ASL: "I Love the French!" A St. Louis ASL Tourney AAR To: ASL Subject: ASL: "I Love the French!" A St. Louis ASL Tourney AAR From: Robert Holmstrom Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 12:45:28 -0700 (PDT) I played in my first ASL tourney over the weekend--the St Louis ASL Tourney. 24+ guys from 8 different states showed up at the Kirkwood Inn to battle it out. Needless to say, much fun was had by all, and too much fun by some Saturday night. Round 1: "Wrong Battle" against William Sanders I was paired against William Sanders in my first game. We settled on 3 scenarios out of the 6 possible, and a dr gave us "Wrong Battle" which has a small german reconaissance force attempting to prevent a armored French cavalry unit from exiting/destroying 33 CVP. A dr gave me the French, and i decided to keep my 5 somua tanks surrounding my 7 trucks laden with infantry and make a dash toward the board edge trying not to shoot at all if possible. The somuas are worth 6 CVP each, so if i could get them all off plus one truck with a squad, i would win. William set a couple of squads up front, and it looked like his 2 tanks were set up in the rear. He also had a 47L AT gun somewhere, which was the only real threat to my thick hulled somuas. I moved my 2 tank platoons on first and VBM froze his forward units which tried to CC, but failed. The rest of my trucks and tanks cruised on by into the wheatfield, with my trucks remaining in motion. I kept this up, VBM freezing an infantry location and then moving my trucks by it, until turn 3 when i unloaded my infantry about 8 hexes from the board edge. That left me four turns to get them off. William had taken out two trucks and their infantry by this time and a somua with his stuka, but I'd gotten a couple of his squads, a leader, and a 37L AT gun and crew. I moved my somuas forward in an attempt ot get his two panzers hanging by the board edge. He maneuveered them around, bouncing a half dozen 37L shells off my tanks. He also uncovered his 47L AT gun, fired missed, intensive fired and broke it. I finally brewed up one of his tanks, and that was the ballgame. An interesting scenario, but one in which the German needs to get one or two good TK rolls in order to win. William didn't get a good TK roll. So i won my first touney game and was excited going into Saturday's 3 rounds. Round 2: "Witch's Cauldron" vs. Kurt Kurtz We both selected three scenarios, and "Witch's Cauldron" was the only one we matched. A dr gave me the French again. This scenario has a german truck and ht column in the middle of three boards. The French enters on one side with 10 tanks, a mixture of somuas and those 37 and 37* 4 boxed armored ones, H39's I think, and 5 squads and a 25LL AT gun. The german enters with 7 panzers, 5 with 37L's and 2 75*'s, in addition to their at start column. The french have to accumulate 5 more CVP than the german and have a tank on the middle board at game end. While i wanted to hammer the german column on the first turn before they can get away, i didn't have the MF's to get more than one platoon their without ESBing, and that was not worth the risk. So i set my somua platoon in the middle and had the H39's split to either side of the board. My infantry were unloaded on my left in the woods, and i set my 25LL up en portee to get a couple shots at the german column. My turn went fine and Kurt moved his tanks on board and set them up for some long range duels which he figured he had the better chance of winning. He then moved his trucks and halftracks to safety with the exception of his last one which i got a lucky hit with a 37* and burned it with a snakes TK. That gave me the 5 CVP i needed. On my turn 2, i backed my tanks away from the fight, using the Platoon Move sleeze. Kurt got a few shots away, but couldn't penetrate the thick skinned frenchies. I left my Somuas in the middle, as they had better chances of killing german tanks with little risk to themselves. On Kurt's turn 2, he prepped with most of his tanks, again, failing to secure a kill, and in my Def. Fire, I killed two panzers with some good dice rolls, giving me a 15-0 CVP edge, and Kurt threw in the towel. I know Kurt was not at his best, since his 1st round game kept him up until 3 or 4 am. Hope to play him again in the future when he is rested. A first for me at least, was that neither side's infantry ever fired a shot. So I was 2-0 and had won both games as the French! This was worth a bingo box. (We were using the ASL Bingo thingie which was a lot of fun. I highly recommend it to any tournament directors). Vive la roi!!! I'll take the French in any scenario from now on. No more French bashing from me. Round 3: "Strength through Unity" vs. Doug Kirk Round 3 had all quickie scenarios, and Doug and I settled on this one. This was an important game for me, as Doug and I had played twice before with Doug winning both games and I didn't want to lose a third and be "owned" by him. A dr gave me the germans, and i had to prevent Doug's Belgians from getting 10 CVP of infantry past row CC. My force consists of 6.5 squads, a mmg, lmg, 50 mortar, 8-1 and 8-0 leaders. Doug's Belgians consist of 12 squads, many of whom are green, 8-0 leader, and a 9-2 leader. I think the set up for the germans is pretty standard in this one, as one guy told who had finished it already told me he set up the exact same way: mmg and 8-1 in the right hand woods, lmg and 7-0 in the left hand woods, a couple of blockers in the middle of the grain. Doug moved on board with a couple of scout halfsquads. I took some pot shots with my mortar with no effect, then he moved his 9-2 with a mmg and squad on. I fired, got a 1MC, and Doug snakes his MC with the 9-2! HOB makes this guy berserk and he fails to bring the squad with him, and the squad breaks. That was basically the ball game. The 9-2 ran forward and got killed, and my fire lanes kept him from getting enough GO Belgians through the wheat field. That's the problem with these small scenarios. One bad key dice roll can mean the game. So I was 3-0, and had prevented Doug from owning me. I was feeling pretty good until Jim Burris, who organizes and runs the event, told me my next opponent would be Paul Sidhu. Oh well, I couldn't really expect to win my first ASL tournament could I? In only my 14th month of playing ASL? Round 4: "Steamrollers" vs. Paul Sidhu I had actually played Paul once last August. I nearly beat him as the Russians in "The Slaughterhouse." But only because I diced him, and it says a lot (or a little) if you dice someone and still lose. We chose "Steamrollers," another TPP scenario--I don't think i played an official scenario the whole tourney. i won the dr, and chose the russians. The russians have 2 IS-2's 3 IS-122's 2 T-34's, and 7 6-2-8's with which they have to clear a two hex radius of german MMC's. Paul's germans consisted of 6 squads, 2 King Tigers, a 75LL assault gun, and a Mark IV. I entered my main force on my left and the T-34's and a IS-2 on the right to try and flank the germans. Paul got one of my IS-2's on the first turn with a long range turret hit (turret hits are needed to kill these thick skinned beasts). Paul Platoon sleazed his tanks out of LOS on his turn (to Paul's credit, he asked me before the scenario if I was opposed to the Platoon Sleaze. While I think it is a silly rule, it is still a rule--for now--and part of the game. I use it myself). After this, things just got ridiculous. Paul couldn't miss, and I couldn't roll anything. I didn't pass a morale check, with 8 morale troops mind you, until turn 5 and then I passed one when I didn't want to (more on that latter). It got so bad, Paul and I both couldn't help but laugh at it as Paul would need a "3" turret hit on a BFF shot and would get it or I would need "9"'s to rally two squads and fail both rolls. I kept playing to try and get Bingo slots, but even then my luck would fail me as I needed to break a squad with the backblast from a captured panzershreck--which took me four rolls to pick up, a "6" in Paul's rally phase, a "6" in my rally phase, a "6" in my movement phase, and finally picking it up in my advance phase--and passed my MC denying me a Bingo Slot, this was the first MC I passed the whole game! Oh well, Paul would've probably beaten me anyway without the good/bad dice rolling. He ended playing Wes Vaughan for the title and won. I stayed up til 4:00am Saturday, drinking beer and whiskey with some of the guys, Randi Rossi (sp?), Jim Burris, Doug Kirk, Steve Brasseur, Tim Border, and Ryan. Had a great time, but didn't blink my eyes until 9:30 the next morning and missed my chance to get 3rd Place, as Doug Kirk and William Sanders, both 3-1, played, with Doug getting 3rd Place. Congratulations to Paul Sidhu, Wes Vaughan, and Doug Kirk. Thanks to all my opponents. And special thanks to Jim Burris who did a wonderful job putting together the tournament. He had great prizes, a really cool scenario list for each round, and nice looking t-shirts. The ASL Bingo was great, but I'll have to slip him a $20 next year to pair me against someone other than Paul Sidhu, so I have half a chance to win it. Bob Holmstrom