June 21st Game Day at Emerald Knights: AAR

[Jim Aikens]

We had seven members in attendance, plus a cameo from Matt Cicero, for the June edition of our ASL Game Day at Emerald Knights in Burbank.

Eric Visnowski’s Germans defeated Mike Soffa’s Russians in a hard fought playing of “The Meatgrinder”.

Sal Palaez’s Germans fell to Blair Bellamy’s and Dan Kauffman’s Americans in the Paratrooper scenario “Confusion Reigns”.

And Dave Rosner and I paired up for a scenario. He offered to let me choose the scenario if he could pick the side. I had wanted to play the Winter Offensive scenario “Heart of Darkness” since it came out, but hadn’t found any takers. Dave agreed to play it, and chose the Russians. I wanted to play this because I like scenarios with fortifications, and this scenario gives the Germans 6 trenches, 6 foxholes and two 2-3-5 pillboxes for their 14 well lead squads, plus a 37L AT Gun and a 75* Inf Gun. The Russians get a total of 30 well led squads entering in three different groups, plus 4 BT tanks. They have to capture a bridge location and one of two buildings in 6.5 turns.

I counted out the movement points and realized it would take the Russians 3 movement phases to fulfill the VC’s if there were no Germans on the board. So really this was a scenario about time management for the Russians. I set up my trenches extending at an angle southeast from the village where the VC buildings were located. From there they were able to cover the approaches to the village from two directions and could easily shift to meet a threat. I left reserves in the village, in case Dave chose to enter his tank group (four BT’s plus four 5-2-7’s) on the west flank, which was closest to the VC buildings. I backed the reserves up with the 37L. I put the 75* close to the village, but in a position that covered my trench line in case Dave sent his tanks that way to overrun it. I put foxholes in a group of woods hexes north of the village and filled them with dummies to deter the Russians from trying to outflank me from the north. I used the PB’s in a way that they could either cover the flanks of my line, or serve as rally points if/when my troops started to break.

The first two turns were mostly maneuver. On turn 3 the action heated up. I had pretty good luck with my initial shots and broke up a lot of the Russians moving forward. On turn 4 Dave brought on his tanks; two on the west edge and two on the east edge. Man, those BT’s can fly. His west edge tanks died quickly when they drove right into my 37L. His east edge tanks headed for my north edge dummy position, cleaned it out, and then turned south toward the trench line, where they ran right into my 75* Gun. Three shots later both tanks were dead. In the meantime, Dave’s infantry continued to have a hard time getting into position to allow his weight of numbers come to bear on my position, and I was able to shift troops back and forth to meet threats from each direction. By turn 6 the Russians had taken some serious losses, and it was obvious they wouldn’t have enough time left to take either VC building, so we called it a German win.

We had our usual chili dog lunch at Larry’s, and the survivors adjourned for our traditional dinner at Bob’s afterward. It was another very fine day of ASL.

You’ll note that next month we will not be meeting at Emerald Knights, as the store will be closed to us that day. Luckily, Matt Cicero and Bryan Earll have offered to host us at Apex Fasteners in Monrovia. Check the website for details.

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