March 2nd Game Day at Gameology AAR

[Jim Aikens]

We had 9 members in attendance for our March Game Day at Gameology:

Ed Esparza paired up with new member Matt Blackman just before I arrived, and they took on “Defiance on Hill 30”, where Ed’s Germans defeated Matt’s Americans.

Glenn Sellar and Eric Visnowski settled some outstanding WCM XVI business and set up “It Don’t Come Easy” for the Deluxe ASL mini championship. The game came down to the wire. When the smoke cleared, Eric’s Germans defeated Glenn’s Americans. Both had plenty of good to say about the scenario. Congratulations to EV for winning the Deluxe ASL mini. I will award his plaque at the next Game Day at Emerald Knights.

Chip Wertenberger’s Germans defeated Jeff Toney’s Russians in “Sovkhoz Haystacks.”

Because we had an odd number of players, Ryan Vosnack and I took the Russians against Dave Nicholas’ Japanese in “Forging Spetsnaz”. I’d heard mixed reviews of this scenario at WCM, but I really wanted to give it a try. Ryan and I had planned a first turn human wave into a strong but isolated Japanese position. But Dave’s dice were smoking hot; six shots later with his highest DR being a 6, 25% of the Russian force was KIA and the remainder broken. Soon after my 10-2 was wounded by a sniper, and it was obvious that this scenario was going nowhere fast. It seemed a waste of time to continue. Also by this time Ed and Matt’s game was over and Matt was done for the day. That meant we could set up two 1 on 1 scenarios, which we did.

Dave and Ryan chose “The Clearing” from the Rivers to the Reich scenario pack. Ryan’s troops defeated Dave’s force.

Meanwhile, Ed and I set up “Pavlov’s House” from Valor of the Guards. You never have to ask me twice to play any scenario from that module. I’d played this one several times through the years, so I gave Ed his choice of sides and he took the Germans. We had a hell of a game. Both of us got hot dice and really chewed up each other’s units. On turn 5 Ed’s Germans drove Pavlov out of the front ground level location of the house, and entered with a Heroic 9-2, a 2-3-7 HS and 2-3-8 HS. On the bottom of turn 5 (my last movement phase) Pavlov lead a counter-attack back into the location, but couldn’t Pin or Break either of the German HS’s. In the meantime, I rushed a crew across open ground and grabbed one the Rubble locations in the German set-up area. For the Germans to win, they need to control one location of Pavlov’s House (which they had) *and* all of the stone locations in their set-up area. So on turn 6, Ed rushed his surviving Germans toward my crew. We both continued to roll low, but on my last shot to stop Ed’s last units (a 7-0 & 2-3-7 HS) that could reach the rubble, I got a K1 result, and Ed Yatzeed the random selection. That was it. What a great game and great fun!

While Ed and I were slugging it our in Stalingrad, Chip and Dave set up the short scenario “The Queen's Prequil”, where Dave’s Germans defeated Chip’s British.

And with that we called it a day. Dave got it 3 games, and Ryan, Chip, Ed and I got in 2 each. Matt Blackman joined the Club, and Glenn and EV played for a plaque. I think that was a day well spent. Add a trip to The Hat for lunch, and it would be tough to come up with a better Saturday.

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