March 29th Special Game Day at Gameology AAR

[Jim Aikens]

We had seven members at our special 5th Saturday Game Day at Gemeology:

Jim Svette and Matt Blackman were already there when the rest of us arrived. They had the Schwerepunkt scenario “Transylvania 6-5000” (love that title) underway. In the end, Jim’s Hungarians defeated Matt’s Russians.

Eric Visnowski’s Americans defeated Dave Nicholas’ and Dan Plachta’s Germans in “From Villerauden to Valhalla”. The American OBA and rocket-armed air support carried the day.

And Chip Wertenberger and I set up “Streets of Rostov” from the latest Dispatches. This is a big city fight with an SS panzers formation going up against NKVD strongpoints on boards 1 and 22. I took the Germans against Chip’s Russians. The Germans have to start by crossing an AT Trench well covered by Russian MG fire. I set up my attack to have my two PzIVF1’s smoke Chip’s 2nd level strongpoint, then crossing at a breach in a weak spot in the line. SS F1’s, firing smoke.. shouldn’t be a problem, especially with a 9-1 AL. Nope. First shot rolls an 11. No smoke. Ok, that’s why I set up both of them. Shot from the 2nd F1… 12. . Not a good way to start a scenario. But I improvised, getting my 8 PzIII’s and infantry through the trench, using SD’s as best as possible. However, I made a fundamental mistake: I left that 2nd level strongpoint in my rear. My original plan was for the F1’s to drive the defenders out of the upper levels. But with one MA broken, and the second F1 bogged in a woods hex (long story) the Russians were able to continue to blaze away. As I came into Chip’s main line, I was getting a pretty vicious crossfire and my Germans got cut up pretty badly. From my perspective, I had a lousy plan and tried to make up for it with poor execution. I deserved the loss.

We decided at that point (about half way through) that our time would be better spent turning it around, setting it up and trying again. I spent the evening doing a Russian set-up, while Chip kibitzed in EV, Dave and Dan’s game. We're going to try this scenario again next Saturday.

We made our usual trek to The Hat for lunch. The onion rings were a disappointment (second time in a row.) But otherwise the food was as good as always.

We wrapped up around 9:30 PM. Remember, we will be back at Gameology for our regularly scheduled Game Day this coming Saturday.

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