168 Attended & Gary Fortenberry took his 3rd Grofaz Crown at ASLOK XXVI...

ASLOK XXVI - 2011 RECAP

Wood TD AAR Attendee AARs Pics Scenarios

Thanks to all 168 ASLOK XXVI attendees...

Place: Place: Eickmann (IN) [5-1]
Place: vs World Cup MVP MVP "Mark Nixon" King of the Monsters ASLers: to the Jungle #2: Buckeyes:
"Mark Nixon" #17: #17 #2: Loser No More: is a Warm Gun: New Artist: Tournemire
New Artist #2: Conner
of the Rising Sun: Thuring
of Squad Bleeder: Snow
Aikens
Stop the Rain? cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" width="700">

Grofaz

First Gary Fortenberry (VA) [7-0]

Second Bob Bendis (IL) [6-1]

Third Jason

Fourth Phil Palmer (MD) [5-1]

USA

Overall: World 39 to US 33

World face="Arial, Geneva, Verdana">: Philippe

US face="Arial, Geneva, Verdana">: Gary

Wednesday Minis

Theme Winner

Godzilla color="#000000" face="Arial, Geneva, Verdana">: Gary Fortenberry

Gor-Gor Heretical Variant: Jim Bishop

Gor-Gor #2: Wes Vaughn

Back color="#000000">: Hennie van der Salm

Back Bill Stoppel

AARP Phil Pomerantz

Welcome color="#000000">: Dave Ginnard

Welcome color="#000000"> #2:
Chad Cummins

Desert Rats: Doug Sheppard

Thursday

Theme Winner

Night: Spencer Armstrong

Deluxe: Ed Fritz Jr.

Pacific: Jeff Coyle

The Whites of Their Eyes: Gary Fortenberry

Pacific Lee Conner

Roads Through Rome (AP8): Steve Anderson

Cut Them Down Sons of the North!: Chad Cummins vs. Mattias Ronnblom

Revolution: Stephen Frum

Street Fighting Man:
Marty Snow

Battlin' Neil Stanhagen

Street Fighting Man #2:
George Tournemire

Street Fighting Man #3:
Sam Tyson

Friday Minis

Theme Winner

Best of the Best (Grofaz mini): Gary Fortenberry

Best of 2011 (Grofaz mini): Phil Palmer

Schwerpunkt Michael Koch

Schwerpunks Bill Stoppel

Biggest Trent Dobbs

Happiness Hennie van der Salm

From the Old Country: Peter Struijf

The Fool on the Hill: Michael Rhodes

Jungle Love: Lars Thuring

Jungle Love #2: Stan Jackson

Roads Through Rome (AP8):
Ken Mioduski

Saturday

Theme Winner

Best George

Best Lee

Samurai Lars

Son Marty

A Little Night Music: Jim

Who'll face="Verdana">: Derek

Tommy:
Stephen Frum

Tommy #2:
Chuck Hammond

Journal 10 Playtest:
Bill Cirillo

ASL Starter Kit:
Joshua Speelman

Mini Scenario Lists

TD AAR

[Game Squad Link to Original Thread the following is excerpted from - there you can read interspersed comments from others...]

Stopped by the hotel today around 5 and ~20 ASLers were already in and gunning. No games on Friday for the first time in awhile as apparently Wild Bill failed his ambush roll on a jet lagged Lars Thuring unfortunately. Lars was refreshed by the morning apparently and knocked off Doug Sheppard in some early World Cup action.

Lots of new Schwerpunkt games were in evidence as Mike Faulkner was apparently peddling his wares successfully. The new SP is the only new stuff available as of yet as Mattias doesn't touch down until tomorrow evening.

The 4th Annual Dave Ginnard picnic will be the highlight of Sunday. Dave's even had souvenir ASLOK Beer Cozies made up for all that can make it to the picnic...

Attendance is up to 146 as we picked up at least two non-pre-registered folks around (Bob Bendis & John Dober). Pre-Regs are actually on par with last year when we had 173, 3rd highest attendance ever - not sure if we'll get the walk up crowd we had last year, but things look good for another well attended ASLOK. If you're not planning on making the pilgrimage to Cleveland, there's still time to make the trek and get in on the ASL action...

Stopped by the hotel around 6 - fairly quiet as most were picnic'ing at Ginnard's. My guesstimate is around 40 in already. Picnic was well attended despite the cold and occasional rain. Dave puts out a very nice spread with the highlight being the ASLOK XXVI Picnic Souvenir Beer Cozy. Looked like quite an impressive array of alcohol fortified with some Swedish exotics when Klas & Lars showed up around 7:30. Rumor has it Klas had Mattias in tow so Friendly Fire is in the house...

Monday Update:

Just having too much fun and didn't want you guys not here yet to feel any sadder at your plight...

57 in as of 5:30 today.

World Cup is all tied up at 16 even. The World got off to a 4-3 lead on Saturday and lengthened it to 12-8 after Sunday after going 8-5 on the Sabbath. Monday came and saw the Americans using their 8 morale on the broken side to rally and open 5-1 to tie it and even led briefly during the day before an afternoon Euro rally brought it back to even..

Official attendance up to 151 with at least 64 thru the door already although if anything that count is low as I'm guessing I've missed a couple that wandered in while I was on break.

The world is rallying this evening having won the last 4 recorded games and is now up 20-17 overall. You'd think that given it's 2 to 3 AM Euro time that they'd be fading but apparently Euro ASL scene thrives on the night life and is only getting better...

22-20 World at the moment but several games still going - notably JR Tracy vs. Lars Thuring in a play test of "Mortain" - a monster with action all over 4 boards from the late Ian Daglish - I liked Lars chances when I glanced at the map in T5 - plus Steve Pleva & Mattias Ronnblom still playing.

Rich Domovic is currently pacing the US forces at +3, with a veritable plethora of Amis at +2 in Fort, Bendis, Wiersma & Spencer Armstrong. The world has 5 players currently at +2 in Bays, Briaux, Malmstrom, Thuriing & Tournemire.

Tuesday Update:

The early returns from Monday have the Americans taking the day 15-11 which pushes the World Cup into a flat footed tie at 23 heading into the final day of World Cup play.

Some of the key WC games already started this morning are:

Zajac vs. Tournemire
Fortenberry vs. van der Salm
Rossi vs. Ronnblom
Holst vs. Koch

Rich Domovic & Brian Wiersma are pacing the US forces at +3 while Philippe Briaux is the leading candidate for World MVP at +3...

World gapped into the lead in the early afternoon and is maintaining it at 36-31 currently.

Philippe Briaux looks to have the World MVP wrapped up at 5-0. John Bays (3-0), Klas Malmstrom (3-0) and George Tournemire (4-1) are all at +3. US MVP currently is Rich Domovic (4-1) with Gary Fortenberry (3-1) and Brian Wiersma (3-1) a game back at +2. Rich's only loss was to Philippe...

~100 thru the doors already by Tuesday night.

In an exciting year of World Cup action, the World Triumphed 39-33. The US rolled out 4 former Grofaz Champions (11 titles amongst them) and still came up short. The Grofazi did manage an 11-5 record combined, representing the US well. It was tied entering Tuesday morning at 23, but that was when the Euros started to get serious apparently opening 11-2 Tuesday morning before adjourning for shopping. Apparently a tiring event as the US closed on them, but the morning domination was too much to overcome. The World forces were led by the French as the top duo were both French and netted a +9 during the Cup.

Congrats to World MVP Philippe Briaux (5-0). Gary Fortenberry took home the US MVP at 4-0.

Rich Domovic was +3 (4-1) for the US and Brian Wiersma managed +2 at 3-1 to be the only other US players > +1.

For the World, George Tournemire was +4 (5-1), while John Bays & Klas Malmstrom both went 3-0.

Another year of close exciting World Cup action, and another year of World Victory as World forces have won their 9th straight Cup.

Wednesday Update:

While the World forces may have dominated the World Cup action for a 9th straight year, the US went 8-1 in Mini tournament action on Wednesday:

Godzilla: Gary Fortenberry facing off vs. Gary Mei this morning in a duel to see who's the best Gary.
Gor-Gor #1: Jim Bishop overcame all odds running an impressive gauntlet of opponents in downing World MVP Philippe Briaux in round 1, then reigning Grofaz Bob Bendis in R2 before edging Joe Steadman in the mini finals. An impressive run to take home his first mini hardware. Although he did DQ himself from his Friday mini in the process as The Bishop is no longer "Biggest Loser No More" eligible all of a sudden.
Gor-Gor #2: Wes Vaughn triumphed over Tommy Cvetinovich in the finals. Apparently the key to victory was a bounding fire PzIV Area shot Crit on turn 1 which had "Wes giggling like an Arkansas School Girl on Prom Night" according to Tommy...
Back in the USSR: Hennie van der Salm triumphed over Mattias Ronnblom to uphold World mini glory. Half the field was Euros as it turned out.
Back in the USSR #2: Bill Stoppel knocked off Michael Koch in the finals to become the first General to win Mini Wood at ASLOK.
Welcome to the Jungle: Dave Ginnard knocked off Stan Jackson in an all Buckeye final for jungle supremacy.
Welcome to the Jungle #2: Chad Cummins made his triumphant return to ASLOK with a mini win over Sean Deller making his first ASLOK appearance.
Desert Rats: Doug Sheppard defended his 2009 Desert title downing Canadian Andy Beaton in a wild game of Khamsin.
AARP: Dr. Phil Pomerantz's ferocious French forces overran Dr. Phil Palmer's Germans in Strangers in a Strange Land. Definitely a strange land where there's a duel of "Dr. Phil's".

Thursday Update:

Official attendance is up to 164 with 138 already thru the door at least (I may have missed a few in the thru the door count).

12 minis going this morning along with a few random Grofaz games or Open matches with friends.

Schwerpunkt, the East Side Gamers & Bounding Fire Productions have all arrived joining Le Franc Tireur and Friendly Fire which have been here most of the week to form an impressive cadre of ASL publishers all peddling new stuff...

Thursday Theme Results

11 of the 12 Thursday Minis are settled:

Night: Spencer Armstrong over Klas Malmstrom in the finals. Lars Thuring downed the 3-time Night Champion Randy Rossi in the first round before falling to fellow Swede Klas in the 2nd round. Spencer knocked off Dr. Phil, then Darrell Wright before KO'ing Klas in the Finals for an impressive mini win.
Deluxe: Ed Fritz Jr. bested Sean Deller in the final.
Pacific: Jeff Coyle used his time in the Philippines to his advantage in downing Steve Tinsley in the final.
The Whites of Their Eyes: Gary Fortenberry triumphed over Tom Morin in the finals.
Pacific #2: Lee Conner edged Jim Serafin.
Roads Through Rome (AP8): Steve Anderson triumphed in a hard fought final over Brian Wiersma in the "Sneak Peak" at Fort's latest AP...
Cut Them Down Sons of the North!: Chad Cummins and Mattias Ronnblom are yet to face off for Finnish supremacy.
Revolution: Stephen Frum knocked off Rich Domovic in the final.
Street Fighting Man: Marty Snow cut a wide swathe through the field including KO'ing reigning Grofaz Bob Bendis in the final.
Battlin' Buckeyes: Neil Stanhagen beat Phil Palmer in the final as a CH on the penultimate turn forced the Germans to try to exit all remaining units on the final turn for the win in L'Abbaye Blanche, which proved to be an impossibility.
Street Fighting Man #2: George Tournemire beat Jason Eichmann's Germans in Encircle This!
Street Fighting Man #3: Sam Tyson took out JR van Mechelen in the finals.

Friday Update:

The Grofaz Big Board is up and running:

Best of the Best (Grofaz Mini):

Sean Deller beats Spencer Armstrong.
Phil Palmer downs John McDiarmid
Marty Snow knocks off Jim Bishop.
Joe Steadman beats Ed Fritz Jr.
Sean Deller advances to the mini finals by beating Marty Snow to move to 4-0.

Best of 2011 (Grofaz Mini):

Steve Anderson beats Rich Domovic
Gary Fortenberry over Stephen Frum
Klas Malmstrom over Sam Tyson
Chad Cummins over Wai-Kwong Wong
Gary Fortenberry beats Steve Anderson to advance to the Mini Finals and go 4-0.
Klas Malmstrom is the first 4-0 after downing former Grofaz Chad Cummins.

Grofaz Open Play:

Bob Bendis over Jeff Coyle to advance to 3-0.
Mattias Ronnblom over Gary Mei to go 3-0.
Tom Morin knocks ends George Tournemire's Grofaz dreams to move to 2-0.
Jason Eickmann over Randy Rossi to move to 3-0.
Eric Safran ends Doug Bennet's Grofaz run at 2-0.
John McDiarmid plays spoiler to Chuck Hammond's Grofaz dreams which ended at 2-0.
James Taylor & Tommy Cvetinovich dueling to go 3-0.
Mattias Ronnblom triumphs over a 2-1 Robert Balmeseda to become the first Open Grofazer to move to 4-0.
Bob Bendis is playing Tom Morin currently.
Jason Eickmann is playing Rodney Callen.

Friday "Mark Nixon" Mini Results

Jungle Love: Lars Thuring triumphs over John Stadick in the Finals.
Schwerpunkt #17: Michael Koch takes home the wood downing Neil Stanhagen thanks to some wicked ROF from a Jagdtiger.
Schwerpunkt #17 #2: In an epic "Battle of the Bills" General Stoppel triumphed over Bill Cirillo in the final.
Biggest Loser No More: Trent Dobbs downed Michael Rodgers to claim his first ASLOK wood lifetime.
Happiness is a Warm Gun: Hennie van der Salm doubles up on Mini Wood knocking off Joe Celebuski.
From the Old Country: Peter Struijf triumphs over Ray Woloszyn as a Euro wins the Euro designed scenario mini.
The Fool on the Hill: Michael Rhodes rides into mini glory with a triumph over Bob Callen.
Jungle Love #2: Stan Jackson KO's Steve Tinsley to rule the Jungle.
Roads Through Rome (AP8): Ken Mioduski overcomes Derek Cox in an epic battle on the new AP8 boards...
Best of the Best (Grofaz): Gary Fortenberry takes home his 3rd straight mini plaque and 4th plaque overall winning a Grofaz mini over "the Swedish Rules Machine" AKA Klas Malmstrom.
Best of 2011 (Grofaz): Phil Palmer makes some noise in the Grofaz making it to the semis by downing Sean Deller, ending the Colonel's Grofaz run in his first ASLOK.

Satuday Update:

The Grofaz Big Board Saturday 4:30:

Bob "the Grofaz" Bendis is the only 6-0 currently and is awaiting the winner of Gary Fortenberry and Jason Eickmann's game of J1 Urban Guerrillas. Gary has the defending Germans and is hoping to push his record to something like a perfect 15-0 for the week amazingly enough.

The Road to 5-0 & the Semis:

Bob Bendis beat 3-0 James Taylor in FrF51 Bite of the Bassotto as Bob's Brits rolled, or more accurately Jim boxcarred his way out of contention.
Phil Palmer beat Sean Deller to claim the Best of 2011 Grofaz mini. Phil's Russians pulled out a close one in Order 831, a new Friendly Fire by Michael Koch which received a lot of play and generated a ton of questions about how the heck Daisy Chains work.
Gary Fortenberry advanced to 5-0 by downing Klas Malmstrom in BFP's Melee Near the Coast to win the "Best of the Best" Grofaz mini as Fort's Chinese hung onto to down Klas's final desperation banzais.
Jason Eickmann ended the run of the "Swedish Terminator", Mattias Ronnblom's run of Grofaz Glory in SP's Fiery Finale. Mattias's Russians diced themselves quite a bit it sounded and then Jason joined in the dicing on occasion.

6-0 & The Finals:

Gary Fortenberry advances to 6-0 as his Germans held fast and hung onto all 3 buildings in Urban Guerrillas. Gary Festung'ed the factory and forced Jason to go after the back 2 buildings which the Russians came up a little short on...
Bob Bendis overcame Phil Palmer's Germans in Retreat From Hannut, a new Schwerpunkt offering.

Bob Bendis goes for a repeat and we will have a new 3-Time Grofaz winner as both Bob & Gary have a pair of Grofaz titles already...

Satuday Update:

Bob Bendis and Gary Fortenberry are dueling in Gary's scenario of AP62 Shouting Into the Storm. Gary has the Russians and the balance...

From Hennie van der Salm:
"The final came down to the last CC. Bendis needed to roll a 6 to win ASLOK, he rolled a 7. Gary Fortenberry won the Grofaz. Congratulations to both."

Gary Fortenberry's Summary of the final game from Game Squad Live AAR Post #86:

First off, thanks for the kind words all.

AAR

Totally fried after last week, and the late night drive home, but here is what I remember of the final game:

After I finished my game of Urban Guerrillas saturday evening with Jason Eickmann I couldn't find Bob to set up a time to start or pick a scenario to play. This was looking bad as Jim Bishop and I had shared a ride and I didn't want to keep him too late. Bob is finally located around 09:30 at Dave Ginnard's house and heads over to get started. We sat down to pick scenarios around 10:00. As I was waiting for Bob (I was up at 04:00) I had assembled a stack of scenarios to allow Bob to pick from. To my surprise, the one scenario I thought Bob would not pick...and was really only there to joke with Bob a little, was his choice: "Shouting Into the Storm"...an AP-6 scenario of my design. (Bob was a playtester and had played this scenario at least as many times as I had, so not so surprising a pick after all). We both bid Germans (as I did not want to give Bob the Attacker) and Bob won the Dice Roll...he could take the Germans and give me the balance, or take the Russians straight up. He chose the Germans with me getting the Russian balance.

I made my optional group picks and quickly set up. I know Bob's game fairly well, so my first instinct was to pick the Assault Engineer group with the FT and DCs and one extra squad. This would be a pick to stave off/slow down the VBM freeze sure to come...it's quite a bit more dangerous to try that with defending AEs...especially those with FT and DCs....my better instincts lost the battle in my head over this and I went with the 9-2 and 100L. With this group I could set up a couple of ambush points for tanks as well as making one building look significantly weaker than it is while having the option to do a turn 2 or even 3 shift to the other flank once Bob's forces were committed. All was going well, the bulk of Bob's infantry headed to the board 10 building which was setup to appear the stronger of the two objectives. Bob drove two Stugs into the pre-planned kill zone of a 57LL which promptly missed, missed, missed (all the while only 1 ROF which missed (3,6)). I got frustrated and, as it was gonna be smoked in by the two STuGs on Bob's Prep Fire, I took an IF shot needing an 8 TH and malfed the GUN...Ah Well, game would've been no fun if I had killed both of those vehicles on turn 1.

Bob's assault on that position was gonna be unstoppable as he had commited the bulk of his infantry to that side, with his Tigers and a couple of Stugs and a platoon of FJ's headed to the board 46 objectives...it was time to bail with a significant portion my forces. I left 3 squads and the crew there and took the 8-0, two 4-5-8 squads and an LMG and ran for the board 46 Alamo location. I eyeballed the LOS's that could possibly see this move and was fairly confident that I could get an extra hex of distance by chancing a very unlikely LOS (only a Tiger's AAMG could even string the LOS)...sure enough the string touched two different buildings on opposite sides and different hexes but no brown could be seen on the other side of the string from either building....Bob took the 2 even shot and got a 1MC...on 8 morale troops...the 8-0 and one squad broke and the other squad pinned.

They were still able to Rout to the building I wanted to get them into but it was just a shadow of what was to come.
I was unable to get anything going with shot from a 9-2 directed .50 HMG or any of the ATGs or the Street Fighting Bob's fearless tanks were constantly risking. Bob's assault on the board 10 building became painful on turn 5 when he didn't ambush with a -2 drm Ambush dr and then lost his 9-2 and 2 squads in a 1:2 CC trade with a 4-5-8 and 2-2-8. It really didn't change the outcome of that assault as he still had plenty of guys over there and that building crumbled with only 2 broken Russians still in occupation.

The board 46 defense was starting to have the pressure kicked up a notch and things were looking grim when a flurry of 2+2/4+3/6+3 and 8+3 shots busted up most of my defenders holding the flanks of the VC building. Bob then drove a Tiger into my second pre-planned ambush site and the 57LL K'O'ed it on it's first shot.

The armor battle then got into full swing as my IS-2 and the T34/85 from the balance started hunting the Stugs and the last Tiger. That last tiger drove up the spot where his buddy died and keeping his front aspect facing the 57LL assumed he was nigh invulnerable. I had set up the 57LL to draw just this response, and kept the 100L HIP hoping to see another tiger there. Little did I know the 100L crew was fresh from gunnery school and couldn't hit the turret to save their lives.

That Tiger ended up killing a half squad and two IS2s before he could be brought to heel (the IS was in position to trade shots and was expecting the move. My thought was that I had the 100L and an IS2 (two really) to his ROF of 1...and they all needed turret hits to have a chance to kill. Bob's Tiger laughed at the Hull hit from the IS2 and BFF hitting the turret and knocking it out. The 100L kept up his inept hull hits accomplishing nothing.
On my next turn, with no covering German infantry close, I decided to go take that tiger down (I still had two IS2s and the T34 at the time). The Tiger took a shot at a moving IS2 needing a 5 and a turret hit to have a chance, or so I thought, Bob rolled 1,1 keeping rate and burning the IS. My brave T34/85 crew knowing he had to take the pressure off the 9-2 for one more turn threw himself at the Tiger and the tiger missed!...so did the T34....but it was in position to cause Bob some problems with the two road junction VC areas.
The last IS2 lumbered into position, and took a BFF shot at the Tiger after shrugging off a hull hit, striking the turret and that was the end of the Tigers.

Now it was down to the next to last turn assault, the fire phases were uneventful and the CC phase was brutal (and the 9-2 rose to the occassion by ambushing Bob's initial assault (with a net -1 drm) and wiping them out in a 1:1 -3 DR. On my last turn I decided to park the T34/85 next to the VC building on the side facing where any of the Germans not already in the building would need to run through several hexes of open ground in front of it's Gun/MG's, and the remaining IS2 facing the attackers in the other hex of the VC building (across from which was my 9-2, 9-1, 4-5-8 and 2-2-8). Bob had a 9-1 and a concealed unit in the hex my IS2 was staring down, and a 1-2-7 Tiger crew in the other. I moved my 9-1 into position trying to draw fire from the concealed guy to remove the concealment but he was having none of that and held his concealment. My plan was to move him into CC, and if I was not ambushed Bob would have a dilemma in that he could leave his 9-1 to face off my 9-1 and keep his concealment, but risk a Melee that any of his troops wanting to get at the 9-2 would be unable to move through, or to attack with the concealed squad and lose his ambush drm advantage. Alas, my guy pinned and was unable to advance.
It was now Bob's last turn and last chance. His attempts to get more guys into the building were largely unsuccessful due to the two tanks blocking the entryways..but he was able to get one more 5-4-8 into position to advance for the 3:2 -1, all his guys needed to survive a 4+4 MG and a 5TH IFT or 6 TH ATT from the 122...I chose to go with the 6 TH and missed with a 7 ;p . Bob's guys advance in, I have a -2 and Bob has a -3 to the Ambush dr for a net -1 in Bob's favor (9-2 vs 9-1 and concealed unit). Bob's Ambush dr was a 6..I was thinking this might be it!...but my dr was also a 6.

Bob drops the dice in the cup for the final 3:2 -1 DR (mine would only matter if he killed me without rolling 1,1..and I follow up with a 1,1 to force recalculation of odds)..his two dice hit the cup, one immediately coming to rest with the '1' pip face up...the other die was spinning madly, and I was rooting for it to strike the other die and flip it to something else...but it never touched it, finally coming to rest on the only side up that was a win for me...the '6'. The CR did not kill all my stuff so it was a done deal...

Final situation:

good game!

(6 hours total from start of setup to last DR)

[Back to Bret Responding to a "sgt. Essig inquiry on the first Italian at ASLOK, Andrea Pagni]

We thought Andrea was a pretty good guy, shame all Italians are not like that.

I'm not sure what Andrea's final record was - I know he won some mini games, but I don't think he managed to win a mini unfortunately. He said he had a great time and promised to return and this time to bring some friends from the Old Country. He was still playing Matthew Zajac in Acts of Defiance on Sunday when I left and had a "date" for another game with Wild Bill for Sunday night I believe so Andrea was playing as many games as possible while many of the others still there on Sunday were burned out I'm afraid...

I'm sure he'll fill us in on more details on his ASLOK when he gets home from traveling...

Attendee AARs

ASLOK XXVI in Pictures:

Scenarios:

2011 Mini/Theme Scenario Lists