ASLOK Thursday Day 7

"I've checked into enbalming techniques for extremities...if you go before me, consider leaving your dice rolling hand to me, I've already picked out the walnut and silver stick on which to mount it."

- Gary Fortenberry, on Gamesquad after I posted my ASLOK AAR

This day has been the hardest one to write as my overall ASLOK experience was so overwhelmingly positive. I've hmmmed and hrrred over how to set down my feelings without coming across as a whiny bitch or being unconstructive. It helps that I've slept for 12 hours straight and finally killed the jetlag...no personal criticism is intended though it may come across that way and I'm aware that I'm no saint in this matter.

Thursday 7th October - Pacific

Up nice and early to get ready for the second Mini of ASLOK and perhaps a good start to the Grofaz. Paired off with Wai-Kwong Wang from Canada, one of John McDairmid's Canadian School in a playing of Schwerpunkt's SP125 Numshigum.

W-K was a great guy to play first up, and I was happy with the way I played although I contributed to my own misfortune in this game by forgetting to move my HMG in the backfield on one turn which left it out in the cold. I also missed a really significant LOS which cost me a 1st line squad at exactly the wrong time. I almost managed to pull victory from the ashes of defeat by rolling three snakes in three separate CCs over three turns, but in the end W-K won in the last turn so out of my second mini in the first round yet again. No disgrace as W-K went 2-0 for Grofaz on the Thursday anyway.

2 and 10 for ASLOK, 0 and 2 for the Minis , and I would need to get two more games in today to get to 2-0 for Grofaz (fat chance of winning both I know)

Got paired up with a very nice genuine gamer for my next game after lunch - I sort of stooged around after my game against W-K which finished in about 3 hours so I should have started before 1:30pm. We played WCW 10 Stand and Die from the Windy City Wargamers' pack as I was pretty confident I could knock this scenario off in about 4-6 hours max as it really isn't a complex OB.

Unfortunately after 3 hours we'd only managed to get through 1.5 turns and I was getting a little frustrated at the slow play. To cut a long and whiny story short I resigned the game despite being in a near impregnable position vis a vis the VCs at 9:30pm after only 5 turns. Yes I'd had a couple of smoke breaks but they were all of 5 minutes each. I lost it at the end and felt absolutely gutted about both my reaction and that I'd effectively crapped out of the Grofaz on the first game just as I was starting to play good ASL. Frankly the game was already a fait accompli and I offered my opponent the chance to resign to avoid needless continuance but stubborn intransigence and glacial play killed any spark of enjoyment for me.

2 and 11 for ASLOK, 0 and 1 and out of Grofaz

This is the bit I have to apologise for: I spent the rest of the night bitching and whining to fellow ASLERs about it. Frankly I needed to take some of my own advice and HTFU and get right into another game. Instead I moped. Sorry guys.

General thoughts: I'm a fastish player, to my own detriment most of the time, but I play on gut instinct and it gives me a good level of enjoyment in spite of the results. I can't do the whole paralysis by analysis thing at all, but I played some deliberate players at ASLOK who took their time to setup and plan yet were not molasses/treacle slow in their execution once play began. Frankly that pace of play is understandable and suits me as well. 

One hour to move 5 AFVs of which two failed Independent Movement NTCs and the other three were platoon moving is frankly unacceptable. I couldn't help feeling I should have cut my losses at about 4pm and said the game wasn't working at that point but IIRC I wasn't in nearly as dominant a position then as I was at say 6pm and I still held out hopes of a swift finish .

In this particular case, it didn't seem like the pace of play was caused by excessive care, just that the guy was just slow. I'll be honest, by the end of the game, I was pretty certain he was winding me up as well which is why I resigned in the end.

I ended up chatting to Glenn (GlennBo) Houseman of East Side Gamers, who had a few products out on display. Now I'll be the first to admit that I hadn't really seen or taken any of the Dezign paks seriously, but ever one to try something new, I grabbed a couple of scenario packs and Glenn through in an older one as a teaser. I'm really pleased I did buy the latest pack as it features a very good meaty tourney scenario - more on this later.

Not really in the mood for gaming, I actually had an early night.