This past weekend was one for the record books. Dan Best and I would get in 6 games over three days and 5 of these would be face to face here in Tulsa. August is anniversary time for us as well. In August of 2016, I traveled up to Kansas City for a games day at the Hollis Center. It was first the time Dan and I had played since our first game against one another at the 2013 Texas Tournament. At the conclusion of that games day, Dan and I agreed to start playing every Saturday using Cardboard via SKYPE. The rest is of course history. We've played 367 games since that fateful day. And honestly, they have been pretty epic for the most part. In that time, I have learned to play DTO, Night, Beach Landings, and PTO without any fear. There's literally (almost) nothing that we want play. There are a few HASL's that I don't own, so those won't grace the playing board, but otherwise, just about any publisher, theater and nationality is fair game.
2013 Texas - the first game. A Winter Melee with Doyle Motes, Mike Bistodeau and Dan Best. A fantastic first tournament game and experience that took me down an ASL path, I could not have ever imagined. Next year will be the 10th anniversary of that event and I'm looking forward to be in Texas once again. I'm not the same player that attended that first tournament. I still roll like crap...so that hasn't changed...
Here are the 6 Games that Dan and I would play this past weekend:
No Time To Bleed FrF65 = Dan would win ROAR = 23 German / 35 Russian Wins
Red Don ASL 278 = I would win ROAR = 16 Russian / 25 Italian Wins
The Army at the Edge of the World = Dan would win ROAR = 1 Vichy / 1 Japanese
Hey, Mac! ASL 019 = Dan would win ROAR = 1 American / 0 Japanese
Schloss Bübingen SP29 = I would win ROAR = 25 American / 30 German
Our Place in the Sun ASL 253 = Dan would win ROAR = 5 Italian / 3 Ethiopian
**The bold/underlined is the side which won our games.
Dan would win 4 and I would 2. And as happy as I was to have Dan visit and to be playing ASL...I was just not particularly happy with the scenarios. The defender won in each case. It you were attacking you were losing...in direct contradiction of that worn out maxim..."If you are Prep Firing you are losing" (sarcasm intended). Movement in these games was tough and especially so in the DTO and PTO scenarios. In fact, Our Place in the Sun was an absolute misery to play because of the ridiculous terrain limitations. I was a bit chippy about it on the ASL Archive and rated it a 1, which I honestly never do. But that final scenario of the 6 just left me with a lot of disgust and bad feeling about the game in general.
I'm simply not a fan of terrain that requires 4 or more MP to move one hex and that CX's your squads in the Advance Phase. It drags the game down...
I'd like to tell you that I had a favorite scenario, but I didn't have one. None of these 6 was a tight contest, except perhaps Schloss Buebingen. The rest were clearly over halfway through the game. The reasons for that are varied...some of it was clearly the scenarios themselves...but as always poor tactics and worse die rolls would be my chief afflictions. My first DR on Friday was Boxcars and in the first 1-1/2 turns of our Sunday game, I would roll four boxcars and kill 2 full squads and give Dan 4 CVP in a game where I only had 15 CVP available. I would also MALF my ARTY and then destroy it to give Dan another 2 CVP - 6 of my 15 CVP would be self-inflicted...another aspect of ASL, which I am rather vocal about hating.
I love ASL...but it has a heavy dose of sadomasochism.
A quick heads-up, tonight's blog will be blog lite, with not much AAR and a lot of whining.
Yeah....but boxcars...!!!
Alright...alright...my bad...
(side note...still hasn't played all published ASL Scenarios...)
Our first game would be Friendly Fire's FfF64 No Time to Bleed. Dan would be the defending Russians and I the attacking SS Leibstandarte. Even with 2 x Tigers and 2 x Panthers...I would completely blow this scenario and have my a$& handed to me. This game was one I was really excited to play until I actually played it...then I wish I had played Battlefield V instead.
I would set up my 9-1 in the road with both MMG's to plaster the Russians in the X1 building. My first roll..."boxcars". I had a 22 +1 shot...and did nothing but MALF an MMG, which would be lost upon rolling a 6 on the Repair dr. Words always escape me when this crap happens. All I ever want from ASL is a fair chance to succeed. Bad die rolls matter and mess this game up from time to time. And the other bad part...is that my personal ELR plummeted. As I told Dan in our postgame wrap up...I checked out with that first boxcars. I know shouldn't have let it bother...but it did.
Dan's first reinforcements arrive on Turn 1. I hadn't gotten very far on the map. I made a crucial error of entering buttoned up. This was probably a game losing decision. I needed to make tracks across the map and had no surrendered the board to Dan.
I would move up my Panthers to engage the Hull down SU-85's. Dan would miss with his first shot and then get a crit hit on Intensive Fire, which would destroy the first of my Panthers. And it should immediately be clear that the dice rolls that each player were getting couldn't be more different. I would destroy one of the offending SU-85's with a Panzerfaust. This would be my only success of this game.
Dan did everything right and his dice backed up. I did everything wrong and my dice backed that up. I think this is a good scenario and would love to play it again in the hopes that my dice would work with me a bit more.
The first of our Saturday games (we would play four) would be ASL Scenario 278 Red Don. This Mark Pitcavage classic has the Italians defending a frozen river from a horde of angry Russians. This would be my second playing of the scenario and second as the defending Italians. This is a very tough scenario for the Russian player. Our playing would bear that quite well.
The Russians have 20 squads with 4 officers to make the assault. The Italians defend with 11 squads and 4 officers.
Our game space for the weekend...at Casa de Grumble Jones.
Our playing of Red Don would end by Turn 4 as Dan would give the concession. This is one of those scenarios, where things can go bad and stay bad. In our game, the Italian OBA was the decisive factor. It would destroy the primary Russian attack force and create two breaks in the ice...one of which took a Russian squad to an icy death. Dan would get a couple of squads across the river, but he lacked the ability to reinforce that success. So I would have my first win of the weekend.
Our third game of the weekend would be ASL 246 The Army at the Edge of the World. Designed by Laurent Closier, this scenario pits Vichy French in a border fort against advancing Japanese.
The Vichy control the high ground. And the Japanese get to move into the shooting gallery...er...valley...yeah valley...VALLEY of DEATH...excuse me...I got a bit excited there. The Japanese player can win by controlling the French fort hexes or by controlling the road with no good order French MMC's on or adjacent to it at game end. The French have 13 squads with 2 MMG's an 81 MTR and 60 MTR. A 9-2 officer adds impressive leadership as well. The Japanese have 19 squads and 2 x MMG's. Range would the decisive factor in this game along with the better positions of the Vichy.
I would elect to send blocking forces towards the flanking hills and then sending my primary force up the road to secure it and then hold off all French forces. I would not go for the fort.
Dan was in the best position ever. His 9-2 was raking me with his 2 x MMG's and the 81 and 60 MTR's were absolutely annihilating me..."hit with rate" "hit with rate" "hit with rate"...it was frankly awful.
Pretty much...
THE POWER OF DIET MOUNTAIN DEW COMPELS YOU!!!
We played this game all the way to the final Japanese turn. That was probably a bit silly as I had been thrashed badly...but I hung in there and played it to the bitter end. I would destroy Dan's eastern platoon, but that's was small consolation. I had been devastated by Dan's mortars and machine guns. Dan rushed off the hill and got several units adjacent to the road. I tried to get at them on the final turn, but was shot down. Dan would win his second game of the weekend. Dan 2 - Grumble Jones 1.
It was...I should have conceded on Turn 4!!!!
Our 4th game of the weekend (3rd on Saturday) would be my least favorite of the six we played. We would play ASL Scenario 019 Hey, Mac! from the new Special Ops 10 magazine. Designed by Ken Dunn, this is a dense jungle expedition with a variable Move First. The players roll a die and the result allows one or the other player to decide whether to move first and have their opponent pick the side or pick the side they want to enter from and go second. As the Japanese, I would win the roll and pick the wrong side to attack the hill from and allow the Americans to go first.
Word to the wise...picking the side is the most important decision you will make in this game regardless of which side you play. I messed up and chose the north side as it looked better with the trails. It's not the right side to attack from. The terrain is just a misery and you can't make any progress. If you attack from the south, you can be in victory locations on Turn 1 and in control, un-CX'd and concealed by Turn 2. And then you just wait for your opponent to move adjacent to you. It's also way better to be the Americans with the better fire power and 3 extra squads to work with.
Dan would dig in and wait for me to arrive on the scene.
PTO and DTO scenarios involve much more rules reading than other theaters.
Dan was in position and his last group of reinforcements were ready to enter the battle. I was still lagging back on the trail.
Dan's boys waited patiently for me to arrive.
The CX's tell the story of how difficult board 39 is to move on.
The challenge for me was trying to figure out how to move into contact without being CX and somehow staying concealed. Not easy to do.
And keep in mind the Japanese are 2nd Line...so do not get to be stealthy. Bummer...I'm always not getting the benefits of being Japanese when I have them.
After a couple turns of battering myself against Dan's defenses, my force was pretty much wasted. I had not fared well in the hand to hands. Then Dan's stacks were hitting me with 24 factor shots that further destroyed my force.
It was really no surprise that I was being decimated. I had made the wrong choice at the beginning of the game and was paying a heavy price for a poor decision.
Final shot...the stack is so high because of all the unpossessed machine guns in the hex from dead Americans and Japanese. The game would end with all Japanese dead except the broken half squad in U8. So Dan would notch yet another win in a game that really wasn't in doubt. Lots of people enjoy scenarios like this...I'm not one of them.
So after four games it was Dan with 3 wins and Grumble Jones with 1.
After three games, we took a break for pizza and then a walk around the neighborhood. My wife would join us to get in some steps before starting our 4th and final game of Saturday.
Our 5th game of the weekend would be Schwerpunkt Scenario SP29 Schloss Buebingen. Designed by Evan Sherry, this scenario is set in 1945 Germany as Panzergrenadiers attempt to hold an observation post in Schloss Buebingen from a determined American assault. The Germans have 5-1/2 squad vs. 6-1/2 American squads. The German Half-Squad gets to set up HIP in an upper level of the Schloss. A squad of Americans also begin the game in the Schloss. The Americans would win at Game End if there were no unbroken German MMC in any hexes of building N4 (Schloss Buebingen). Hence the importance of the HIP German half-squad. I would reveal and fire the 2-4-7 during the game. It seemed a bit too sleazy to win the game because you hid the on HIP squad.
Not a lot to really cover about this particular game. Its 4-1/2 turns long, so the Americans don't have time to waste. They have to clear the fortified ground level start busting up the Germans. And keep in mind, the victory conditions clearly state unbroken units...not good order, which means should the game end with Germans in Melee...then a Germany victory would be at hand.
Dan's 155 would hit me with some Willy Pete, but would struggle to do much else during the game. Dan's infantry would sweep in the north and east. I would bust up his initial attacks, but he would manage to breach a location with a DC and enter from the north end. His flamethrower squad would struggle and ultimately be casualty reduced. My boys would successfully hold out for the win.
So as Saturday came to a close, it was Dan with 3 wins and Grumble Jones with 2 wins.
Sunday morning would dawn with a breakfast courtesy of my wife, before Dan and I set to playing our 6th and final game of the weekend. The final scenario would be ASL Scenario 253 Our Place in the Sun. This is a tough scenario with very challenging terrain. Designed by Rick Thomas, it depicts the efforts of the Italians to secure the summit of Amba Augher from the defending Ethiopians. The Ethiopians get two HIP squads and 8 caves. I hate both HIP and Caves. I really do.
The Italians have to cross the largely open desert and then assault the very tough terrain of Board 25. The Italians have 19 squads vs. 16 Ethiopians. The Italians have a 75* ARTY as well as two 1939 Fighter Bombers. The Ethiopians are largely hidden at game start in their caves. Range and Fire Factors are so low that this game is primarily a move to contact, which favors the Ethiopians. They are HIP in their caves and can ambush unsuspecting Italians and they get a -1 in CC. ROAR shows this scenario to be Pro-Italian...but I wasn't the good kind of Italian player.
So the very first turn, Dan takes a 1 -2 shot and manages a one check. I roll back to back 12's and would then roll 12's again trying to rally each of the half-squads. Just like that I handed Dan 4 CVP. I had a 15 CVP Cap. Go over that and it was game over. I had rolled 4 Boxcars in 1-1/2 turns and killed two of my own squads. These are the moments, when you hate this game. And honestly, I was checked out of this game at that point. It had become a pointless exercise in moving over difficult terraina against an opponent with very little firepower. There was very little shooting. I didn't have much better firepower myself. So it was just a lot of excruciatingly slow movement which required my Italians to be CX too much of the time. Dan would spring ambushes from his two HIP units as well as boys in the caves. I would lose squads to these ambushes. I would also MALF my ARTY...because of course I did. I would then destroy it with a 6 Repair dr. That would hand Dan another 2 points.
Gotta to be honest....I was damn tired of rolling my crappy dice.
The final picture that I took before reaching the 15 CVP Cap and an Ethiopian Victory. Dan is a maste of HIP units and Caves. I would move up the hill CX, which also deprived me of the available MP to conduct searches and reveal caves. So I was ambushed repeatedly and Dan won the game by killing my boys in these ambushes. I would take two victory locations, but once I had hit the 15 CVP Cap, that was game. And glad I was to be done. Our final game would be the least fun of all the games...and unfortunately, not many of them had been fun. We just didn't have the close games, where we both felt like we had to chance to win at the end. These games were all pretty much decided long before they ended.
So, our fantastic ASL Face to Face Tulsa Tourney had come to an end. Despite all my grousing, it really was a fun weekend of ASL. Dan would finish with 4 wins to my 2. Of course, getting to play 6 games of ASL on a weekend made us both winners!!
My thanks to Dan for making the long trip to Tulsa and for six great games. No matter the results or the scenarios, it's always a great time!
Dan and I will take a break next weekend,
and we will return on September 10th!
We will see you then!
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