Follow-up to J106 AAR

Nick Drinkwater

Hi Eric,(I posted this to the community as I started to get a bit philosophical and I thought some might be interested - also, may be able to come to Austin in late Jan - see below).

Many thanks for the kind words - I try and give a bit of my (admittedly) somewhat laymans view of the scenarios and the tactical options I've taken, as well as an interesting summary of the action as it happened without going into the intricacies of every die roll. I freely admit that I'm never going to be as analytical of the game, the terrain and the percentages as some who have more chess-like brains than me, and due to the nature of life at the moment, I'm always going to be a little ring rusty after several weeks of non- play due to work-requirements, followed by an intense burst of ASL- ness, before going dormant again. I wish I could play more and on a more regular basis but c'est la vie. So, in an effort to retain a slightly broader view of the game in the AARs, I always try and identify the high and low(!) lights of the scenario, and those key passages of play which strongly influenced either my decisions or the final result; this being a dice-based game, this will always include those outrageous moments of good and bad fortune that we all suffer in this most addictive of pastimes - this is something I think every player can empathise with as we've all been there at one time or another.

The other thing I try and do is always keep an eye on those small and big things I've learned during the scenario as I am keen to try and improve my general gameplay - I've had many useful feedbacks from Zeb in particular (Thankyou, oh mighty Zen Master!) who has been great in showing me when I've sharked people on some critical 'buried in the rule minutiae' rules-slip. I personally think his AARs are outstanding, but I think quality AARs is a trend that reflects well on Texas ASL with the recent amusing efforts by Tom and the brilliant illustrated AAR by Matt showing this so well. Thanks to the guys for their effort with the Banzai Blog, which is an innovative way of getting this work by so many into the public domain.

I would love to play you FTF, as, as you have noticed I don't really do VASL - I live in central Houston, but it may be that for the last weekend in January I may be free to come to Austin for a long weekend of gaming if anyone's up for it, as my wife's probably going to be away that weekend - I can't fully commit to this yet as we haven't booked any tickets and work has not decided on it's 2007 plan for me yet, but it could be possible and it would be great to catch up and push cardboard. Hopefully yourself, Zeb or some of the others may be able to just make a provisional note in your diaries?

Hope this catches you well - new AAR sometime this week as I'm trying to stem Stephane's russian horde in J110 Prelude to Spring this afternoon - a forlorn cause if ever there was one!

My upper lip is the definition of "stiff" - comes in the genes, old boy!

Cheers

Nick