November 9th Game Day in Bellflower

Greetings ASL Fans;

We had 7 members for the November edition of our SoCalASL Game Day in Bellflower:

Scott Thompson brought a set-up for Rally Point's Korean War pack scenario “Fighting Flipinos”. This looked like a really cool scenario featuring a Filipino continent of UN troops defending against a Chi-Com attack. Hank W. was up for the challenge and his Filipinos prevailed over Scott's swarming Chi-Coms.

Jim Svette's Germans defeated Ric Hammond's Russians in “Renewed Pressure”.

And the dice gave Fen Yan the Germans against me and Guy Jimenez as the Russians in the Friendly Fire scenario “No Glory in War”. Roar shows this one pro-German, so we agreed beforehand to give the Russians the balance. This is a meeting engagement, with both sides getting a mix of infantry and armor. The Germans need to grab and hold one of two road crossings. The twist is mud is in effect for movement purposes, but just for the infantry. This has the effect of slowing down the infantry's movement relative to the armor, and creating a swirling vortex of action. Throughout the battle, armor from both sides swooped in and around the infantry battle (well, as much as those Russian radio-less tanks can 'swoop' using platoon movement.)

Fen's initial attack on the crossroads was repulsed, with 3 tanks lost. But he regrouped and came in again. This second attack was much more effective, and he systematically killed off the Russian tanks and pressed on the right-hand crossroads. One unit from each side earned scenario MVP for their side. The German 9-1 shrugged repeated 1MC's as he led his squads in. He earned the nickname “Captain Ironpants”. The second was a Russian artillery tractor with a 2 FP MG. At Guy's suggestion, we moved this up to provide a little extra FP along the road. It eventually KIA'd one full German squad, and broke another at a critical moment. Both MVP's survived the battle. I call this type of scenario a “swirling shitstorm”; asymmetrical and fun as hell. In the end, armor casualties proved too high for the Germans, and Fen's attack ran out of steam. We called this a Russian win.

We all had a lot of fun with one. As Scott Thompson observed: “There's no such thing as a bad Friendly Fire scenario”. He's absolutely correct. It was another great game day in Bellflower!