March 16th Game Day in Burbank AAR

We had 8 players, including new guy Ben Austin, for the March edition of our ASL Game Day at Emerald Knights:

Ben's Russians defeated Larry Reinking's Germans in “Show of Force”.

Mike Soffa's Germans defeated Dave Lewis' Russians in “Commando Shenke”.

Dave Kocot's Germans defeated Sal Pelaez' Russians in the RB scenario “To The Rescue”.

Dave Nicholas wanted to take another crack at the ESG scenario “Objective Uman”. He had previously played it twice, with Dan Plachta and Special K, and wanted to try out a revised Russian set-up. I agreed to take the attacking Germans. This is a big, complicated, early war scenario that's hard to get your head around the first time you play it. The Germans get a well-armed infantry company supported by a platoon each of Pz IIIG's and Pz 38t's. They also get 6 SPW 251-1's, two SPW 251-10's, four PSW 222's and six PSW 221's. The Germans have to clear and hold the board 43 walled compound, which is defended by a couple of platoons of Russians. The Russians also get a couple more platoons of conscript squads about 10 hexes back from the complex. They get four additional reinforcement groups (mostly various types of armor) that come on 1 per turn on turns 2-5. But, if the Germans can control the reinforcement group entry hex, that group can't come on. That makes for an interesting tactical dilemma: the Germans want to grab the complex, but if they can capture the reinforcement entry hexes, they significantly increase their odds of victory.

The Russian ATR's are deadly in a game where most of the armor is only 1. The German PzIII's may as well be Tigers in this scenario, but there are only 3 of them, and they're needed everywhere. This scenario is all about allocating resources, and the player who can do it better will win. The German has a lot of choices: Do a coup-de-main on the complex and hold on for the counter-attack? Ignore the complex and try to eliminate the four entry areas first? Or some combination. I chose a combination. I sent my 10 PSW's forward quickly to try to encircle the complex and keep the conscripts from reinforcing it, plus threaten the left side reinforcement areas. I sent 6 squads in halftracks down the right hand board edge to crush one of the entry areas, then fly a detachment to the rear to grab the second right hand entry area. The main attack of 6 squads, all the MG's and all 6 tanks would slog up the middle to assault the complex, later reinforced by the half-track flanking force. I love those early war, high-velocity attacks. The game quickly turned into a swirling shit storm, and I lost some of my over-extended PSW's to ATR fire, and should have lost more except Nick was rolling like shit. The high point of the day for me was when my single SPW 251-10 (37L Gun) pulled up 7 hexes away and challenged three Russian armor cars. All three missed their shots on the approach. In the following player turn my track went on a vicious rate tear that killed all three AC's one after another. It literally ran out of targets with ROF to spare! Eventually we ran out of time, and decided to call this a draw on turn 4. Overall it's an interesting scenario, but very complex and difficult to grock on the first playing. I'd like to say it was fun (all ASL is, especially with Nick) but the complexity of this scenario made it seem a little too much like work. I might try it again though, now that I know how it unfolds.

We had our usual chili dog lunch at Veronica's 'new look' Larry's Hot Dog's. (New indoor seating area, new tables.. not sure what's up with that.) The survivors adjourned for our traditional late dinner at Bob's Big Boy. It was a another great Saturday of ASL!