November 10th Game Day in Long Beach

As you may recall, The Guild House in Bellflower, our usual 2nd Saturday venue, was unable to host us this month. But Stance and Cheryl Nixon were kind enough to offer their home as an alternative. We had an excellent 10 member turnout at Chez Nixon:

Dan Plachta's Dutch defeated Dave Nicholas' Germans in “Schweiss Spart Blut” (which I understand means “Sweat Saves Blood”). They both thought this scenario was unwinnable for the Germans.

Fen Yan (AKA: Mr. Deluxe) and Ric Hammond paired up for “Charging Chaumont”. This was Ric's first foray into Deluxe ASL. His Germans defeated Fen's Americans.

John Lehman's Germans defeated Blair Bellamy's Russians in “Beware the Hare”.

Peter Strand's Americans defeated Dave Lewis' Germans in “To Have and to Hold”.

And Hank W. and I paired up for “Dream Team” from the newest ESG pack. The dice gave me the defending Russians against Hank's Germans. This scenario has a fairly powerful German infantry force, supported by an Elephant, a King Tiger, a PzIV H, a PSW-234 and a Gun-armed halftrack. They have 5.5 turns to clear a road of Good Order Russian infantry and tanks. The Russians start with a couple of platoons of infantry as an initial blocking force, supported by a 57LL AT Gun and an 85L ART. On turn 2 a second force of 4-4-7's and 6-2-8's arrives with a couple of SU-122's and a T34-85.

The Germans have a long way to go, so I think playing for time is the best way for the Russians to win. I planned to use my on-board force to delay the German attack long enough for my reinforcements to dig in along the rear board edge. I kept both Guns back to keep Hank guessing as much as possible. Hank brought his Germans in on turns 1 and 2, and pressed forward as quickly as the distance allowed. I held my concealment as much as possible; pretty much only dropping it for juicy -2 shots. On turn 2 I moved my reinforcements into position as planned. Since the SU-122's were no match for the German heavy tanks, I pushed one into the woods in a nice defilade position, and the other into a nearby building, where it promptly fell into the cellar. Oops, I haven't done that in a while… I held the T34 back to use as a flanking threat against the heavy tanks. Hank kept pushing forward, handling his troops with the skill and confidence of the seasoned veteran player that his is. On turn 3, he correctly recognized that he needed to overrun my entire forward position in order to have enough time to get to my board-edge force. He took some bold risks using bypass freeze and pushing his troops up into position for the kill. His gambit worked, and his attack rolled on into my second position. On the final German turn he was able to break the last of my defenders and claim victory. This was a close, exciting and hard-fought game. In retrospect, instead of hiding my tanks, I should have sent them on an end run to get into the German backfield. Hank would have had to chase them down with his very slow-moving heavy tanks, and those vehicles would not have been available to support his main attack.

We both liked this scenario a lot, and agreed we'd try it again as either side.

We traveled to a local strip mall where guys chose from The Habit, Jersey Mike's or a fish restaurant for lunch. The survivors adjourned to Hambone's for our traditional late dinner. In all, it was another great Game Day. Once again, I want to thank Stance and Cheryl for their generosity and hospitality.