March 5th Game Day at Gameology AAR

Greetings ASL Fans;

We had just two members, myself and Scott Thompson, for the March edition of our SoCalASL Game Day at Gameology. But hey, two is an even number, and better than one…

Scott brought the new Bounding Fire module Poland in Flames, and of course we had to play something out of that. I love early war tank battles. We went with “Steel Garden”, with me taking the defending Poles against Scott's attacking Germans. Both sides get armor, and the match-up looked pretty interesting: I had a mix of FT's (37* and CMG varieties), the Germans get a bunch of Pz I's and II's, and one Pz III C. The Germans have to kill at least half the Polish tanks and capture 3 mulit-hex buildings.

I set up my 8 tanks behind a long wall, in pairs (one 37* with one CMG). Of course, my FT's have 5 MP, and the Panzers have 15, so it wasn't like my guys were going to be doing a lot of maneuvering. Scott came on strong, ganging up all his tanks on one side and concentrating on 4 of my vehicles. That's exactly the right way to win a tank battle. A woods line kept my other 4 tanks isolated and unable to support the remainder of my tank force, exactly the way to *lose* a tank battle. On top of that, all my shots missed or bounced, while the German tanks hit on their AF shots. By the end of turn one, 4 Polish tanks were dead with no German losses. By turn 3 the Germans were assaulting the village, and my DF shots were simply ineffective. It was just one of those scenarios where everything your opponent does works, and everything you do turns to shit. At that point, because it was still ea rly enough, I decided to throw in the towel in favor of a new plan. We decided to adjourn to Scott's house (which is on my way home), and set up a new game there, where we could eat and play as late was we wanted.

Which brought us to Scott's house in Riverside. While I set up the defending Germans in “Boiling Kettle of Fire and Blood”, Scott made dinner. We ate, and Scott brought on his attacking Poles. This scenario has a large Polish attack force with 11 tanks assaulting a village. Half way through the scenario, the Germans get a reinforcing company of infantry and 11 tanks to try to kick the Poles out. Scott once again attacked strong, and used bypass freeze to good effect; getting his infantry into the town without losses. But by the end of turn 2 it had cost him 6 tanks plus one more UK. All but one of his remaining tanks have CMG MA's. Because it was late, we tabled the game after turn 2, to resume at a later date. Stay tuned…