August 16th Game Day at Emerald Knights AAR

We had 8 members in attendance for the August edition of our SoCalASL Game Day at Emerald Knights.

Vegas Visnowski’s Americans defeated Dan Plachta’s Germans in “Burnt, Blue and Grey”. And because they still had a little time left in the day, took a rematch with the very short scenario “Bridge #10”, with Vegas’ Americans defeating Dan’s Germans.

Dave Rosner’s American’s held out against Mike Soffa’s Germans in “Hardly Fair”.

Blair Bellamy and Sal Palaez paired up for the Decision at Elst scenario “Knaust’s Fausts”. Because I was the odd man out, Sal and Blair offered me a piece of the action, and I joined Sal as the Brits against Blair’s Germans. I can’t say I was much help to Sal. Nick Nicholas arrived late in the afternoon and I split off from this game to pair up with Nick. Sal’s Brit’s eventually fell to Blair’s Germans later that evening.

And Nick and I paired up for a George Kelln scenario “Baker’s Dozen”. It’s an interesting situation, which Nick summed up well: neither side has enough to accomplish their objective. Nick took the attacking Russians: nine 6-2-8 and 5-2-7 squads with no support weapons and four T34M43’s against my 13 2-3-7 SS half squads with 3 LMG’s and 9 PF’s (and optional PF usage in effect.) Mud was also in effect.

I recombined 6 half squads during the initial rally phase to give me three 4-4-7’s with LMG’s. In hindsight, I think the 6 HS’s would have been more effective. It turned out to be a battle of inches, with my SS HS’s taking a lot of 2-2 and 2 flat shots, mostly pinning the on-coming Russians, and missing a lot of PF shots. To make it even more interesting, both of us were rolling like crap… most of the time, with an occasional 3 or 2 keeping it interesting. In the end, Nick ran out of troops first, and we called it a German win. I’d play this one again, but the very brittle nature of both forces due to low squad counts, combined with Mud, makes this one almost annoying to play. Nick was less impressed with the scenario than I was.

We had our usual chili dog lunch at Larry’s, served by the ever-lovely Veronica. The survivors retired to Bob’s Big Boy for our usual late dinner. This one featured a lot of milkshakes. All in all, another great day of ASL!

Next month Emerald Knights will be hosting another Magic tournament on our usual date. But fear not, Matt Cicero has agreed to once again open Apex Fasteners for our use.