. Louis where he won and went on to place a couple places ahead of me in 9th and has been in town this past week playing in the Euro vs. US tourney. He is 9 – 4 so far and was the most valuable player for the US. However, I had a great time playing him and was excited to see he was out of his first round mini also. We pick another SP scenario called ‘The Zebra Mission’ (SP 147). We dice for sides and I get (again) the defending Germans.

Zebra mission looks cool – a medium small scenario with a bit of everything. A variety of 9 German squads assisted by a PzJgIII/IV and a FlaKPz IV/20 has to survive an onslaught of 9 heavy firepower but lower morale US squads, a M3(MMG) halftrack, 2 M4A3(75)w’s and a Pershing (M-26). Don’t get to see Pershing’s very often so this looks cool. I do OK in the first 3 of 6 turns. Playing cat & mouse I keep the US from pushing into the city too hard but on turn 3 everything collapses. Back-to-back box cars against a probing US squad malfunctions my only strong SW (a HMG) and a supporting LMG. With this suddenly appearing huge hole in my defense Rich floods across the street and pins my guys against a second row of buildings where they can’t rout from. A turn later about a 1/3 of my force is eliminated through breaking and/or melee. To make matters worse – my FlaKPz I moved over to protect their rear is taken out by the Pershing who splits a LOS diagonally across the board through two buildings I was sure blocked the LOS. A nice low roll To Hit and down goes the highest firepower producer I have. Then the PzJg runs out of HE after his first shot. He’ll be swarmed by infantry, immobilized, and then the crew will abandon only to be shot down. Turn 5 finds me with 3 good order MMC’s in a building – but they are encircled and surrounded by US squads and tanks. By the end of the turn they will all be broken/eliminated and that’s game. Enjoyed playing Rich again – and I’ll look for him anytime I have an open spot to play (the good times). The worst of time is I’m now 0-2. Murphy’s law – back to back malf’s on my HMG and LMG opening up my main defense, the ‘I’m sure it’s blocked’ LOS that wasn’t, and the PzJg running out of HE on his second shot. We do a late dinner together at Damon’s and then after socializing some I head upstairs to watch some baseball. 0 - 2

Saturday October 6 – Round One of the ‘Twilight of the Reich’ Mini

Saturday morning I’m up for the next mini. I’m paired with Eric Bongiavanni. One of the very cool things about ASLOk is that it draws a significant off-continent contingent. Guys fly in from England, Sweden, Belgium, France, Australia, and Japan to play. Eric is one of the guys that have come over from France. He is from Marseille (history there!) and speaks very good English – unlike my (as he puts it) “heavily accented” remedial French. Eric is 7-6 so far (having arrived the past weekend) and this looks to be a good game.

We pick another Schwerpunkt scenario “Twilight of the Reich”. This was on my ‘want to play but never have’ list. It’s gotten a lot of play at ASLOk since it was released and is fairly well balanced (a slight edge to the attacking Russians. A typical small tourney scenario, two standard boards (48 & 44) are modified by all the grain fields being treated as sand and two low sand dune overlays are placed on the board. This will make it all but impossible for the tanks to avoid taking at least a few bog checks in and adjacent to the sand hexes.

The Germans have to keep at least one mobile, good order, and functioning MA in a fairly small area by the end of 5 turns. The kicker is that two of the JgPz's have to enter from off board and almost have to risk at least two bog checks to get to the victory area. The Russians get two ISU-152’s and 4 T34/85’s along with 9 infantry squads to combat the three JgPz and 7 low end German squads.

We dice for sides – I get the defending Germans (hmmm…see a pattern here?). I set up and Eric enters the board. Turn one goes well – I take out a T-34 with a PF shot and then a bit later another T-34 with a Psk. Somewhere in there I think I get a 3rd T-34 (maybe my on-board JgPz) – but then things collapse. Three low odds hits with a T-34 and a 152 (needed a ‘3’ each time) flat out KIA 3 of my 7 squads. The PF hit on the first T-34 breaks a 4th squad and he’ll never come back around. My first JgPz will finally fall after malf’ing his MA on an intensive fire shot and being swarmed – but I expected that (the swarm that is – not the malfunction). The two game breakers however were one of my two JgPz reinforcements breaking his MA on his first shot and my last JgPz bogging by rolling a 12 in an adjacent hex to a sand hex. Eric – of course – had passed about a dozen bog checks without breaking a sweat. With the other two PzJg down Eric simply drove the last T-34 around to the JgPz flank and took him out. Ratz…Good time to play, bad time to lose.
Murphy’s Law strikes again. Two MA malfunctions and a game losing ‘12’ on a bog check. 0 -3 sigh…

Saturday October 6 – Open Gaming

On Friday I ran into David Goldman (Chicago, Ill) who does a great job as tourney director for the Chicago Open. We haven’t played before and mentioned that if we were both out in the first round on Saturday he'd be interested in playing me. Not only would I be interested – but I’d be honored! Well, as fate would have it we both lost our first rounds and got together after lunch to play. Looking for a medium sized scenario to finish the rest of Saturday off with we selected another new Schwerpunkt “Nova Buda Butte” (SP 152). Good size at 8 turns with a nice OoB of combined arms. I ask to play the attacking Russians (anything but the defending Germans again) and David is fine with that. He sets up and we start rolling.

I’ve got a mix of 7 T-34/M43’s and 2 T-43’s with 25 supporting squads attacking what will eventually become 17 SS squads, a Pak 40, SPW 251, StuGIIIG and two PzIV H’s defending a flat topped hill with buildings on it (the Butte). The Russians have to cross 4 very open ground hexes twice under the watchful covering fire of a German HMG and MMG. Well, the Russian just has to grin and bear it – there is no way to cross the first turn except in the open so you hope for little to no ROF from the two German MG’s.

Murphy’s Law – David gets something like 7 ROF or more from the HMG and MMG. At the end of turn one I’ve lost 4.5 squads outright KIA’d and there are a couple more squads broken. It was devastating. My T-34’s (who can’t unbutton to fire) need 2’s and 3’s to hit the MG nest in the stone building – and will never get a single hit the whole game. I also make a mistake on my left flank. Not thinking David will take the StuGIIIG off of the butte (who starts on board unlike the PzIV’s) I keep a T-43 in motion with a squad and leader riding moving around the flank. Actually – I think I just plain forgot about the StuG… David does move the StuG and catches my T-43 in motion. Three turns later – that StuG will account for 3 (or maybe 4?) dead T-34’s/T-43’s even though I do get the original T-43 out of harms way. I’ll never destroy the StuG as he ends up destroying his MA on an intensive fire shot and getting recalled. Regardless, between the StuG success (I’ll bounce 3 APCR hits and another 2 or 3 AP hits off of him for no effect) and the HMG (who will continue to have good success on turn 2) My forces are pretty shattered by turn three. At the beginning of turn three though I’ll manage to pin the HMG/MMG nest with some MG fire and – seeing I need to cover open ground take a risk and trigger a human wave attack after freezing some infantry with one of my T-34’s.

This is the highlight of my weekend. The human wave works to near perfection. I cross 4 open ground hexes and get into the buildings at the edge of the butte only losing 1 squad. David tells me it is the best executed human wave he has ever seen. Two turns later I’ve done some damage to him in melee – but a couple of flanking squads (after taking out his SPW) are pushed out of breaking the game open for me by a CH from one of his MkIV’s and all of his turn 4 reinforcements are in place. Counting squads on turn 6 of 8 turns, I realize I’m only up by one ½ squad and have only captured 3 of the required 10 stone buildings. There is no way I’ll capture 7 more buildings in two turns given the distance and the terrain so I resign as there is little play left in this scenario. Had a great time playing David and I hope I’ll get another opportunity in the future. Worst of time – I’m now 0 -4 and that is pretty much it for me this weekend. Murphy’s Law – David’s ROF from H*ll HMG/MMG and the StuG that wouldn’t die. Regardless, this one looks tough for the Russians. Later that evening I saw Bret Hildebrand setting this one up and playing the first couple turns as the Russians. I didn’t watch the whole game – but it didn’t look like his was going much better then mine was. 0 -4… : (

The Coda…

It really was the best of times and the worst of times mixed in with Murphy’s Law. While record wise this was the opposite of last year (4-1) I really enjoyed every game and each of my opponents. I got to play all new opponents (except for Rich) and there is just always something very cool about playing the Euro’s (thanks Eric). I also got to play a scenario I was hoping to play (Twilight) and an opponent I was hoping to play again (Thanks Rich). The games with Craig and David were great and many of my ASL friends did win mini’s (Ben Richardson, Jeff DeYoung, and Jim Taylor). This was Ben’s first time down and he won the ‘monster’ mini, Jeff won his first mini ever, and Jim continues to tear up his opponents and take home the wood. Well back to my two campaign games against Todd and Doug. Better luck next time I hope – that probably will be the Chicago Open next April.