ASLOK 2008 AAR

AAR – ASLOk XXII – 2008

Back to the best of times….

Last year I had one of the most enjoyable times at ASLOk I’ve had – aside from going 0-4. This year I managed to get on the winning side also.

I drove over to ASLOk after teaching my last class at KVCC and found my roommate Ben Richardson. Ben’s one of the Grand Rapids guys and we have roomed together a couple of times for the Chicago Open. The hotel has changed this year – no longer in Middleburg Heights and the new hotel is much improved. We have the 6th floor all to ourselves with a private bar and small lounge equipped with a big screen TV. The hotel staff is great and the cleanliness and natural window lighting is a big plus. The name tags are the same style as the previous year – but features what I think is the Japanese 70mm infantry gun on it. The shirts are the ASL Japanese yellow color with a Japanese tank featured on the front. I use the evening mostly to get settled in, grab a drink and find Glen Housemen. I play-tested for him this past year and he has a couple of ESG Dezign Packs for me. I chat around a bit, look over the new place and then head to bed looking forward to the first mini in the morning.

Friday October 10 – Round One of the ‘Take No Prisoners’ Mini

As the name implies, this mini-tournament features battles where prisoners won’t be taken. This pretty much means Japanese for the most part. This should be intriguing because while I’ve played PTO at home quite a bit, I have never entered a mini that is set in the PTO. Should be interesting to see what happens.

My first round is against Scott Houseman. Glen’s brother and partner in the Detroit area Eastside Gamers crew, he’s already been up here a few days and is pretty tired. We choose a Schwerpunkt scenario “Nunshigum” and dice for sides. I’ll get the attacking Gurhka’s and Scott, the defending Japanese. Small scenario that swirls around a multi level hill in light jungle.

Unlike last year, this first round is all mine. I attack fairly aggressively, wanting to find his dummies and then focus the British firepower on the real units while preventing a small reinforcing group from getting on the victory hill – I need to clear the upper hill levels of all Japanese. I get lucky the first couple turns moving through (and discovering) the dummy stacks he has and then slide two British half-squads into a melee with two Japanese full squads. I’m hoping just to either pin them down or pick up one Japanese squad. The dice gods smile at me and I eliminate both Japanese squads for the loss of only one half squad. Big blow to the Japanese in this size of a scenario. I keep pushing the attack and clear the hill about a turn early. Seeing no possibility of a counter attack, Scott resigns. Only takes a couple hours to play and I’m on to the second round.

1 - 0

Friday October 10 – Round Two of “Take No Prisoners”

I report the win to Brett (the TD) and he tells me that this mini is only two rounds long (not the usual three) because some guys dropped out. Cool, better chance at a plaque. He points out the other first round game and I head over to let them know I’ll be playing the winner. They finish fairly soon also and I meet my next opponent, Jack Daniels from Virginia. Ex military and the winner of a mini the previous day. Looks to be a challenge. This second round won’t be easy.

We select the classic “Totsugeki!”. It’s been a round for a long time, has a great track record for being balanced, and features the Japanese attacking through Chinese troops to seize and destroy three Chinese guns. We’ve both played this once before so we dice for sides. I get the attacking Japanese and Jack will set up the defending Chinese. I attack primarily up the center and quite aggressively knowing that time is an issue in this scenario. I send a couple squads on the far right flank but they run into trouble when a nice defensive fire roll K/2’s one of the squads. Meanwhile, my single mortar gets set up, but can’t hit a thing. Regardless, a couple of Banzai’s and some encircling shots break through the strongpoints that Jack sets up and the rest of my forces flow around the defenders and into the gun area. I capture the first gun on turn two, the second on turn three, and the by the end of turn four have broken the crew on the last gun and can advance in on my next turn unopposed. Jack resigns on turn 4 of a 7 turn scenario. Good victory for me. Not only to I win the plaque for the mini (always a personal goal of mine) but the win is against another very solid player who had won a plaque the day before.

2 - 0

Friday October 10 – Open gaming

Since my second round ended fairly early I’ve got the rest of the afternoon and evening to pick up an open game. Phil Pomerantz (Pennsylvania) asks if I’m looking for a game so we hook up for my third scenario of the evening. Phil has been around the ASL circuit for quite a while and I see his postings quite often on the various internet forums. He’s also had success in the tournament level so I’m looking forward to playing someone of his experience. Looking for something new, we select Tanks But No Tanks from the latest Schwerpunkt scenario pack. Dicing for sides I get the defending Polish. Phil gets the attacking Russians and will have to kick me out of 3 of 4 buildings. It’s a classic fighting withdrawal into a last ‘Alamo’ position and I usually have pretty good success with these scenarios as the defender. Phil brings on the Russians somewhat cautiously and I get in a couple good shots and then pull back before his armor can surround me. I get a break when one of his tanks breaks the main gun and then the cmg. Another one will fail its mechanical reliability check and immobilize out of play. Regardless, he pushes me out of two of the buildings fairly easily (although I don’t even try to defend the farthest one out) and focuses on the large center building as the last of the three he needs. In the end, a concealed crew in the steeple wins it for me as what fire he can get on it fails to even cause a PTC and he concedes knowing he won’t be able to physically get to that crew and take the building. Actually, I still have several units in the building on the second to last turn and feel pretty secure the last couple of turns. Win my third game in a row.

3 - 0


Saturday October 11 – Round One of the “Best New Artist” mini

The Saturday mini I’m in features scenarios that are being released at ASLOk so no one outside of the design team has seen them. My first round opponent is Chas Argent (Maryland). Chas is a great player and part of the MMP crew that produces the ASL line. I’ve played Chas before and won by literally one MF when an infantry unit that he had to exit to win a scenario ended up one movement point short of exiting. Doesn’t get much closer then that.

We look over the scenario list and choose an ESG design called “Patton’s Pride”. I get the Italians and Chas is the attacking Americans. He needs to choose (in secret and before I set up) either to capture three buildings or capture two Italian artillery pieces. After he makes his choice, I set up the Italians. While there are several good places to set the Italian defense, it is in a very restricted area and there is not really any chance of falling back and rallying as the US enters from both the front and the rear of the Italian position. With the Italian’s low morale and the heavy firepower of the US, this doesn’t look to be pretty.

The scenario plays out pretty evenly throughout the game. I get enough firepower down to keep Chas from rushing in too quickly, but at the same time, he gradually wears down my Italians as the superior US firepower gradually cracks each of my defense points. Finally, it comes down to the movement phase of the last turn. Chas selected the Gun victory condition and he has already captured one of the guns. On the last turn he is adjacent to the last gun (which its cowardly crew fled from the previous turn). It comes down to a single recovery die roll. Chas makes the roll and captures the gun in the movement phase. Oh well, fun scenario and I enjoy playing Chas. My first lose – but I’ve already got my plaque for the weekend and it was a good playing.

3 - 1

Saturday October 11 – Open Gaming

Well, now I have the rest of the day open to play. I look around for someone else who lost their first round and would be interested in playing a single larger scenario for the rest of the day. I hook up with Ray Wolozyn (North Carolina) who is looking for the same thing. I’ve played Ray once before several years ago. He beat me in a scenario of Clear That Roadblock but I remember really enjoying the play. Ray was also the very first Grofaz winner of ASLOk. I’m really looking forward to playing him again.

We select Shattered Bone & Burning Flesh. One of those colorfully titled ESG scenarios that have just been released at ASLOk. We dice for sides, I get the Germans and Ray the defending Russians. I have to either exit 22 points off the far board edge or capture most of the buildings that the Russians are defending. To do this, I have an attacker’s dream order of battle. Two King Tigers, a flamethrowing halftrack, a Puma armored car and elite troops accompanied by three squads of assault engineers. Three heavy assault guns each with a smoke depletion of 10, and a couple of halftracks to zip around in. In front of me, some 1st line and elite Russian infantry, an AT gun, a heavy artillery piece, and a mean 82mm mortar. On turn two Ray will get two SU-85 TD’s and a SU-122 assault gun.

Just looking it over, I’m a bit suspicious. This looks easy for the German. I’ve got the dream attack force and there just doesn’t look to be enough Russians to hold them off.

Well we start it off. Regardless of whether there are enough Russians or not – it doesn’t matter. I completely dice Ray. Everything I try works. Doesn’t matter what it is – smoke dispensers, smoke grenades, low odds shots etc. Everything Ray tries the dice fail him. He doesn’t just fail morale checks, he box cars them. His .50 cal breaks, his MMG breaks. I send a light screening force off my right flank. Discover his two 6-2-8 squads concealed in the gulley and proceed to break them with low odds advancing fire. I swing everything else down the board side left flank and proceed to blow out every Russian unit in front of me. I run some German half squads to soak up fire from his front MMG nest. He misses his rolls and when I roll up my flame halftrack adjacent to them…I proceed to roll a 3 and we just pick the pieces up off of the board. I slide one of my halftracks up to take advantage of the hole. Oops, I find out I pulled adjacent to the AT gun. Looks like I’ll lose the HT. But wait, not in this game. He hits the ‘track, but then duds the To Kill DR. And on that roll, with almost all his infantry taken out of play and me having lost no units at all he resigns on the first part of turn two even before his armor enters. He really has nothing left to stop my infantry from taking every building by turn three or four. Both my King Tigers are in perfect position to take out his reinforcing armor and I have a strong infantry screen in front of them to prevent any Russian flanking attacks by the armor that gets on board. Doesn’t get any prettier for me – but it’s too bad the dice played such an unbalanced variable in the game. I pick up my fourth win – but it certainly didn’t turn out to be the game that Ray and I were looking for. This one looks heavily in favor of the Germans. I’m not even sure what the Russians can do to hold of the German force.

4 -1

The Coda…

I end ASLOk 2008 with a 4 – 1 record and take home a mini tourney plaque. All of my opponents were great players and a real joy to game against. The hotel is much improved over the past few years and, like always, I game away with a few more insights into the game. After I got home, Todd Wiley came over on Monday and we pulled out Shattered Bone & Burning Flesh. I want to try it as the Russians and see if it really is as unbalanced as it seems to be. We got through the first two turns with my Russians doing much better then Rays did. ‘Course, Todd wasn’t rolling the dice like I was so maybe this will be a more typical playing. Still, it looks tough on the Russians. We’ll see what happens.

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

Chicago Open 2007 AAR

AAR – Chicago Open – 2007

Ben Richardson, Mark DeVries and I drove over to Chicago to participate in the Chicago Open. The Open is run by tournament director David Goldman and this will be the second time I’ve made it over there. Mark talked me into going last year for the first time and I really enjoyed it. It is a much difference atmosphere then ASLOK because the format is much stricter instead of the open gaming that ASLOK is based on. There are time limits for each round and a specific set of scenarios that has to be selected from for each round. After each round everyone is re-seeded according to the results and then the next round begins. For the first round, seeding is done based on past tourney results and then the #1 plays #2, #3 plays #4 and so on. After the first round – everyone is re-seeded according to the results, and the new #1 plays the new #2 and so on. Everyone gets 10 points for a win, plus an additional point(s) for each opponent that a person you defeated has beaten. This way you might have several players whose records are 3 wins and 2 losses – but they will have different scores depending on how the successful the players they defeated are. As the weekend progress – your score may increase if your defeated opponents continue to win against others.

Friday April 13 – Round One & Two

After we check in I check the seeding for the first round. Last year I was seeded 64th out of 66 – I hadn’t been to Chicago before so I had no prior record. All the new players are seeded at the bottom. I ended up finishing 37th out of 66 with a 3-4 record. This year I’m seeded 44th out of 56 based on last year’s results.

My first round is against Corey Edwards from Wisconsin. We pick Orczy Square from the Schwerepunkt series. I’m the defending Russians trying to hold off his attacking Hungarians. Corey’s Hungarians need to clear three of five buildings of Good Order Russian MMC by the game end. I set up my defense to prevent him from coming down the center of the square where he has access to all five buildings. I also forget about the set-up restrictions and set-up my one AT gun illegally – so it never gets used in the scenario. Corey does a wide flanking end run which worries me because it catches me by surprise – and turns out to be a very effective attack. Fortunately I can recover and manage to prevent him from taking enough buildings. He takes two buildings fairly easily, but when my reinforcing T-34’s come in, they quickly take out several Zrinyi II’s (Hungarian Assault Guns) and prevent him from crossing the road into two of the other buildings. I win by holding him off in the center building. My win for me and fortunately Corey will go on to pick up several more wins on his own, adding points to my score, and getting him a final result of 19th with a 4-3 record. Fun game and Corey handles the loss well so it’s a good start for me. After the first round I’m 1 – 0 but forgot to check my seeding. I’m guessing I’m probably in the upper 20’s – maybe 28th or so.

Round two is against Todd Jones from Iowa. Like Corey, Todd is another very personable opponent and we have a great game. We pick Borodino Train Station from Journal 7. I play tested this for MMP but that was several years ago. I’ve won it as the Russians – but it has tended to favor the Germans over time. We dice for sides and I get the Russians and Todd gets the defending Germans. My first two turns go great. I make it across the road and take the Train Station losing only one ½ squad. However, Todd does a great defense and manages to escape the building with all of his troops (albeit broken), but more importantly, manages to get a blocking forces across the street which prevents me from putting on the coup-de-grace on the broken units. I overlook an opportunity to street fight his open top AC with an assault engineer squad and that will come back to haunt me. Meanwhile, Todd plays a great defense game assisted by two leader creations in CC (meaning I also lost those CC’s), a hero creations, and a string of a ½ dozen snake-eyes at key times. In the end I can’t punch the hole in his defense and achieve the second requirement of crossing the far road with 3 squads. Great game by Todd and a well earned win on his part. Todd goes on to earn a 4-3 record and place 18th, one place above Corey. I’m now 1-1 and end round two seeded at 22nd.

Saturday April 14 – Round Three, Four, and Five

Saturday morning finds me matched up against Bernie Howell from Texas. We pick Hamburg On The Lovat; a Dispatches from the Bunker scenario. Using the modified boards created by Jeff DeYoung (great job on those Jeff!). Dice give me the Germans defending against the attacking Russians. He gets a T-34/76 early model and a nasty flamethrowing OT-34. It’s an early 1942 scenario so no panzerfaust for me but I do get two fanatic tank hunting ½ squads that can start HIP. The first three turns Bernie crushes me. Methodically using the FT tank and very sound tactics, he blows through my first line of defense and almost cuts me off from getting by troops into the victory building; almost but not quite. By the end of turn 3 I’m thinking I can’t win this as the FT tank is devastating me and he’s lost almost no squads. But then starting on turn four things turn around for me. His T-34 immobilizes in an out of the way position due to a mech reliability failure taking him out of the attack. Then he gets ansy with the FT tank and tries to outflank me to get to the back of the building; right past one of my HIP tank hunting ½ squads I put there just in case he tried something like that. I miss the ATMM roll and he is moving, but the -1 for street fighting saves the day as my DR of 3 leaves a wrecked FT tank in the road. The biggest thorn in my side has just been pulled out. I luckily manage to get several units into the building. He finds out a turn too late that I have a fortified location in the only stairwell leading to the upper floors (he had rubbled the other one at pre-game set up) and by turn 5 realizes that he can’t possibly get to my upper floor units to take the building. I win by doing what I do best – not throwing in the towel early, and playing a strong fighting withdrawal. I finish round three 2-1 and, with 23 points find myself seeded 9th because Bernie had an earlier win and Corey ends up winning his next two games after losing to me. Bernie will go on to a 3-2 record with a 26th place finish.

SPLAT – this is the sound of me hitting the wall at this point. Strong opponents, fatigue, poor decisions, and dice that turn south on me help me slide downhill from this point on.

Round four is against Doug Bennett from Illinois. Doug wants to choose A104 “In Front Of The Storm”. Lots of people warn against it saying it’s too heavily balanced in favor of the Germans (the French have to cross a very exposed bridge so after some hesitation on my part, we agree that Doug will play the French and be given the French balance; exchanging a French 8-1 leader for a 9-2 leader. My hesitation is that I think that is a pretty extreme balance, but I weight the fact that he has to cross two hexes of open bridge terrain to win – no small feat in itself. Most of the game goes well for me and my game plan. Not great die rolls – but enough to do what I want to do. A mechanical reliability failure immobilizes 1 of his 3 AFV’s. Another one I Immobilize in CC. The third one has to now roll a task check every time he moves as he is radio-less. I slow him up the first few turns and withdraw my best troops across the bridge to the far side. A fortunate HOB roll gains me a hero – which I immediately pull back to the other side of the bridge. I leave a small blocking force of 4 squads and an ATR to delay him as long as possible. I know they are simply sacrificial lambs as they won’t be able to retreat across the bridge once they break – but with their 8 morale they should be able to hold him off.

Now I hit the wall….

He manages to get MC’s on everyone of my blocking force’s units. They all manage to fail their MC’s. In one turn my whole delaying force is gone. Should not have happened with 8 morale troops – but it does. I’m really not too worried though – I’m in great position with the hero & my own 9-2 leader with a 548 squad and MMG sitting behind a roadblock at the end of the bridge and that means he has to cross 3 open ground hexes with a minimum of a -4 DRM (-2 leader, -1 hero, -1 open ground). It could be as bad as -5 adding in the -1 for bridge and -1 for non-assault movement. He has only two turns left. I even ask him how in the world he thinks he can do this. I’m sure I’ve got this won.

Me and my big mouth….

First thing he does is take about 3-4 little 2 & 4FP +2 shots from various units across the canal. Nothing really happens so I’m thinking this is good because those units aren’t moving. Next he manages to roll his TC for the last tank – no problem, my AT gun has the first hex on to the bridge bore sited and LOS to the whole bridge. The tank rolls up and parks adjacent to the roadblock. My AT gun takes 1 shot – bounces the round, 2nd shot on ROF, bounces the shot, 3rd shot intensive firing; rolls a 12 and is eliminated.. He bounding first fires his CMG. He’s looking at 2fp +2 for roadblock. Rolling low he gets is PTC. No big deal – I think. Well, that is until I fail the ptc with my 9-2 and then my squad. Ratz – now I can’t lay a fire lane and I just lost the -2 modifier. Still, I’ve got the hero’s -1 and the bridge and open ground -1’s. Now he CX’s a French green squad down the road. OK, I take my shots as I get to lay residual. 1st hex my covering squad fires and lays 1 residual. I roll a 9 for NE. Now he goes to the first bridge hex – I fire my hero, pinned squad and mmg. 6pts with a -3 DRM Now he gets his 9-2 leader (the one he got from me courtesy of the balance) and two French squads – and arms them with Kevlar armor. Move out “Vite, vite!” shouts the French demi-god. These three units now proceed to waltz through three residuals. All at -2 or more. I manage to roll a 9, 10, 11. He passes any MC’s easily with his 9-2 leader and is now sitting under the tank adjacent to me. Hey, these guys should be dead – especially after the 2fp -3 shot in the second hex; the one I rolled a 10 on for NE. Anyway – it doesn’t get any better. He survive my final fire easily (I roll an 11), advanced into my hex and then proceeds to eliminate all my units with a “3” DR. I totally miss mine – rolling another 10 (I think). So there – he strolls through 3 negative residual shots and a final fire shot and then takes my guys out in CC. All against what should have been untouchable – a 9-2 ldr, hero, and 548 squad manning a MMG.

Unbelievable….

The game finishes only about 15 minutes from the start of the 5th round and I’m exhausted and still in shock. I’m now 2-2 and drop down to 20th place. Doug continues with his unbelievable fortune doing the same thing to my friend Ben and ends up 5-2 taking 6th place overall.

It doesn’t get any better

Round 5 matches me up with Tom Mueller from Wisconsin. We pick Lacking Coordination from Schwerepunkt. I’m the attacking Germans and Bob is defending buildings with Brits. I never seem to play these attacking scenarios well – and this one is no exception. Bob plays a great defense assisted by a razor thin Los check that reveals one of my 3 Tigers 19 hexes away and out of his covered arc through 2 orchard hindrances and a gap in two wood hexes. Spins, shoot APCR, rolls a 3 and hits. Scratch one Tiger. Later I slide a Tiger through a 1 hex wide gap and he nails that one on 1 MP in his LOS. Scratch Tiger 2. I’ve still got a plan. My 3rd Tiger is in position to take out enough CVP to win me the game (instead of taking buildings) – until he slides his spotting round over and directly converts to FFE: 1. First round critical hits the last Tiger. Well, after the last scenario I’m pretty numb to this. Earlier I gained a hero only to have him and another 548 squad get adjacent to a first fired 237 half squad who final fires with a 4 flat shot, rolls a 6 for a MC. My hero fails it and wounds – and then dies on the severity check of a 6. The squad of course rolls a 12 and ELR’s/Breaks/and reduces. They were supposed to take that building easily. This was pretty much how the whole scenario went. Game over. I’m 2-3 and drop a few more spots. Up to my room to catch some sleep. Tom will go 3-3 and end up in 25th place.

Sunday April 15 – Buddy Matches

Since round 7 goes pretty late and many of us travel quite a ways to get here – David Goldman uses buddy matches on Sunday. If you can’t stay all 7 rounds – two pairs of players partner up into two teams. One team plays the other and one person from each side plays the attacker and the other the defender using the same scenario. Your result counts for your buddy. So, if you win and your buddy wins – you get the points for both wins effectively giving you 7 rounds of playing – but the 7th round is your buddy. Ben and I are supposed to buddy up and play Mark DeVries and Gary Trezza – but because of the seeding, Mark and Gary can’t buddy up. So, Ben and Gary buddy up and Mark and I buddy up. Ben crushes Mark in less then an hour. Gary succeeds in every single attempt at everything – including 3 successful moving sD6 rolls in a row (rolled three 3’s in a row). I fail every single attempt at anything – MC, PTC, To Hit, Rally, anything under the sun that I need to roll for. I don’t even notice it – Gary notices it and, apologizing, points out that he’s never played a game like this before. He exits or kills enough VP in his first 3 player turns that he wins before my turn 3. I don’t even get my reinforcing T-34’s on the board – the game ends before then. Par for the course. I pick up two losses (mine and Mark’s) and then pack up for the drive home. Gary ends up 5-2 and in 8th place.

Last Thoughts

Well, clearly the competitive part was a disappointment. I ended up placing 37th – same as last year but with 1 less win. I was really hoping to at least get the 3 wins of last year and move up into the 20’s – but that didn’t happen. Regardless – I did have a great time getting to see a lot of ASL friends I only see at tourneys like this and got to play 6 other people I’ve never played before. It was a great time regardless of the results and I’m sure I’ll be back next year to avenge this year. I can also take some consolation that my two winds were against players who finished 26th and 19th and my losses were against players who finished 6th, 19th, and 25th. So all the games were at played in the upper ½ of the standings. The previous year I had a lot of games played at with the lower ½ of the standings – that’s why I could place higher this year even though I had one less win. The two games I won were worth more points in the end.

How much does chance affect the game? Well, in the alternate world – when Doug ran the bridge, even average dice rolls (7 or less) would have broken him if not even outright KIA’ing the French supermen. I win the scenario easily and pick up 14 pts for Doug. Ben and I do pair up and I pick up 13 points for Ben’s win over Mark (even if I still lost to Gary). Those 27 points are added to my now 4-3 record and 27 points from my other 2 wins (for a total of 54pts) and instead of placing 37th, I now place a very respectable 12th. So close – and much for fate.

Well there you have it. I’m planning on heading off to PJ Norton’s Officefest May 18 & 19 – so expect another blog around that time. Thanks to Mark DeVries and Ben Richardson – two great players and my roommates for the weekend. Mark ended up 3-4 and in 27th while Ben did the strongest of the West Michigan crew going 5-2 and placing 9th.