Progress Report: 12/13/14 Slaughter at Ponyri CG

[Jim Aikens]

We had 6 members and a new player, plus a cameo from Jim Svette, in attendance for the Slaughter at Ponyri playtest at the St. Crispin’s Game Day in Anaheim on Saturday.

Unfortunately, we had 3 Russian players and only one German team member (yours truly.) So we decided our day would be better spent by spending some time going through of the SaP CG rules, and then breaking out for some pickup games. We launched our pick-up games around 1:00 PM.

Scott Thompson’s Japanese fell to Dan Plachta’s Chinese in the Bounding Fire scenario “Melee Near the Coast.”

Mike Meeks (who was there for an afternoon miniatures game) took on Steve Reed, one of the very active miniaturists, in an ASL SK demo game of “Retaking Vierville”, with Mike’s Germans just barely squeaking out a win over Steve’s Americans.

And Dave Kocot and I paired up for the mid-size Journal scenario “Silesian Interlude” . If I had played this one before, I don’t recall it, and the dice gave me the Russian defenders. I used most of my dummies to create fake tanks to keep Dave guessing on the initial attack. I posted my IS2 on a level 1 hex that covered the center of board 38 and the left hand board 18 road. I put my 45LL way over on the left, hoping for a rear shot on an exiting Panther, and set up my MMG and two LMG’s for firelane opportunities. I put my T34 behind some woods next to the 45LL, hoping to save it for the end game, or plug a hole in my line.

Dave came on through the center, with a MMG on his right flank to prevent me from reinforcing the VC building with my left flank force. His attack came in smoothly and he handled his troops with the skill he’s shown in so many of his games lately. Lucky for me, my dummy gambit paid off, and I was able to bag one of the Panthers with my IS2, while Dave lost an MA broken on another. Dave scooted that Panther to the rear to try to cut off my retreating infantry before exiting. But he turned one too many times in LOS of my 45LL and I bagged it with a rear shot. That allowed me to be aggressive with my IS2, and I swung it out to challenge the lone PzIV; killing it the following fire phase. With the Russian armor coming on next turn, Dave wisely exited his remaining Panther, giving him all but 3 of the exit VP he’d need for the win. While the tank battle was going on, his infantry finally cracked my line and broke into the VC buildings. Now all he had to do was exit 3 CVP off board 38 for the win, with two turns to go. But I lined my four tanks and surviving infantry along the board edge in a goal-line stand, preventing the infantry from entering the hexes without killing the Russians first. Dave tried a daring end run with his infantry, but was stopped short by some lucky shots by my tanks, and we called it a Russian win.

It was a great game and we had great fun. Mario Goldgorin provided his usual dice-rolling skills and neutral commentary. After the games cleared, Dan and I worked for another hour on the SaP rules, and we wrapped it up around 7:30. We will resume the SaP CG next month.

[Author]

Posts