ASLOK Friday

Friday morning brought the Schwerpunkt mini. I drew a first round match up against Bostonian Tim Kelly. We chose the curiously named SP179 Brittany Speared.

This may have been another case of gaining an advantage on the pre-game "dice for sides" roll. I drew the attacking Americans, who are tasked with clearing the Germans from two of the three low hills.

Tim quite properly conceded the near hill (with the exception of lone squad left behind to be a nuisance).

After that, I lost a Sherman to the AT gun on turn 3, and my infantry (particularly the flanking force) basically got their butts kicked by the German mortar for four turns. Still, a good rally phase gave me enough to sweep the German positions from the hill on the American right.

2-3

In round two I drew the gracious Anthony Flanagan, who had just eeked out a round one victory. We chose the east front scenario Tisza Tease. I again drew the attacker, the Germans.

My task was to cross board 57/44 the long way, and get 24 VP exited from the far edge. I should have known where this one was heading when I broke the main armaments on two of my 3 PzIVs in the advancing fire phase of turn one. Fortunately, both Panthers remained functional. Anthony malfed the gun on his T-34 on his first shot a turn later.

On Panther got into a game long shooting match with a SU-85 hull down behind a wall. The SU has a hard time penetrating the panther armor, and the panther conversely kept putting rounds into the wall. A comedy of errors.

Afraid of the ticking clock I tried to get an infantry laden halftrack past the SU. That ended badly. With Anthony's MG position in the center of town mauling my infantry, we called this one on turn four.

2-4

It was a bit after eight o'clock when Kevin Meyer talked me into one more. Not wanting to take on anything too large at that hour we chose SP173 Der Letzte Geburtstag.

Kevin's attacking Russians passed all of their turn one morale checks, even getting two Battle Hardening results, with a hero to boot. I conversely failed every MC I took. With only five squads in the German OB, it soon became a rout. Well, I did say "it has to be something small".

2-5

Time to hit the bar.