4th Annual Burning Wreck Barbecue AAR

[Jim Aikens]

I am pleased to report that though our attendance was slightly lower than last year, the consensus among those who attended was that the 4th Annual Burning Wreck Barbecue was our best yet. I agree.

Our theme was “playing the ones”, and that’s exactly what happened:

Glenn Sellar and Jim Cotugno paired up for “The Citadel”, with Jim’s Russians defeating Glenn’s Germans.

In the battle of the Daves, Dave Nicholas and Dave Reinking squared off for “With Tigers on Their Tail.” After playing all day they decided to declare the scenario a draw.

Rob Stai’s Americans took on Eric Visnowski’s Japanese in the classic monster “Maggot Hill”. After playing all day, and with two turns still to go the game was too close to call. So they decided to record their position and plan to conclude the scenario at a future game day. Stay tuned.

Matt Cicero’s Germans defeated John Wootress’ Russians in “War of the Rats”.

Stance Nixon’s Russians defeated Bill Yuen’s Germans in “The Awakening of Spring.”

And Bruce Kirkaldy and I paired off against Mike Cirrincione and Stephan Tourville in the VotG scenario “Raid on Rodimstev” from Journal 9. This is a huge scenario of attack and counter-attack that takes place on the northeast quarter of the VotG historical map. The scenario opens with three powerful German Sturm companies attacking into a thin but tough Soviet front line manned by good quality Guards squads. The Germans pretty much have their way for 3 turns, at which time Russian reinforcements can arrive randomly from three different entry areas. As it turned out, our plan for the Germans worked well, and got a little lucky against Mike and Stephan’s Russians when their reinforcement rolls failed. The Germans achieved a breakthrough on the southern flank on turn 4, and again the Russian reinforcements failed to appear. By turn 5 the Germans had rolled up over half the Russian line and exited enough troops to almost guarantee a win. We called it a day at that point and wrapped up around 10:30 pm. Stephan had to leave late in the afternoon, but Geoff Coward was kind enough to step in and help Mike with Russians during the final hours.

Scott Thompson made a cameo appearance to join us for dinner. And what a dinner it turned out to be. Barbecue chicken and ribs, home-made mash potatoes and coleslaw, salad, rolls and corn, cooked to perfection by St. Crispin’s Harmon Ward and his team. They followed it with cake and coffee. It was by far the best Burning Wreck BBQ dinner we’ve ever had.

All of the games wrapped up between 9:30 and 10:30 pm and we were on our way home by 11:00. It was a terrific day of ASL, camaraderie, and killer food. I want to exend a special thanks to Matt Cicero for handling the drinks and finances and playing odd-man-out for part of the day. And I want to thank all of the members who came and supported the event. It was a blast.

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