February 4th Game Day at Gameology AAR

We had another great turn-out for our first Game Day in February, with 8 members in attendance and a cameo by Bruce Kirkaldy:

David 'Special K' Kocot's Marines fell to Scott Thompson's Japanese in “First Matantku”.

Dave Nicholas' Germans defeated Dan Plachta's Americans in “Old Friends”. This scenario has been played 4 times in the previous 3 Game Days. The consensus is that this is the German's scenario to lose. But still fun, and winnable by the Americans.

Dave 'DL' Lewis took on Eric Visnowski for the first time in the old HOB scenario “Send in the San Rabbits”, with EV's Germans defeating DL's Russians.

And Jim Svette and I paired up for the VotG scenario “Drama, the Park and Deadly Things.” I had previously played this scenario but didn't remember much about it other than I really liked it. This time around the dice gave Jim the defending Russians against my attacking Germans. The playing area is very compact, and the Russians get some interesting force choices. The Germans get a pretty solid force of four 5-4-8's, a couple of platoons of 4-6-7's, good leadership and excellent MG support (4 LMG's, MMG and HMG) plus they're supported by two StuG's, a halftrack and a PSW 222. But the Russians have very good ground to defend, and Germans have no time on the clock to spare.

The Germans can choose to go right, along the southern board edge through the park, or left, leapfrogging through a bunch of gutted stone buildings. I set up 2 stacks, each with two 5-4-8 manning LMG's and a 2-4-7 half squad, one led by the 9-2 and another by an 8-1. I built a kill stack of two 4-6-7's with the MMG/HMG led by the other 8-1, and the remaining 4-6-7's led by the 7-0. With the kill stack on over-watch, I sent the 5-4-8 stacks left to bludgeon their way through the stone buildings (a mission they're perfect for) and sent the 4-6-7's to screen the center and right. I kept the StuG's in position to lay Smoke as needed.

My infantry hammered their way through Jim's defense, and managed to pull off a last CC victory. Jim is a great player and put up a hell of a fight. This game could have easily gone the other way, but for a few dice rolls on the last turn. We both had great fun and really enjoyed our game. We both agreed we'd play this one again as either side. The ROAR shows this dead even, and I would agree. Its well worth the effort.

We made our usual trek to The Hat for lunch, and because all the games cleared pretty early, we went to Jersey Mike's for dinner. It was a great time for everyone.