August 26th Game Day at All Ways Gaming AAR

We had 8 members for the August edition of our ASL Game Day at All Ways Gaming in Chatsworth on Saturday.

Phil Seymour's Americans defeated Dave Nicholas' Germans in “T-Patchers”.

Blair Bellamy's Germans defeated Mike Soffa's French in “Ghostbusters”.

Dave Lewis' Germans fell to Dan Plachta's Americans in “10th Panzer Takes the High Ground”.

And Eric Visnowski took the Americans and Brits against my Germans in the Schwerepunkt scenario “On the Road to Hell”. Eric wanted to try this scenario for potential inclusion in an upcoming WCM mini, and it looked pretty cool. The Germans get a couple of platoons of good quality infantry and a JdPzV to defend a road from a couple of platoons of American para's supported by 3 Sherman III's. The Americans get get some help from additional platoon of 4-5-8 Brits with a 9-2 leader as reinforcements. The Germans get a couple extra squads and a Marder for reinforcements. I set up my on-board force next the road, with foxholes behind a wall for protection. Eric brought his attack in on the German right-center, through the orchard, and a flanking force further to the right. He moved the Sherman's up aggressively in support. On the bottom of turn one I moved the JdPz straight in front of the Shermans. I had little to fear from the Brit tanks except for D.I., and because the Shermans were in orchards, the odds of that were low. I was worried about being swarmed, and on turn 2 Eric smoked the Jdpz and got one of his Shermans in behind the Jad, but dangerously close to the board edge. On my turn 2 I brought my reinforcements in behind the flanking Sherman, but missed by AF PF shots. That forced me to give up one flank shot to a Sherman. Because of the smoke and orchards, it was a 5 to-hit. Eric rolled a 5, but then rolled a 9 on his to-kill for a possible shock, which the JdPz shrugged off.

By the following turn, the Jdpz had killed all three Shermans, but the para's had driven my infantry off the wall and away from the road. On turn five I pulled the JdPz within 3 hexes of the road, and slipped a 5-4-8 into the same hex to help hold off the American infantry. I put the Marder in back and to the right of the Jad to cover that flank, and I used a wounded Hero to block the one non-open ground next to the JdPz. Eric broke all my remaining infantry within 3 hexes of the road, and made a last-turn dash with his infantry to jump the Jdpz. His rush came up short, giving my Germans the hard-fought win. It was a fun and exciting game. We both felt at numerous times that we had the game in the bag, a feeling that would turned to despair a few DR's later. This is a challenging scenario with a lot of action in a small space. We had a great time with it.

Thankfully, the store had its air conditioning up and running, though we set up some fans anyway because it tends to get stuffy in there by the afternoon. We had our usual excellent lunch at San Carlo Deli, and everyone made the trip to The Habit for a nice dinner on the patio.