ASLOK XXIX October 1-12 Loot

 The final list of loot. I didn't think I would have much difficulty getting it back weight-wise, but space was at a premium. I need to work on my luggage system still. I have the weight allowance but not the room.

• 3 x Dice towers from Jack Daniels
• Schwerpunkt 20 x 3 (Aaron C, Jackson Kw)
• Friendly Fire 9 x 4 (Aaron C, Jackson Kw, Ivan K)
• Rally Point 9 x 2 (Jackson Kw)
• ESG Dezign Pak 10 
• Panzerknacker, Molotov, Dust Devils, Sniper, and ROF dice
• East vs West 12mm 5 dice set (Ivan K)
• Tweezers x 2
• 300 x US sized page protectors
• Overlay Binder and Inserts
• Travel Board Binder
• 2mm, 2.5mm, 3mm deluxe counter cutters
• Festung Budapest, Decision at Elst, Rising Sun
• ASLOK XXIX Tees x 5 (Aaron C, Jackson Kw)
• ASL Open Tees x 2 (Jackson Kw)
• Plano 3601 low-profiles x 5
• Longstreet: A Biography by Jeffrey Werts
• Guadalcanal by Richard Franks
• Gettysburg: the Second Day by Harry Pfanz
• AVRES in Normandy by Richard C Anderson Jr 
• Pleva HIP Trays x 3
• Ops Spec Ed vol 4 and Vol 5
• Board 68 x 3  (Aaron C, Vlad S) 
• Miscellaneous Critical Hit modules (mainly desert and winter)

I gave away one of the Pleva trays to an ASLer who has been doing it tough, and one set of tweezers was passed on to another ASLer.

Sadly I managed to lose a pair of Battleschool dice (green and white 14mm plain) as well as the little counter picker, but they are easily replaced.

ASLOK XXIX and the rest of the news

ASLOK XXIX is a done deal!

In the end, my attendance at ASLOK XXIX was going to be a very close run thing. With the ending of a relationship, the subsequent upheaval and stress and then the termination  of my existing residential lease, it was not looking good.

Thankfully, things turned out okay. Sure I might be living on ramen and instant coffee until the day of my departure so I can have some spending money for ASLOK, but I have paid for the plane fare, the hotel is booked and budgeted for, and I also have a new residence that I will be moving into over the next 14 days.

I'm treating this ASLOK as I should, a chance to recuperate mentally and spiritually after 6 months of chaos. Physically I'm still a bit of a wreck but having a 3 week holiday, most of which will be spent with good friends at ASLOK, will do wonders for my health.

I'm turning up in Cleveland at 10pm on October 1st, and will be ready to gun from the next morning/ afternoon, depending on whether I can get some shopping done (travelling to the US means I will be obtaining some items that are almost impossible to find in Australia anymore, such as US sized page protectors, perhaps some Duratool Raaco knockoffs, and some software/hardware for my PC) and how my discretionary funds are holding out.

My ASL shopping list for ASLOK is pretty much set:

• Decision at Elst (MMP)
• Special Ops 4 and 5 (MMP)
• ESG Dezign Paks that I am missing
• Lone Canuck Historical Modules
• Schwerpunkt 2011 onwards
• The Rat Charts from LFT
• The latest Friendly Fire (plus one for the Cleavinator)
• Battleschool Dice

 I may not be able to afford all of the above in one hit, but I will do my best.

The Bell is Yet to Sound

With three days to go before the end of what, in retrospect, has been a very good year for me in terms of ASL, I couldn't resist the opportunity to squeeze in two more games.

For me, it's a huge positive in that I went looking for Live VASL games as opposed to PBeM. And it felt comfortable. The only diownside is that I had more takers than opportunities, so for those great people who offered to play me as a default, my heartfelt thanks. I see some more dice purchases in my future, even if I have been told I do not need any more dice.

So I'm playing Damon Norko in FrF40 Sporck's Eleven and Chuck Hammond in ESG38 Choke Point. With these two probably finished by Sunday evening, along with the near to completion of J111 Prussia In Flames, I should get to 35 completed games for 2012 with a day to spare.

I've  just finished ESG38, and I liked it. Chuck handed me my head in this one, but i take some solace that he would roll 3s and 4s on low FP attacks, but I would compound the damage by rolling 9s, 10s and the useful 12s in response. Don't let my tale of woe or that it uses the same board configuration as FrF30 Biderman's Escape dissuade you from playing it. It is quite different in terms of approach routes and defensive setup.

On my playlist for ASLOK.

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.