October 13th Game Day in Bellflower AAR

We had 7 members for the October edition of our ASL Game Day at the Guild House in Bellflower:

Hank W.'s Russians defeated Dan Plachta's Germans in “Beyond the Slaughterhouse”.

Dave Nicholas' Russians defeated Dave Lewis and Ric Hammond's Germans in “Skill in Khilki”.

And Robert Hammond and I set up a prearranged playing of “Engineering Defeat” from Bounding Fire's Poland in Flames module. This is a delaying action scenario. A mixed quality company of Poles have to delay a powerful, two company force of Germans long enough to be rescued by some late-arriving Polish assault engineers and hold two of four victory buildings at game end. The terrain in this is pretty restrictive, and Robert took full advantage of it with a well thought out defensive set-up. I brought in my Germans and moved quickly up the middle to engage. I sent a couple of MMG's to the German left to set up on the level one hill and try to keep the Poles out of the 1st level locations. The first three turns went well for me, and I was able to make progress, but at a cost. Robert fought tenaciously for the center buildings that I needed to launch my final attack into the victory buildings. Just as the Poles were crumbling the reinforcements arrived and pushed into the victory buildings on turn 4. During our struggle for one of the victory buildings, a Polish flamethrower got a KIA on a German HS and started a flame. On Polish turn 6, just as I was poised to launch my last turn attack into the 3rd and final building, that flame went up to Blaze, shutting down one entire approach into the building. Robert was able to stuff enough bodies into the other two approach hexes to prevent me from entering and getting upstairs, and giving his Poles the last turn win. What a game! I was a real pleasure to get a game in with Robert after so many years. We both had great fun with this excellent and exciting scenario. It's definitely a gem!

We had our now-usual lunch at 600 Degrees pizza next door. The survivors introduced Robert and Hank to the delights of Hambone's Barbecue for our traditional late dinner. It was a great way to wrap up an awesome day!