September 28th Game Day in Chatsworth AAR

We had 5 members for the September edition of our ASL Game Day at All Ways Gaming in Chatsworth:

Eric Visnowski's Germans defeated Blair Bellamy and James Quinn's Russians in “Cat Chow”.

And I paired up with Dave Nicholas for “Yes Sir”. Neither of us had played this scenario, and the dice gave me the Germans. It looked interesting because the attacking Americans can choose between 2 forces; either 13 1st line squads with 3 MMG's, or 8 squads with 1 MMG and three Shermans. The Germans get 6.5 squads of 5-4-8's with a MMG, 2 LMG's and a Psk. They also get a 6 FP 20mm AA Gun. The Americans have to cross a lot of open ground to capture a small cluster of stone buildings. In our first playing, Nick chose the armor group. But by the bottom of turn 1 two of the Shermans had been lost to the Psk, and we realized we'd both overlooked an SSR that allowed the Americans to enter 3 squads as a flanking force on the north edge. We decided to re-boot, but keep the same sides.

In this second playing, Nick took the all-infantry force, which I assumed he would. I set up back almost entirely within the buildings, with a secondary position on the south edge. This second playing was quite a fight. Nick came in along the south board edge, and overwhelmed my secondary position. He had an 8-1 led kill-stack with 3 squads and 3 MMG's back on the west end of the board, which I couldn't hit effectively. Unfortunately for Nick, his shots from this group were ineffective, until the top of turn 4, when he finally broke my front line with it. Meanwhile his southern and now northern forces were putting pressure on my flanks, and I was on the ropes. On the bottom of turn 4, with no terrain left to back up into, I decided to stand and shoot in Prep. Almost all of my shots were effective, and most importantly, I generated the only meaningful Sniper attack of the game. It hit Nick's kill stack and KIA'd the 8-1. Three LLMC's later, and all three squads were broken and effectively out of the game.

That 'knee in the groin' put me back in the game, but there were still 2 turns to go. And anyone who has played Nick knows he is a tenacious attacker. The Americans came on again, and closed in on my position. But I was able to pin or break just enough guys in the final rush to hold on for the win. It was a close game that really could have gone either way. We both thought this was a good scenario and worth another try.

We had our usual excellent lunch on the patio at San Carlo Deli. And the survivors adjourned to The Habit for a relaxing late dinner. It was another entirely enjoyable day for SoCalASL.