Nor'Easter 2019 Recap

davegin

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Well one day after returning from Kansas City and March Madness, I was off to Fairhaven, Mass for the next tournament.
Arrived after a long eleven hour drive early Wens. evening and although there were plenty of players available, I decided to forego a tune up to catch up on sleep. Thursday morning saw the beginning of open play but I had promised Diane, who made her first and last trip to an ASL event, that we would drive up to Provincetown for lunch and a sight see. (She used to vacation there 25 or so years ago). Well, as it turns out, everything is closed there until April and it was a veritable ghost town. Drove back had dinner and sat down to a fun game of Americanskaya Suka with Rob Arrietta. This was a great fun tuneup with Rob taking the defending Germans and I the attacking Russians. I quickly secured the needed victory building forcing Rob to counter attack. This was great fun and went back and forth but we decided to call it around midnight as Carl was waiting to lock up the room and we were keeping him up.
Thursday morning saw the start of the main tournament and I was matched up with Chuck Tewksbury, as previously arranged, in A Hard Rains Gonna Fall. Fun scenario with a great player saw me attacking with the Brit against his defending Japanese. Right down to the wire as Chuck did everything possible to block my exit but I managed to squeak out the win on the last turn. This was aided by two 8-1 leader creations on self rallies, a rare oddity for me. That afternoon, I advanced to the second round against the formidable although self admittedly rusty, Joe Markham. We choose Engineering Defeat with Joe taking the German against my defending Poles. Joes attack up the middle was spot on but my goal of holding onto all four buildings til my reinforcements arrived was accomplished. Joe made a hard push for the two buildings on the right on turn 5, but a lucky ambush in the wood building cost him although the center stone would fall. However, with the reinforcements in place, Joe would find it almost impossible to cross the last street to assault the remaining building he needed. Fate almost turned the battle his way when his sniper took out my 10-1, but the Poles rallied to stave off the final assault. Round three found me matched up on Friday morning with the always dangerous Michael Rodgers. We choose the YASL offering Making a Break For it as it was the only choice I had never played. I defended with the German against a determined Brit OB. Michael attacked through the woods which I had anticipated. I played a fall back defense laying lines of residual and then falling back behind a new line of concealed units. Michael continued to push forward albeit slowly and by the 6th turn I was fully ensconced at the rear of the board with four fire lanes and four concealed half squads. This left Michael with no choice other than to run through three to four open ground hexes that would be littered with -1 (because of the LV) shots at every one of his units. With his probability reduced to near zero, Michael graciously conceded. Great playing and great fun. So after three rounds, I had made it to the top four along with Steve Pleva, Gary Mei, and Ron Duenskie. I was matched against Ron, it is my strategy to bitch about every roll to give my opponent a sense of false security, Duenskie in Old Friends. I defended with the German. Ron was stymied at the beginning as I quickly destroyed three of his AFVs, but his constant aggressiveness paid off in the end. The turning point was when one of his AFVs which had been stunned by a sniped earlier and dove into a woods hex rolled three on an APCR attempt and followed with a three on the hit taking out the Panther defending my left flank. This AFV was later recalled due to another sniper attack. A turn six shower of low roll attacks by Ron on my final defenders forced me to attack with my remaining AFVs. My panther failed to hit his infantry at point blank range and then again on intensive fire. My 16 FP mgs rolled too high to affect. I charged the PIVj to overrun the squad attempting to take his last needed VC building but he hit it with an APCR round on a needed to hit of three and removed the challenge. Having failed to rally a single squad on my last turn, I conceded before the hotel management shot us both for disturbing the peace. Great game and always fun to tangle with the New Jersey Devil. Sunday morning and wanting to get in a quick one before the long trip back to Cleveland, I was matched with Gary Mei, who had lost to Steve, in the battle for third place. Against my better judgement, we choose Schwerpunks Non-stop Ghurkas as it was the fastest scenario. I was attacking with the Japanese while Gary defended with the Ghurka. I should have known how this would end when I rolled consecutive tens on smoke attempts, and only got one WP, which was my last available, one the first prep fire. I had a good attack going with a two squad banzai on turn two but Gary rolled a four on his twelve down two shot at the one and a three on his thrown demo on the other. He had four of his needed eleven points already. In an overrun attempt against his lone concealed unit on my left he produced a piat and killed the one Chi-Ha. A banzai to his middle defenders killed his two 1/2 squads, while I moved my 10-1 with three squads around to his rear. With two turns to go I drove a tank into bypass of the one VC building he had defended and then moved my three squads and leader adjacent. My advance fire pinned his squad. My advance, I moved the two squads into the unoccupied VC building and the 10-1 and squad into the defended VC building. I won the ambush roll and needed merely an eight or less to dispatch the defender. As luck would have it, I rolled a nine and only reduced him. On Garys last turn, as his preps did no damage, he jumped into CC against my two squads in the one building. In the other, knowing his half squad would attack first due to my AFV in bypass, I posed the question as to whether I could use my captured piat to blow up my own tank. We decided that this would be illegal, although Gary awarded me style points for even coming up with it. The final CC saw Gary kill the 10-1 and squad with a roll of four in the first VC building and then win the ambush and kill both squads in the other building giving him the automatic win by getting eleven CVP. This was as tight as it gets for a third place battle with the last couple of dice rolls affecting the outcome. The boys of Jersey had done me in.
All in all, a great tournament with great friends. At least I made it to the final four. Congratulations to Steve on his well earned victory, and Ron and Gary on their second and third place finishes. More thanks than I can offer to Mike Allexenburg for running an enjoyably smooth tournament. And my good friend Carl Noriega for his patience in monitoring the game rooms. And to all the great players and opponents that help make this a grand event. Love the new location with the various eateries so close by.
Time to take a needed two week break and then it is on to Chicago.
 
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ctewks

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Had a great time playing you Dave! Those two 8-1's came from consecutive 1,1 rolls in CLOSE COMBAT! UGH! Prolly the best result in the game, you kill the enemy, you generate a leader AND You get to withdraw.........holey moley. Good game, GREAT opponent!
 

davegin

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Had a great time playing you Dave! Those two 8-1's came from consecutive 1,1 rolls in CLOSE COMBAT! UGH! Prolly the best result in the game, you kill the enemy, you generate a leader AND You get to withdraw.........holey moley. Good game, GREAT opponent!
Great playing you Chuck. I am sure we will meet again and you can extract your revenge. Hope to see you in August.
 

Khill

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glad you came out, hope you make it back to Manchester in the summer
 

davegin

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good AAR.

Why it was the last ASL trip for Diane? :)
Diane loves most all of my ASL friends and looks forward to the ASL Picnic that we host every year on the first Sunday of ASLOK. However, she does not want to travel with me to tournaments as she ends up sitting in the hotel room watching TV and drinking beer. Even having a car available, she won't use it as she can get lost in a paper bag. So she enjoys the dinners but has too much time doing nothing. Also, taking her to this tournament was part of my master plan to not ever have her want to go to another.
 

sdennis

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Diane loves most all of my ASL friends and looks forward to the ASL Picnic that we host every year on the first Sunday of ASLOK. However, she does not want to travel with me to tournaments as she ends up sitting in the hotel room watching TV and drinking beer. Even having a car available, she won't use it as she can get lost in a paper bag. So she enjoys the dinners but has too much time doing nothing. Also, taking her to this tournament was part of my master plan to not ever have her want to go to another.
She needs to hang out with better people... with better wine!!!
 

Mister T

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Diane loves most all of my ASL friends and looks forward to the ASL Picnic that we host every year on the first Sunday of ASLOK. However, she does not want to travel with me to tournaments as she ends up sitting in the hotel room watching TV and drinking beer. Even having a car available, she won't use it as she can get lost in a paper bag. So she enjoys the dinners but has too much time doing nothing. Also, taking her to this tournament was part of my master plan to not ever have her want to go to another.
She doesn't like knitting?
 
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