December 16th Game Day at Emerald Knights AAR

We had five members for the December edition of our SoCalASL Game Day at Emerald Knights in Burbank.

Dan Plachta and Nadir Elfarra paired up for “Resignation Supermen” with Dan's Germans defeating Nadir's Americans.

Dave Nicholas brought four Battle of the Bulge scenarios dated for December 16th, 1944, one of which was “Weissenhof Crossroads”. I believe this scenario goes back to G.I. Days, but I had never played it. So Eric Visnowski and I took the attacking Germans against Nick's Americans. This scenario has a reinforced American company defending a frigid stream against two companys of mixed quality Germans backed by a couple of 150mm Crickets. Both sides are well armed and well led. Because ROAR shows this 8/12 pro American, we gave the Germans the balance; upgrading an 8-0 to 8-1.

Eric took the right-hand force and I attacked on the left with the group that includes the assault engineers and Crickets. The Germans have to cross a lot of open ground, then cross the stream, then fight through the woods of board 5, and exit 25 CVP. Did I mentioned there's ground snow? It looked like a tough job. Luckily they have 9 turns to get it done, mist is in effect, and there is a mild breeze at start. I think the Americans have to make a lot of tough choices at start, but Nick had a really good up front set-up covering the stream crossings and the open ground in front. Eric and I pushed our troops forward as carefully as we could to keep casualties down. I pushed the Crickets up to level four to get some Smoke down on turn 2. Unfortunately, with a circled B10, the Crickets have to really pick their shots. But on turn 2 I got Smoke down and we went forward, with the drift helping a great deal. The American .50 Cal did good work and both of us got our troops caught in crossfires from multiple American .30 Cal's. The American 60mm Mtr hammered one of the Crickets but couldn't roll quite low enough to kill it. Then on turn 4, with the Smoke now gone, I got a lucky hit on the .50 Cal, breaking the squad. Another prep fire shot took out the squad covering the .50 Cal's position, and I bum rushed everyone forward. Nick still had DFF shots from other positions, but kept rolling high, and worse, cowering. I was able to cross the stream in strength with virtually no casualties. In the rout phase, with Germans adjacent to his position, Nick was forced to abandon both the .50Cal and the 60mm Mtr. In the meantime, Eric's troops made good progress on his flank as well, despite some lousy prep shots. It was obvious at that point that the Americans really couldn't stop a German left flank sweep. We decided to call it a German victory and make it an early night.

Because we were free fairly early, we decided to adjourn to Sizzler's instead of Bob's. We hung around there until closing, and called it a good day.