Snakey Pete's ASLOK AAR Part 5

synicbast

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Saturday 9th October

Where the hell have the last 7 days gone? It's a Saturday morning I'm up ready to go straightaway and i get paired against Kevin Meyer again in the last PTO Mini - well at least i know this game is going to be fast and furious ...

2.5 hours later and I'm out of another mini, only this time Kevin goes on to win the whole thing! Seizing the Sittang Bridge, another Schwerpunkt design and it could be one of the last Schwerpunkt non-SK board scenarios I play (I bought that Rallypoint issue for a reason). Anyway i had a faint chance to win if i'd set up and executed the twin Banzais in the right order and with the right units...twasn't to be and Kevin deservedly won.

Great game, great opponent. So out of the four PTO minis I'd played, two of my first round opponents went on to win the mini and I played one of them in consecutive minis. I don't feel I disgraced myself even though I was now 2 and 13 for ASLOK and 0 and 4 for minis.

I was however totally gamed out, so I spent the rest of the day in a fugue state staring at the ASL crack I'd obtained from Alex Keys. The man is pure evil allowing me to buy all that stuff. Actually it wasn't so much gamed out as wondering how the hell I was going to get all the asl crack into my luggage.

Then Steve Linton came up with the idea of staging a Sunday mini for the those still jonesing for a plaque (Bret still had one left) but with entry limited to those with no outstanding minis games (which eliminated Cleavin from signing up and winning another plaque) - for while we had JR Tracy on tap to play but in the event he went back to Noo Yawk...

Sunday 10th October
Steve Linton and I were paired up for the single elim game to find out who would play Nigel Blair for the plaque. We played SP186 Beaufort's Feast (Out damn' Schwerpunkt, out I say!) and I got so wound up worrying about interdicting the evil french infantry with my Panzer IIIs I left them in harms way of the Somuas. Of course that really didn't matter as I managed to critical hit one Somua and went ahead and diced Linton throughout the game despite losing my OBA with out it even getting a chance to get radio contact.

I had to stay out of Linton's reach after the game, my dice weren't just smoking hot they were core-temp white as I went past 50 snakes for ASLOk by the time I rolled a snakes in the last CC phase to sleaze out a win. OMFG I've won a game in a mini! 3 and 13 for ASLOK, 1 and 4 for minis.

On to the Final against Nigel, who'd had a bad run at ASLOK until the Grofaz started where he went 2 and 0 to begin with and lost in a mini final. Nigel had already heard all about my dice, Linton hadn't exactly been backward about this although by this stage i was boring everybody with my dice stories as well, so he was hoping that my streak would have run dry now.

We played AP53 Far from Home, a scenario I think is a great one to finish ASLOK on a Sunday.
Not only did my streak not end it got even more obscene as I was just getting warmed up with 3 s and 4 helped by the odd snakes or five, and Nigel couldn't buy a roll less than 10! It got so bad I swapped dice, tried rolling in a cup as opposed to a dice tower, I even started using Nigel's unlucky dice which promptly rolled one 11 for me then picked up my karma again.

It came down to one final close combat roll almost in identical fashion to the game against linton and sure enough, snakes!

So here i am at my first ASLOK and I won a Mini! Okay it was an abbreviated one of two games duration and Linton reckons the plaque should be awarded to my dice not me, which I reckon leaves me still eligible for the Biggest Loser mini in 2013 in that case. :D

Well there had to be one more game of ASL in all three of us, so it came down to a winner takes all game of Dogs of War! I got picked on horribly by Blair and Linton but to be honest it was all great fun. Even traces of hot dice could save my feral SS from dying in Drives and Linton walked away as the partisan player with one last Mini plaque (Bret had scrounged another one that needed to be gotten rid of)

Final Thoughts
I've been gaming for 35 years in both miniatures and boardgames. I've played competition miniatures events that wereso cutthroat and unpleasant I've lost friends and opponents and I was one of the less obnoxious competition players. The ASL community can be incredibly *****y online but over the tabletop they're some of the best people I've met.

I had an absolute blast at ASLOK. It was a real pleasure meeting so many good people and I made some good friends. I'm already hanging out for 2013 although I may get to Chicago for the Open before then. Thanks to everyone at ASLOK, but particularly to Bret for organising this, Bob Homstrom and Jim Burris for the jetlagged evenings, Fort for "That Game", Scott 'tabby' Holst for being such a good sort. Oh hell, thanks to everyone I met and played. You made my first ASLOK one hell of a special memory!

Snakey Pete - Back for 2013.
 

rottenroller

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Enjoyed playing you and reading your AARs.
See you next year at ASLOK.

Kevin
 

synicbast

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I've finally found most of the Photos I took at ASLOK - there are some major gaps -mainly cause I was so busy playing I forgot to take pictures plus when games were only lasting 2.5 hours the pace sort of prohibited camerawork:

ASLOK XXV Photos
 
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