July 6th Game Day in Upland AAR

[Jim Aikens]

We had 6 members for our SoCalASL Game Day at Gameology in Upland on Saturday:

Mike Meeks' Russians defeated Bruce Kirkaldy's Germans & Hungarians in a playtest of Bruce's Budapest scenario “The Uniform Factory”.

Dave Nicholas' Germans and Dan Plachta's Russians fought to a draw in “The Slaughterhouse”.

I wanted to try another Red October scenario, and J.J. Ma was up for the challenge. He chose the attacking Germans against my Russians in “Second Step”. The Germans get a well-led 1st line company, reinforced by two platoons of 5-4-8's, and have to capture 3 factories. They get one mission of Rocket OBA, 2 Stukas and a StuGIII B in support. The Russians get 6 infantry groups of various strengths, and have to deploy one in each of 6 factories. They also get a 45L, two trenches, two 1-5-7 PB's, three wire counters, six fortified locations and 12 mine factors to help. This scenario is 5/1 pro-Russian on ROAR, so we gave the Germans the balance.

I decided to give up the front factory (Hall , since the Russians can set up in Shop 1 and attack from two sides. So I put Group 6 in there, with dummies up front and the HMG/8-1 in the far rear, where they could move to R-7 and support my defense of Hall 8A. My plan was to give up Hall 8, but fight to the last man in Hall 8A and Hall 5. I put my two strongest groups (#1 and #3, respectively) in those factories. I put the conscript group (#4) in Hall 10, and the remaining groups in the other two factories. I put the wire in front if Hall 5, and most of the fortified locations in Hall 8A. The 12 mine factors went into P37, where they could hit the Germans coming out of Hall 8. It put the 45L in a 1-5-7/trench in U37. On turn one I moved the groups from Halls 7 & 9 forward into Halls 8A and 5. The conscripts and dummies would hold the rear three factories. J.J. was clever. Instead of using the Rocket OBA on turn 1 against the front factory (Hall , he moved his radio and troops forward into position to assault Hall 5, then brought the Rockets down on Hall 5 on turn 3, where his troops could exploit the devastation.

J.J. handled his troops well, and captured 2 of the 3 factories he needed before time ran out. We had great fun with this scenario, but we both thought it was hard on the Germans. The balance (downgrade the Russian 9-2 to a 9-1) wasn't enough. J.J. suggested removing 4 of the 6 fortified locations, and that might do the trick. We both want to try this again.

We had a nice lunch at Farmer Boys, and the survivors adjourned to The Habit for a late dinner. As always, it was a great day of ASL!

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