December 7th Game Day at Gameology AAR

We had four members, plus a cameo by Mike Meeks, for the December edition of our ASL Game Day at Gameology:

Scott Thompson has been on a Korea kick lately, so he and Jim Svette paired up for “Belgians and Centurions”. Jim's Belgian/U.N. forces defeated Scott's Chi-Coms.

Bill Wenzel made his first (but certainly not his last) appearance at Gameology. He wanted some France '40 action (a favorite subject of mine as well). We chose the Dispatches scenario “March on Marche”. ROAR has this 17/7 pro-French. Since Bill hasn't played in about 18 months, I took the Germans straight up.

This scenario is played on boards 2A and 3A, which is effectively 4 board widths. Both sides get a mix of tanks, armored cars and motorcycles, and the French even get a little Cavalry. The Germans have to cross a pontoon bridge, grab and hold some uncontested buildings, grab some contested buildings in a small village, then cross a gully and grab two more buildings. They have a long way to go, and 6.5 turns to get there.

In addition to a company of motorcycle troops, the Germans get three Czech 38 tanks, which are my favorites for this time period, and some PSW 222's. The French get a couple of platoons of infantry, a couple of AC's, and a 25LL AT Gun. They are reinforced with a couple of H38 tanks, and another platoon of infantry on motorcycles and horses. I was worried about the AT Gun; it isn't powerful, but it could create problems. For that reason I kept my infantry in front, with the AFV's hanging back a bit. In retrospect, because of the time pressure, I should have gone hell for leather into the village. Bill had a good set-up. I realized on turn 3 my infantry didn't have enough punch to get the job done in the village, and I brought my AFV's forward. Bill sent his reinforcing infantry into the back victory buildings, and brought the H38 tanks forward to support his defense of the front village. I was finally able to defeat the front village defense, and kill all the AFV's except one H38, but time was running out. Bill cleverly put his remaining tank on the one gully bridge, forcing my infantry to come through and around the gully and woods, and burn precious time closing in on the rear buildings. In the last ditch assault on the final victory building, I killed or broke all of the remaining French units. But Bill was able to rout a squad upstairs in the final building to deny my Germans victory. It was a hard fought and exciting game from beginning to end, and we had a lot of fun. I think this scenario is winnable for the Germans, but they have to move fast, take risks, and hit hard. I think holding my AFV's back from the initial attack was a fatal error.

The store wasn't too busy, and we had our usual pleasant lunch at Farmer Boy's. It was a nice way to spend a rainy Saturday.