April 20th Game Day at Emerald Knights AAR

I’m pleased to announce that we drew a record 16 members to our April ASL Game Day at Emerald Knights on Saturday.

Eric Visnowski’s Russians fell to Phil Seymour’s Germans in “Rage Against the Machine”.

Dave Rosner’s Americans defeated John Lehman’s Germans in “Second Thoughts”.

Blair Bellamy’s Russians defeated Dave Nicholas’ Germans in “East Riders”. And because their game got over early, they set up “Arrivederci Nembo”. Dave got some revenge when his Canadians defeated Blair’s Italians.

In a ‘battle of the Daves’ Dave Reinking’s Brits fell to Dave Derizinski’s Germans in “No Mercy in Burcy”.

Larry Reinking paired up with Chip Wertenberger in “Panzers Forward”, with Chip’s Germans defeating Larry’s Russians.

Jim Cotugno’s Germans and Ed Esparza’s Brits fought to a draw in “Hill of Death”.

And because their games got over early enough, Ed and Chip paired up for “Commando Schenke”, but they eventually called it a draw due to time limitations.

One of the first games to start, and the last game to finish, was between Kevin Kiff and Mike Soffa in “Riding with the King.” After playing well past 10:00 PM, it finally came down to the last CC DR, when Kevin’s Russians squeezed out a victory over Mike’s Germans.

Because I had an itch to play some VotG, Dan Plachta and I set up the Journal scenario “Defending the Voentorg.” This is an interesting scenario with 3 parts. The Germans have to assault across 9th of January Square into the Voentorg. If the can capture one ground level location at the end of 3 turns, they win. If not, there’s a short interphase and the Germans get another 3 turn phase to try again. Only this time they need 2 ground level locations for the win. If not, they get a third shot, (following another interphase) but have to capture 3 ground level locations. I took the Germans and played for position for the first 3-turn phase, and got my assault troops up to the building. My troops went into the building in the second phase and captured the required two locations. They were then able to hold out in CC against Dan’s Russian counterattack for a German victory at the end of phase 2. Frankly, I diced the crap out of Dan in the first 3-turn phase, and though the dice evened out a bit for the 2nd phase, I had enough of an advantage to squeeze out a win. But I’ll take my wins against Dan any way I can get them. We had a fun game, as always. We both think this is a little pro-German, but it was an enjoyable scenario none the less.

We had our usual chili dog lunch at Larry’s, and the survivors made the traditional trek to Bob’s Big Boy #1 for a late dinner. It was another great day of ASL.