September 17th Game Day at Emerald Knights AAR

We had a excellent showing of 10 members for the September edition of our ASL Game Day at Emerald Knights:

Dave Dennis' Germans defeated Dave Lewis' Brits in “Monty's Gamble”.

Dan Plachta's Japanese defeated Sal Palaez' Brits in “Maximum Aggression”. Blair Bellamy showed up late in the day, and Dan took him on as the Japanese in the same scenario, with Dan's Japanese coming out on top again.

Larry Reinking's Germans defeated Jimmy Hansen's Russians in the Dispatches scenario “The Forest North of Karachev”.

And Dave Rosner took the Germans against me and Eric Visnowski as the attacking Russians in the Rally Point scenario “Fiery Finale”. Eric had selected this for a WCM mini, and it is our practice to play all the mini-tournament scenarios prior to including them to make sure they can be completed within the prescribed time period. The bad news is this scenario, which shows a perfect balance on ROAR, is too big and complicated for a mini. The good news is that its an awesome scenario: fun, exciting and very balanced.

Its the last day of the war, and the Russians (who set up first) have to take a town defended by a mixed bag of 5-4-8 SS and 4-6-7 troops, supported by 4 King Tigers and a FT-halftrack. The Russians get a well led Guards company and support from three IS-2's on the far side of the River (which they can't cross). On turn 3 the Russians get another infantry platoon and 4 more tanks that enter at the opposite end of the village.

This scenario is hard for both sides to set up and continued to be a challenge for both sides throughout the game. Dave had a great set-up, backed up from decent luck. But we had a little luck of our own. After his Tiger dispatched a squad in CC, in frustration I had a 6-2-8 throw a Demo on it in the following DF… and rolled snakes for the kill. Dave has a rep for being deadly in CC, and he continued that streak throughout our game, earning from Eric the sobriquet “The Butcher of Burbank”. The game was a slug-fest that went on all afternoon, with both sides loosing tanks and men at an alarming rate. On the last turn, with only five unbroken squads and two tanks, the Russians scurried into the 4 VC buildings for the win. The Germans were down to 1 tank and one unbroken squad. It was an epic battle that left us all exhausted. Dave played an awesome game, and Eric and I felt very fortunate to come away with a win. It could easily have gone the other way. We all agreed we'd happily play this scenario again as either side.

We made our usual trip to Veronica's for chili dogs, and the survivors retired to Bob's Big Boy for our traditional late dinner. It was an awesome turnout and an awesome day!