October 25th Game Day at JJ's Game Lounge AAR

After we tied our attendance record at E.K. last week, I was completely surprised when we blew away our attendance record at JJ’s on Saturday. We had 14 members, plus a cameo from Bill Yuen, for our October Game Day at JJ’s Game Lounge in Chatsworth.

Phil Seymour and Eric Visnowski paired up for another try at “To Have and to Hold” from LFT’s Deluxe pack. Last week, Phil won handily as the Russians over Nadir, but both thought it was a dice-fest in Phil’s favor. My opinion is this scenario is pro-Russian, and Phil wanted to try it as the Germans to confirm that evaluation. EV took the Russians and Phil won handily as the Germans, though both again thought it was a dice-fest in Phil’s favor. So we can conclude any one of several facts: 1) Phil’s dice have been super-hot for the last two weeks or 2) Phil is a military genius and we should just avoid playing him or 3) This scenario is a dog and unwinnable by either side, or 4) Nadir and EV need to buy new dice.

Because they finished fairly early, EV and Phil set up “Playing Uno” from the LFT pack. Unfortunately, fatigue (or temporary senility?) had set in, and they kind of forgot to play the rules for dense jungle and totally screwed up the playing, even though they had fun. That happens a lot (see below.) They decided to call it a draw.

Sal Palaez and Blair Bellamy paired up once again and continued their march through the Paratrooper series of scenarios. This week it was “Lost Opportunities”, with Blair’s Germans defeating Sal’s Americans. They then set up the Starter Kit scenario “Ripples on the Pond”, with Blair’s Americans defeating Sal’s Germans.

Dave Nicholas’ Poles fell to Kyle Li’s Germans in the early war scenario “Bloody Harvest”.

Dave Rosner’s Americans defeated Fen Yan’s Germans in “Behind in the Count”.

Dan Plachta and Dave Kocot paired up for the High Ground scenario “ Prerun’s Thunder”, with Dan’s Russians defeating Dave’s mixed Axis force.

I had a batch of scenarios from Schwerepunkt and Friendly Fire, and “Shanghai Scuffle” caught my eye. Shanghai, 1937, elite Japanese v. elite Chinese, with both sides supported by early war armor. The cool part is it uses part of the VotG historical map to represent the Shanghai waterfront. I love scenarios that re-purpose HASL maps. We had two playings of this scenario, played side-by side. In one, Mike Soffa took the Japanese against my Chinese. In the other, Ed Esparza took the Chinese against John Lehman’s Japanese. As always happens in Japanese v. Chinese scenarios, it was a bloodbath, with both sides rapidly running out of infantry and tanks. In my game, Mike had a lot of trouble with his NOBA, and the fight came down to the final CC phase. We had a blast and thought the scenario was quite fun. In John and Ed’s game, the NOBA came too close to the VC area, preventing John from capturing the final dock, and giving Ed’s Chinese the win. John liked the scenario but Ed decided he’s not much for Chinese v. Japanese scenarios. The funny part was afterward Mike discovered that we were playing on part of the board that wasn’t in play. That would have changed the game significantly, but you know, it didn’t take away from the fun (see above.) Now we’ll definitely have to try this one again.

We had our usual excellent lunch at San Carlo Italian Deli. All the games cleared by about 8:00 PM, allowing us plenty of time for a leisurely dinner over at The Habit. What an outstanding day of ASL!