March 17th Game Day at Emerald Knights AAR

[Jim Aikens]

While driving up to Burbank in the rain on Saturday, I had braced myself for what I anticipated to be a below average turnout at Emerald Knights because of the weather. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the store shortly after noon to find 11 guys already there, with a couple more to arrive within minutes of me. We ended up with 13 players, plus a cameo from Blair Bellamy.

Phil Seymour and Dave Nicholas paired up for “Battering Rams” with Dave’s Russians defeating Phil’s Germans in short order. Because their game got over quickly, the switched sides and played again. It proved to be Dave’s day however, as his Germans defeated Phil’s Russians in their second playing.

Ed Esparza’s Germans defeated Kevin Kiff’s Americans in a day-long, down-to-the-last Close Combat finish of “Crossfire”. Both thought it was an excellent scenario that was well worth another playing.

Geoff Coward’s Canadian’s defeated Fen Yan’s Germans in “Going to Church”, one of my favorite scenarios.

Chris Bryer started out with the British against Dan Plachta Germans in “Light and Detached”. But Chris had to leave early, so Mike Cirrincione stepped out of the multi-player game he was in to finish (and win) the game with Dan. And because their game got over pretty quickly, the paired up again for Broken Beek, with Mike’s Americans defeating Dan’s Germans.

If you’ve been to even one Game Day, you know it’s never a surprise to see Eric Visnowski setting up his Deluxe boards for a game. This week it was “To The Last Man”. Initially Eric had planned to play Dave Rosner and Mike Cirrincione, with Blair Bellamy helping EV until his planned early departure. But when Chris Bryer had to pull out of his game with Dan, Mike stepped into that game. Blair’s departure left EV playing the Russians against Dave’s Germans for most of the afternoon. By early evening Geoff and I had finished our respective games, and Dave needed to leave. So we stepped into Dave’s place as the Germans. About a half hour later, Dan replaced me on the German side, and Mike joined EV with the Russians (if you’ve followed along this far, you know that Mike had started out playing the Germans that morning.) We finally called it a Russian victory and agreed it was time to adjourn for dinner.

And while all that seat changing was going on, Sal Palaez and I paired up for “Rude Mood” from Action Pack 9. My Free French got lucky early and stumbled into Sal’s hidden AT Gun on turn two and killed its crew in CC. We called it a Free French victory on turn 4. I'd like to try this one again. I seems challenging for both sides.

We adjourned for a chili dog lunch at Larry’s, and for our traditional dinner at Bob’s Big Boy that evening. Both were everything we’ve come to expect. It was an awesome day of fun, friendship, food and ASL!

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