August 11th Game Day in Bellflower

We had another fine turn-out for the August edition of our ASL Game Day at The Guild House in Bellflower, with 12 members in attendance:

Jim Svette's Germans defeated Stance Nixon's Russians in “The Haunted Castle”

Ric Hammond's friend from work, Guy Jimenez, wanted to learn how to use vehicles, so they paired up for the all armor scenario “Clash at Borisovka” with Ric's Germans defeating Guy's Russians.

Dave Nicholas' Russians defeated Tracy Wood's Germans in “Silasian Interlude”.

Eric Visnowski's Chinese fell to Dan Plachta's Japanese in “What Doesn't Kill You”.

Fen Yan's Germans defeated J.J. Ma's Americans in “Yankee Pride”.

And Dave (DL) Lewis took the Russians against my attacking Germans in “Lenin's Sons”. I've played this several times and I have to say it has really become on of my favorite all infantry scenarios. It's razor close on the ROAR and fun for both sides. Dave had a good set-up and played well, but honestly his dice failed him badly for the first 3 turns, and that really put him in the hole. He fought on valiantly however, and eventually was able to make a close game of it. In the end however, he simply ran out of troops, and we called this one a German win with one turn to go. We both enjoyed the game a lot. It was a pleasure to get a game in with DL.

Because some of the games cleared early, Dan took the Brits against me and Stance as the Japanese in “Put That in Your Pipe”. This scenario has four trucks loaded with Japanese squads ambushed by a small number of Brits. The Japanese have to survive the initial ambush and fight their way off board. They need 10 EVP for the win. In our initial playing, the first two shots of the game (back to back: snakes and ace/duce) burned two trucks, leaving the Japanese with only 6 squads (of which they need to exit 5) and all of the Brit units still available to finish off the two remaining trucks. We quickly decided to throw this in a try a re-boot. The second playing went better for the Japanese, with two trucks destroyed (but with some survivors) and the remaining squads unloading. Stance and I each took a surviving platoon and headed to opposite ends of the board edge. The scenario turned into a pursuit for 3 turns. On the last movement phase, with 8 EVP already off, I moved my last full squad through some light jungle for the win. Dan had only one shot left, and rolled snakes; KIA'ing the squad and giving the Brits the win. This is a quick playing, challenging scenario. I'm not a fan of pursuit scenarios, but we had a good time, and given the result, I'd say it appears balanced.

Most of us traveled to the nearby pizza place for lunch. That turned out to be a good choice: a decent size, two topping Italian style pizza and soda for only $7. A couple of guys tried out Kronks, a nearby high-end hamburger joint. Though it was a little pricey ($15) they thought it was well worth it. The survivors retired to Hambone's, our favorite dinner option, for first-class barbecue. We were joined by Stance's wife Cheryl and their nephew. As always, everyone raved about their meal choices, and how affordable it was. It was a great way to wrap up a very fine day of ASL.