Westchester
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| Rob Seulowitz, our man in Westchester |
WO'00 was an absolute blast - a non-stop roller-coaster of fun and probably the best time any in Bowie Maryland ever had in their lives. MMP brought the show back to the Comfort Suites in Bowie, which is a comparatively comfortable hotel by gaming con standards despite lacking it's own restaurant. Fortunately, a stone's throw away is the local Bob Evans, where you can get a tasty heap of cholesterol with a coke and fries for under $7. (Fried pork sammiches - yum!)
Despite rumors of snow, which kept the faint-hearted wussies of New England away (a fact for which they should hang their fat heads in shame), I had a pleasant, precipitation-free trip down Friday morning and arrived in time to lunch with some old chums before engaging in combat. All the MMP dudes were in attendance, including the Littlest MMPer, Mike Reed, now Playtesting Poobah and Official Reciter of Film Dialog for ASL.
However, the star of the show was Journal Part Deux, and it is a lovely, lovely thing indeed. A crisper production job and full HASL module mark this is a step beyond the Annuals of yore. Two - count 'em 2! - sheets of die-cut counters accompany this prestigious publication, including reprints of previously released counters needing corrections. The HASL is "Kakazu Ridge," featuring a beautiful map by Don Petros - perhaps his best to date - and five scenarios by Dan Dolan covering the action.
The Ridge didn't get much play over the con - who wants to learn cave rules on the fly? - but most of the other scenarios did. Everywhere you looked, people were playing the new Journal scenarios and comparing notes. Here's a quick rundown on the scuttlebutt I picked up (an * indicates that I've played it myself):
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J19 Merzenhausen Zoo *
This could become a classic; one of several scenarios picked up from the
"Hell on Wheels" pack and one of the best scenarios to use board 10 in
a long while plus a wealth of toys and a tough strategic nut to crack. 18
Yank squads with a few Shermies and a trio of Crocs (!) have to take 60% of the
stone locations from a mixture of 548s and 447s with some TDs, reinforced by
some men and a pair of King Tigers at the halfway mark. My guess is it's
hard on the Germans, and requires a very, very carefully planned defense.
Everything hangs on holding a defensible perimeter until the reinforcements
arrive - most players with the Germans may give up too early. This was one
most of the guys wanted to try at home - it's a bit big for a tourney.
It's definitely a must-play.
J20 The Guns of Naro *
Another repub from "HoW," the few changes don't alleviate the
problem of the Yank CVP cap, which puts this one soundly in the camp of
"Fun to Play But You Can't Win It" scenarios.
J21 Scobie Preserves
A DASL scuffle between Indians and Commie Greek Partisans (!!!), I actually
saw some guys playing this, Sunday morning at 4AM. Some people will do
anything for ASL.
J22 Oh Joy *
A bizarre Russian counterattack in Stalingrad: the Reds, with nearly a 1:1
ratios of Leaders to Squads and a nearly unkillable OT-34, have to find and hold
some Trenches on a little-utilized corner of the RB map. Very fun, very
tough for the Germans. Two hints: #1:
Read the RB CG SSRs!! #2: In a scenario where CVP counts, NEVER try to
rally troops with a Commissar!
J23 Kampfgruppe at Karachev *
Yer basic "Russians pour out of the woods and kill lots of
Germans" kinda thing. I started a playtest of this with Carl Fago
about six hundred years ago. Looks pretty much the same. If you're
willing to risk bog rolls and plow through the woods, you can kick ass with the
Rooskies, but if you let the Germans keep you busy in the bottleneck, you're
doomed.
J24 Smashing the Third
More from Chas Smith of Bounding Fire, this time it's late war Russians
holding off a flood of PzIVHs and elite Nazis. This got a lot of play, and
comments tended toward the highly favorable. The Germans get VP for
exiting units and for building control (in addition to CVP), so they have the
advantage of staying or leaving.
J25 The Weigh In
A "Doomed Battalions" cast-off, this depicts a horde of German AEs
with those crappy 1939 tanks pounding on a Polish village. The Poles have
the advantage of a CVP cap, so the trick here is to kill them crappy German
tanks, which can't be too hard to do with 2 37Ls and 2 75 ARTs!
J26 Round Two
Also from the DB wanna-bes, these Poles get a 10-2 (how'd they lose the
war??) but only one of those damned 37Ls against a slew of German tin cans and
early SS 468s. Again, the Poles have the CVP cap on their side to close
the gap.
J27 High Tide at Heiligenbeil *
A fun puzzle from Bounding Fire: How do you take a building with 4
SU-76Ms? This one has to be played twice to get the hang of it; the Russian
setup and first two turns are critical. The second time around it's a much
closer fight.
J28 Inhumaine
The third from the "HoW" set, it looks hard as hell on the Germans
- how can they survive two Crocs on top of the 10 elite Yank squads with more SW
than they can carry? Still, this got great press from the folks I talked
to, so give it a try.
PB6a It's About Time
A Peg Bridge retread. My reaction is a big yawn, but if you liked the
map but didn't have time or inclination to play the CG, this is probably a good
bet for you.
J29 The Capture of Balta
Oh, Baby! Love those COI reprints, man. Look at all those 838s!
30 Russian squads! Roumanians! A classic like the don't make
anymore. (Plus a great breakdown article by the original 9-2, Jim Stahler.)
J30 Nocturnal Attrition
Kiwis slitting the throats of Daigos in Libya by moonlight. Rapture!
Saw a few people playing this one, and in two cases I heard the Italians won, so
it's on my must-play list.
J31 Lovat First Sight
Reprinted from the MMP handout of 1998; more replaying the PB CG without the
CG.
J32 Panzer Graveyard
Chas Smith again - those Bounding Fire guys are busy! - asking the musical
question, "How many Panzers does it take to kill 10 Brit 457s?"
His answer is 8. See if he's right! This got the most play of any of
the new scenarios, and everyone seemed to think it was pretty good.
J33 The Slaughterhouse
Yet another Rooskies-vs-Nazis in the City scenario (after those two big
HASLs, the Journal showed a real commitment to old-fashioned, meat-and-potatoes
ASL), a VERY late war action pits a rag-tag German force against some heavy
tanks and lots of 8-morale guys. The Reds have to control two different
buildings, though, so they'll need that morale.
J34 Men of the Mountains
A surprisingly popular choice by many WO players, this is Partisans vs
Italians on board 3. It allows for a Partisan Instant Win, so my guess is
it will come out heavily in their favor.
J35 Siam Sambal
The game played by JR Tracy and Aaron Cleavin in the final, this oddball entry
is hilariously entertaining to watch, but must played to be believed. Here are
Frogs with the marvelously horrible FT-17 tanks in tow trying to clear out a
force of Siamese (Chinese units) reinforced with Cavalry! And, hey!
The Siamese get AIR SUPPORT! (The Siamese had an airforce???) Cancel
your weekend plans, call someone with "Gung Ho!" and play this one
soon.
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My own games were largely unremarkable, except that in every case I had a good time and more energy was spent in making jokes and having fun than in whining about dice.
I finally got a little payback off Ross Sutton, who's whipped me twice without so much as a thank you note the next day, in "High Tide" - he realized too late that the SU's were no match for 12FP MG kill stacks and couldn't defend themselves from a prowling StuG while BU.
Later, Russ Bunten helpfully pointed out to me the mistakes I made in my set-up for "Merzenhausen Zoo" by killing my TDs and troops rapidly (Hint #3: Don't set up NT tanks in Bypass against more mobile opponents). I managed to PF most of his tanks into Standing Smoke Dispensers, but couldn't touch the nasty Crocs. I folded more due to sleep deprivation than anything else, but when your strategy rests on rolling 2's and 3's, it's time to put the counters away and shake the man's hand that beat you.
I also played a truly great scenario against Scott Holst, one of the Tactiques classics called "By St. Georges." In this, the French have a half dozen squads and a few of those ridiculous H39s to stop the Germans from exiting a force of tanks and truckfuls of Infantry across board 16. The Frogs do get one nice toy, the Canon Antichar de 47 SA mle 37 APX: this bad boy fires 47L APCR _only _ (with a ROF of 3) and can kill anything the Germans have with a single hit. Scott made the mistake of sending most of his tanks to stop it (usually after they gacked their MAs while boring themselves to death killing my crappy H39s), and at the end of the game this monster was surrounded by the burning hulks of 6 tanks that had come to visit and never left. It got so that the number of wrecks obscured my LOS to new targets.
Although I ended up winning the scenario, I lost a major moral victory to Scott late in the game that left me almost unable to carry on. I had one H39 parked on the road cutting off the route of Scott's trucks full of squads, and he had lost his best tanks to the 47L, so he drove a kuebelwagen towing a 37L right up to the tank - right up to the hex directly in front of it! In open ground! Right into the muzzle of this tank! - and unloaded the Gun.
I fired my dreaded 37* Gun: Pop! Nothing. I fired my fierce CMG at 4 -2: Ping! I fired my 9-2 with 2 squads from across the board: Pink! P'tang! I fired them again in my Prep: Pop! Ping! P'tang!
He calmly stood his ground and shot one round into the tank.
Hit it.
Killed it.
Now, I had started laughing when he stopped the little kuebelwagen in that hex and it dawned on my what he was going to do. By the time he killed the tank, it was all so hysterically funny, not to say so totally perfect, that I couldn't do anything but giggle myself silly.
I ended up 3-1, but that was only a side-show, because the REAL event this year, the MAIN TITLE MATCH wasn't even ASL. It was the running of the First Annual Winter Offensive 500.
Maryland is serious NASCAR country, and if you haven't seen the "Championship Racing" card game that all the MMPers play, complete with matchbox cars they call by the names of their real-life drivers ("Wonderboy" and "Earnhardt" and such), trust me, you will. Because MMP loves this game so much they might give up on ASL just to play it more.
The game simulates a NASCAR 100 to 500 mile race, with each player using cards from a hand of 7 to jockey for position: passing, changing lanes, and following in the wake of faster cars. It's designed to be played by 6-12 people (8 is ideal), but for the midnight game on Saturday night, we had 16 guys ready to go 500 laps!
Even New York jerks like me, who never drive and think NASCAR is what ESPN uses to fill gaps between golf tournies, can catch on to this game and get infected by it. After the first few laps, we'd all figured out how to use the outside lane, cooperate to close gaps and screw the guys ahead of us instead of the guys behind us. There is considerable strategy in the game, timing when you make a pit stop, using your cards wisely and knowing when to challenge someone trying to pass you and when to let them go.
Brian Youse was the first to wipe out, crashing into the wall when he challenged an early "nudge pass" and lost. Only one other driver spun out, and most of the other fourteen all had a share of first place at some point.
I hung with the middle of the pack for the majority of the game, then saw my opportunity in the final laps - but I had to be careful because I was running out of cards. I had managed to pull into second and was ready to take out the leader, with nothing but space behind me. Just as I was about to make my move, some Redneck (in Earnhardt's car, no less), stole my thunder, closed up the gap and sent me three positions back! I was doomed. I ended in 8th place and thoroughly disgusted. Curt Schilling took the cup - like he needs more prizes!
The game started at midnight and wrapped after 4:30 AM. By that time it was too late to go to bed and too early to get breakfast, so a bunch of us, including Russ, Curt, Mike Reed and John Appel, just hung out chatting about ASL, sports and all sorts of other stupid shit. Most of us went off for a plate of carbos and jug of coffee to get through one last Sunday game and then go home.
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As always, the best part of the WO experience is hanging with the people who come, telling old jokes, abusing each other's ability with dice and cardboard and insulting one another's parentage. The only low point was when Bob Lyman inflicted some bag-piping on us all for a few moments on Saturday (either that or they were strangling cats in the courtyard).
The DC Conscipts, John Appel, Bob Lyman, Ross Sutton, John Slotwinski, "Smasher" Carl Pressler, Chris Kavanagh, Dan Dolan, Lee Neeman (one of the few NE boys unfazed by the prospect of a few inches of wet snow), Carl Fago, J.R. VanMechelen, Bret Hildebran, Mike McGrath, my own 1-4-9 Hero J.R.Tracy, and even the Evil that Is Aaron Cleavin - these are all quality people and damned fine ASL players, and if you have an opportunity to spend an afternoon with them, even without a hex-grid mapboard between you, seize it.
+++ Dr. Robert, CNE, MDiv, MhD >>> Not insane. <<<
"The pseudoscientific world has responded by saying that at least three endorsements from independent crackpots are needed before anything can truly be called 'pseudo.'" - Steve Martin, "Mars Probe Finds Kittens" +++