July 7th Game Day at Gameology AAR

[Jim Aikens]

We had 6 members for our SoCalASL Game Day at Gameology in Montclair.

When we arrived, the stored was packed with card players. Evidently there was a Magic release going on and also a Netrunner tournament. But the store owner, Kevin, is always good about finding some space for us, no matter how crowded the store gets. Sometimes, though, it takes a while to arrange that. So we decided on an early lunch, and also a road trip to Pegasus Hobbies, which is just north of Interstate 10. Pegasus is probably the largest and best hobby store I've ever been in. They have everything: tons of models, RC stuff, trains, slot cars, die cast cars, and even some games. I felt like I was taking a walk through my childhood. It's always great fun to browse the store. If you haven't been there, it's worth the drive. Eventually we made our way over to The Hat for our usual excellent lunch. As we were leaving, a huge rain storm broke out. It provided some lunch-time entertainment, and cooled things off, but of course drove the humidity way up.

Anyway, with our clothes damp from the rain, we eventually made it back to Gameology, where Kevin had carved some space out for us, and we got our games underway:

David (Special K) Kocot's Soviets defeated Dan Plachta's Germans in “Frontiers and Pioneers”.

Blair Bellamy's Japanese defeated Eric Visnowski's Americans in “Blockbusters”.

And Dave Nicholas took the attacking Soviets against my Germans in the Schwerepunkt scenario “Balloons, Cakes and Ponies”. This scenario is set in 1942, where a couple of platoons of Germans have to hold onto a village under attack from a powerful group of Russian cavalry, supported by a couple of rag wagon tanks. The Germans get a couple of platoons of reinforcements entering from off-board, and a Stuka on turn 3. They also get two 150 ART, but these guns count for Russian VC if they're captured, so they have to be set up and used carefully. The Germans also get a re-purposed French AMD AC.

I set up both 150's and a squad to cover the southern approach to town, and my only MG (an MMG) with two squads and a leader and the AMD to cover the northern approaches. The remaining force (three 5-4-8's, a 7-0 and a 2-4-7 with an ATR), set up in the middle. It didn't feel like much facing 13 well led Russians squads on horseback, plus two tanks. Nick, with a more than 2-1 advantage in squads and high mobility (thanks to all the Russian squads being cavalry) correctly chose to spread out, with a platoon circling to the north, and another to south, in order to stretch my defenders out and prevent them from supporting each other. The main body, supported by the tanks, went into the center.

The southern attack quickly fell victim to one of the 150's, and Nick lost a squad KIA to find one of the guns. But the loss gave him some valuable intel, and he move the remaining southern attackers to support the center. The northern attack fared better, but I was able to get a FL down across the path of the attackers, and Nick slowed the attack here waiting for his
turn 2 reinforcements to arrive on that flank. His center attack came on strong, and pushed the main body of my infantry back pretty quickly. I sent my turn 1 reinforcements in to prop up the south-center. Nick's turn 2 reinforcements came in from the north, where my MMG was positioned to lay a FL to prevent him from getting into my back field. To distract me, he sent two squads right up the opposite side adjacent to the MMG, but I held my fire. Nick didn't want to chance running through a FL, and held two more squads and a leader on the road to the north to resume the attack on turn 3. On my turn 2, I swung the AMD straight up the road toward those two mounted squads and had just enough MP for a 10 -2 overrun. I rolled a K3, and Nick yahtzeed the RS. When the smoke cleared, both squads were dead and the leader was wounded (but still mounted).

One thing to know about Nick; he has a very high player morale. I've seen him continue to attack tenaciously when most lesser players would have thrown it in. On turn 3, with losses mounting, he continued to push on, cracking my center and threatening one of the center VC Buildings. But he was running out of time and troops. I managed to get my turn 3 reinforcements into the threatened building, and killed one of the Soviet tanks with a street fighting 5-4-8. The Stuka also arrived, and by turn 4 was restricting Soviet movement in the open. By that point, Nick was down to 3 good order squads and had little chance of capturing another building. We called it a German win.

In all fairness to Nick, the dice really favored me all day. It was one of those scenarios where I got the good rolls when I needed them, and Nick did not. Nick played a great game. He felt this one was a little hard on the Russians. I felt pretty overwhelmed as the German for the first 3 turns. Honestly, if the dice hadn't favored me, I believe the result would have been different. I think it's a pretty tight and very interesting scenario. I would definitely play it again.

All three games cleared within a few minutes of each other, and we actually finished early despite a somewhat delayed start. We adjourned to Jersey Mike's for dinner.

Kevin informed us that Gameology is moving again in two weeks, to a much larger and nicer space in Upland. We will meet at the new location next month: 916 N. Mountain Ave, Suite A, Upland, CA 91786.

Kevin kept the AC on full-blast all day, and turned out to be a nice way to spend a scorching Saturday.

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