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We had an impressive 10 members in attendance for the March edition of our ASL Game Day at All Ways Gaming.
Sal Palaez' Germans and David Franco's Russians fought to a draw in an all-day playing of the SK scenario “Last Ally, Last Victory”.
Dave Nicholas' Germans defeated Mike Soffa's Americans in the Journal scenario “Bad Luck”.
James Quinn's Germans defeated David Rosner's Americans in the classic scenario “Ranger Stronghold”.
Ed Esparza and Dave Lewis paired up for the Into the Rubble scenario “Factory in Flix”, with D.L.'s Republicans falling to Ed's Nationalists.
And Eric Visnowski and I paired up for “Parry & Strike”. We had played this scenario several years ago, and Eric wanted to try it again. We switched sides from our previous playing: he took the attacking Germans and I took the Russians. The Germans get a company of infantry and 4 Panthers. They have to cross a lot of open ground and then clear a hill held by a couple of platoons of infantry. The Russians get three IS-2's and seven T34M43's on turn 2, but very restricted areas to bring them in and get them employed. My set-up was basically flawed; I put my infantry on the hill where they could take some long shots on the Germans in the open. EV showed me the error of my ways by pulling up all four Panthers and basically blasting my infantry off the hill. By turn 3 I was down to 2 good order squads and it was obvious that my tanks were not going to be able to hold the PF wielding German infantry off the hill. We called it a German victory.
By this time we only had a couple of hours. But Eric and I play pretty fast, so we set up “Counterattack at Carentan”, with EV taking Easy Company against my attacking mixed force of 5-4-8's and 6-5-8's. The Americans get a 57L AT Gun that really only has one logical place to set up; looking down the center road between the hedgerows. Eric set up his paratroopers to cover the open spaces between the hedgerows. I came on strong, and even pushed the tanks through the hedgerows. Eric decided not to hang around, and pulled his infantry out and toward the back of the board while the going was good. I continued to play aggressively, relying on my 8 moral and assault fire to get the job done. Eric got several shots with his AT Gun against my hull-down StuG, but then shot boxcars, taking it out of commission. I put on a full-court press at that point, breaking American squads with assault fire. I caught one of his BAZ carrying HS's in the open and KIA'd it. That left his only remaining BAZ on the American left, and I pushed my tanks to the right and exited them for turn six victory. It would have been a very different game if the AT had not broken, but such is ASL. This is an exciting, well balanced scenario that is certainly worth the effort.
When Eric and I play each other, our games tend to go quickly. This game, however, may have set a record. We finished 5 full turns in about 90 minutes, including set-up.
We had our usual fine lunch at San Carlo Deli, and though the place was very crowded we managed to sit together. The survivors made their usual trip to The Hat for our traditional late dinner. It was a great day with a great turnout!
Speaking of turnout, we've seen quite an uptick in Game Day attendance since the beginning of the year. Its been particularly notable in March. Our four March Game Days averaged 9 members per week. That's up from an average of 6 per week during the fourth quarter of last year.
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