July 30th Special Game Day in Irwindale

We had another outstanding turnout at Apex Fasteners in Irwindale for our Special 5th Saturday Game Day and WCM XX Planning meeting.

First, the Game Day:

We had a total of 12 members who came and played, plus cameo appearances from one of our founding members, Bryan Earll, and our Webmaster, Sean Geraghty, who stopped by with his wife Jean.

Eric Visnowski's Germans defeated Scott Thompson's Brit's in “Coriano”.

Jim Cotugno's Italians and Dan Plachta's Greeks fought to a draw in “Konitsa Crackdown.”

Fen Yan's Germans defeated Stance Nixon's Canadians in “Down on the Farm”.

Dave Lewis' Ecuadorians fell to Mike Soffa's Peruvians in “Guerra En La Selva”.

Dave Nicholas and Matt Cicero paired up for a playtest of a new Melee Pack scenario design “Out of Harm's Way”.

And Blair Bellamy and I squared off in the Rally Point scenario “Hetzer Hunters”, with me taking the defending Americans against Blair's Germans. The Germans have a 1st line company reinforced with some 5-4-8's and 3 Hetzers. They have to take a total of 6 of the 8 hill-hex buildings away from a couple of well-led elite American platoons supported by a Sherman. I have to say, Blair and I had an epic game that came down to the last dice roll. As it turned out, I did what I try never to do; I fucked up the end-game. Blair had 1.5 squads, a 7-0 and a Hetzer available to grab two final buildings for the win on his last movement phase. I had a 6-6-6 with a BAZ in one of the two buildings. He ESB'ed the Hetzer into the building with my squad and Baz. I shot the BAZ when it entered the building and burned it, but had to eat the backblast, and that broke my squad. That allowed Blair to move the German MMC's adjacent to the buildings and advance in for the win. What I *should* have done was ignore the Hetzer, and let the infantry advance in (CX for going up hill). In CC, the Hetzer in the hex would have allowed me to attack 1st at 1-1 with a -1 (for the German CX). Blair's attack back, with a 4-6-7 and 7-0, would have been 1-2 with a +1, meaning he'd need a 3 or less to kill me and control the building (assuming my previous attack failed.) He'd then have a 1-6 from his Hetzer. I only had to survive to win. I hate fucking up an end-game. Blair played a fine game and took a well-deserved win.

We both liked this scenario a lot would happily play it again as either side.

With the games cleared, we move onto Part II: The WCM XX planning meeting and as promised, pizza and beer.

The planning meeting lasted about 1.5 hours and went very smoothly. We got some great feedback and were really able to move the ball downfield in terms of what we're going to focus on and who will be performing various tasks. The plan is to have all of our swag pricing done by the Barbecue in order to get the members' feedback about which items we're going to go forward with.

All the members who came for the Game Day stayed for the meeting, and I want to thank them, and everyone else who took the time to send me input this past week.

It was a great day, with some very close games, good food, (we went to the usual Mexican place for lunch) and a very productive Club meeting. All and all, we really couldn't ask for more!