August 3rd Game Day at Gameology AAR

We had an outstanding turn-out of 12 players for the August edition of our ASL Game Day in Upland:

Eric Visnowski's Germans defeated Fen Yan's Americans in the Deluxe scenario “Purple Heart Hill”.

Dan Platcha's Germans defeated John Lehman's Americans in “Road Kill”.

Robert Hammond's Chinese defeated Mike Meeks' Russians in a playtest of one of Robert's scenarios “Welcome to Shangri-la”.

We had a new player, Vince Romao, who paired up with Dave Nicholas for an instructional playing of “Clearing Colleville”. After a couple of turns they turned it around for a second playing, where Vince won his first game playing the Germans against Nick's Americans.

We had two playings of the Red October scenario “The Playing Field”. In the first game, Jim Svette's Germans defeated Ed Esparza's Russians. In the other game, the dice gave me the Germans against Scott Thompson's Russians.

It's mid-December, 1942 and the Germans are hunkered down in two factories (Halls 8 and 8A). They are under ammo shortage, but have a formidable position behind wire and mines. They get also get a couple of MTR's. The Russians get a powerful, well-led group of Guards infantry, plus DC's, a FT and a 120 OBA. I put all my wire in front of Hall 8, and mined the two one-hex building between the two factories. I put my toughest troops in fortified locations in the factory hexes facing the rubble, where I expected the Russians would come through since it was their best cover. The MMG's went into level one building locations on the right flank, where they could hit the Russians coming in through the wire, or across the open ground if they attacked on the German right. I set up the MTR's for spotted fire; one on the right, and the other in the center rear, where it had a limited but important field of fire between the factories. That MTR could also cover the far left flank if Scott chose to come that way. I exchanged some fortified locations for tunnels, so that I could reinforce or escape my positions with a minimum of loss. Scott chose to come in on the closer of the two factories on the German left (Hall 8A), and used his OBA to pound my troops in Hall 8. He got off to a great start, pushing his troops through the wire with no casualties, and by the bottom of turn one I was worried Hall 8A would fall too quickly. But things turned around for me on turn 2, when I caught the Russian 9-2 and a couple of squads in the open, and after a short rate tear, the 9-2 and his two squads were dead. Other troops made it into the factory, but I was able to counter-attack them and kill them in CC. But in Hall 8, Scott's OBA creamed my squads. By turn 4, using his weight of numbers, Scott was able to clear Hall 8A, and then took a turn to consolidate his position for the final assault on Hall 8. But by then the OBA was used up, and I was able to rally enough squads to fight him to a standstill in the entry hexes of that factory. In the end, Scott just didn't have enough victory points in Hall 8 to claim victory.

We both liked this scenario a lot. According to ROAR it is the most balanced of the Red October scenarios, and we both agreed. Scott thought in retrospect he should have gone for Hall 8 first, which had a higher point value, and pound Hall 8A with the OBA. I think he's right. But we had a fun and exciting game, and we both thought we'd like to try it again. This scenario has the added bonus of playing fairly quickly.

We enjoyed our usual lunch at Farmer Boys, and the survivors enjoyed our traditional late dinner at Louie's Chicken and Fish. It was great to see such a huge turn-out, and we all had a lot of fun.