November 5th Game Day at Gameology AAR

[Jim Aikens]

We had a solid 6 members for our November edition of the ASL Game Day at Gameology:

Glenn Sellar’s Russians fell to Blair Bellamy’s Germans in the HOB scenario “Ghost of Napoleon”. You’d think our two Canadian players going head to head would have picked a scenario with Canadians in it…

Eric Visnowski’s Brits fell to Jim Cotugno’s Germans in the oldie but goodie Deluxe scenario “Lehr Sanction”.

And Dave Nicholas and I squared off for round two of our playing of the 'Nuremburg trilogy' from the Journal 9. Coming into the second round, the score was 4 to 1 in my favor, and we had agreed beforehand that the looser of round one would get the balance in round two. So Dave’s Americans got the balance for “Three for the Third” against my Germans. The balance, which makes it easier for the Americans to generate heroes, was never a factor.

Dave and I had played this scenario before (on opposite sides) so we both knew the key for the Americans is to neutralize the two German FB’s. As expected, Dave chose the meat-chopper and M8 combo for his variable forces, and selected the American FB for his bonus force. For the Germans, I wanted to neutralize the American armor to reduce their late-game smoke making abilities, and guarantee the Ami FB wouldn't live long once it appeared. So I went with the JdPz and quad-20L for my variable choice. For my bonus force, I took the extra StuG in order to keep the infantry choice available for round 3 (Golden Phesants), where I think it’s really needed. (In a stand-alone game, the obvious bonus choice is the two extra squads.)

Dave got a little aggressive with his armor on turn two, and I got lucky with a couple of PF’s. That cost him two Shermans that turn. But we both knew he was in trouble when my HMG/8-1 shot at his meat-chopper and rolled snakes (K result: Recall.) Then with my rate shot, I rolled snakes again and recalled the M8! Ouch. Man, I’ve got to say Dave is a really good sport for not failing his personal morale check on that sequence. The Americans got their revenge later in the game when Dave’s FB napalmed the offending HMG. In the end though it was clear that the Americans weren’t going to get into the victory building in sufficient strength, so we called it on turn 6. Since the German would have scored at least 4 campaign VP, we called that a German victory as well. It was a fun and interesting series; I would do it again.

Dave and I have each played the scenario twice now (once as each side.) We both feel this one is a little hard on the Americans. It’s a fun scenario though, and Dave, as always was a great sport and a pleasure to play. We did our usual trek to The Hat for lunch and wrapped up right around 10:00 pm. It was another great day of ASL!

[Author]

Posts