The DFW ASL scene had an extraordinary game day in March.
Bob (Dutch) successfully defended the Chair against Ralph (Germans) in G7 Bring Up the Guns. The Germans have to exit some wagon towed guns to win. Ralph misjudged the range and lost some guns to low odds, long ranges shots. He was clearing the path to exit enough guns to win when a Sniper eliminated a Wagon, giving Bob a cheap win. Feel free to challenge Bob for the Chair next month.
Jim F. (Slovaks) played Matt (Hungarians) in O11 Short-Lived Offensive. Early on Matt burned one of Jim's Armored Cars in Bypass of a kill stack's building. Jim sent one of his own kill stacks into Melee against Matt's smoked in stack. The wreck's Blaze spread to the building then flared into a Blaze resulting in each side losing a chunk of their OB to the fire, something I have not seen before.. Using Prisoners to boost his CVP, Jim easily reached his VP total needed to win.
Jim C. (Germans) and Tracey (Americans) continued their SK journey into the finer points of Guns in S12 Over Open Sights. Jim had to eliminate or capture all three American Guns to win. Jim captured and then destroyed the two 105 ART about mid game but it wasn't looking good getting to the 155 ART. On his last turn, the crew was broken but still manning the gun. He had to eliminate the crew to give him a chance to capture the gun in the movement phase. He prep fired everything he but one squad, eliminating the crew on a final 8 +2 shot. The squad moved onto the gun, surviving all Tracey's Defensive fire (4 -2 shots [?]). Everything worked perfectly until he tried to recover the gun and rolled a 6, giving Tracey the win.
After Ralph's Sniper debacle, he challenged me to a game. We played BFP147 The Commissar's Folly from Poland in Flames. I got the attacking Russians and had to Capture 2 of 3 Stone/Wood buildings within 5 turns, a tough order as I had to take at least one 2 hex multi-level building. I split my forces to attack the two flank buildings, including the 1 hex multi-level victory building. The 1 hex building fell on Turn 2 when I was able to Smoke it and eliminate the defenders in Melee. On the other flank, I was 2 hexes away from another victory building with concealed units but Ralph was able to strip concealment on a 4 +2 shot. This stalled my advance. On Turn 3 he broke every unit close to my targeted building. I was in trouble, 2 turns to take a multihex stone/wood building and I had no one with in 3 hexes of either. Pulling out all the stops, I changed targets to the middle victory building. I was able to push a squad with a LMG into the wooden building between the Polish controlled victory buildings, which prevented him from moving reinforcements between them. Squads swarmed around my target building. It was occupied by a Polish squad and a crew with a HMG with broken units hiding upstairs. I had a squad go Berserk which could be useful getting into the furthest hex of the building. On the last turn, my Berserk died before it reached it target on a 16 -1 KIA. This kept me from tying up the Polish squad and moving another unit into position to advance into the hex and forcing the elimination of the upstairs broken units for failure to rout. I swarmed the HMG and eliminated it in Melee, but I failed to get ambush so wasn't able to infiltrate upstairs which would have probably also guaranteed victory. Ralph had the last move and had to hold on. He had ineffective Prep Fire then moved to be able to advance into the threatened building. I had to eliminate all the broken units and a Good Order squad to win. I broke the squad with 16 +3 shot but it needed to die or it would rout upstairs to maintain Control. I hit the upstairs broken units with an 8 +2 then a 12 +2 for no effect other than encirclement. My kill stack then hit them with a 16 +3 for a 2 MC. The leader passed but the squads were all reduced (I was hoping for a fatal leader wound which could have wiped all units out). I kept rate on the MMGs so hit them again with an 8 +3 which eliminated the broken MMCs but the SMC passed the 1 MC again. I had one more rate shot but it had no effect, giving Ralph a well fought win.
On the following day, Richard Jenulis from Seattle, was in town and Arlen graciously took up the challenge. They played J190 Trial Run. Arlen's Germans had a run of bad luck early on such as his MMG malfunctioning on its first shot which allowed Richard's Canadians to get across the stream. His Shermans arrived, ran a gauntlet of fire to position the Canadians to be able to exit enough for the win. Congratulations to Richard on his win and thanks to Arlen for upholding Texas hospitality
