December 21st Game Day in Sherman Oaks AAR

We had 4 members for the December Edition of our ASL Game Day at Paper Hero's.

Blair Bellamy's Germans defeated Dave Nicholas' Americans in the classic scenario “Han-Sur-Neid”.

And I paired up with James Quinn for the Rally Point Korean War scenario “Seoul Searching”. The dice gave James the attacking Marines against my North Koreans. This scenario has a well-led company of 7-6-8 Marines, supported by 2 Pershings, a POA flame tank, and a Sherman dozer. They have to clear out of a company of North Koreans (mixed 6-2-8/4-4-7's) from a city. The Koreans have two 45LL AT Guns, and 6 AT Mines, but little else beyond guts and hand grenades, to fight the American armor. I set up my 45LL's for side shots in CC4 and AA6, and my AT mines in GG3, U1 and R0 (2 factors each). I swapped out my 8-1 leader for a 10-0 Commissar, and put my HMG in the far rear 2nd level building with the 9-1. The rest of my troops went in three mutually supporting groups around mid-board, with the 10-0 and the strongest position in the center. I buried the 5-2-7 in the last victory building. His job was to be the lone survivor. Everything else would fall back to cover that one last building.

James chose to go all in with an attack against my right flank. The Americans have a massive amount of firepower, but are pretty pressed for time. They have to take risks, especially with the tanks, to keep momentum. James caught a bad break when the POA broke its FT MA on the very first shot. But otherwise his armor was pretty fortunate: his tanks entered two of my 3 AT minefields, and I got surprise rear shots against a Pershing with each of the the 45LL's, but was never able to convert any of it into a dead tank. (Eventually one of the 45LL's killed the dozer tank). I stuck to my plan and kept falling back into my final position. James used his troops and tanks with skill, and for the last two turns, each tank bypass-freezed various infantry positions. In the end, it came down to the last row of victory buildings, with the Marines needing to break the upper level Koreans with fire. Unfortunately one of these final shots didn't drop, which gave my Koreans their hard-earned victory. This one was exciting and very close, and could have easily gone the other way.

We both had a lot of fun with this scenario. I think it's pretty challenging for both sides.

We had our usual lunch next door at Nat's, and the survivors went to Pizza Rev for a late dinner. It was a really pleasant day in Sherman Oaks.