Memorable gaming moments

When we think of past games some of them just tend to stick out, while others are simply forgotten. These games, which make it onto your memory hard drive, are sometimes the results of good planning and a clever scenario twist by the gamemaster but sometimes they are simply the result of dismal bad or freaky good luck. Here are some of my favourite moments:

BartV had planned a WWII desert game in which two players would look over the table, spot the enemy and do the minor manoeuvring while two other players acted as supreme commanders, sitting in an adjacent room who planned general manoeuvring, off board artillery fire etc. Before the game each team had bitter little time to draft a crude map of the terrain board on which the commander could direct his moves. I acted as commander in the field and together with my general we decided at the last instant to ad markers at key points on the map so we could easily assign artillery fire. Communication between office and field went by brief notes which passed through the game master (who rolled and checked if the message arrived in time, got delayed or got lost)
Anyway, at some point during the game my opponent positioned his troops on one of our preassigned artillery spots (point alpha) so I sent in a request for artillery fire. The next turn nothing happened so, presuming the order got lost or delayed, I repeated my request. In the mean time my own troops were coming under heavy artillery fire so I was getting desperate! My opponent was still firmly lodged on point alpha though so yet again I called in artillery hoping that this time the order would pass after already 2 failed attempts! But yet again, no artillery shells were hitting my opponent while my troops took some more enemy fire... this was when I realised that I was positioned on our preassigned point x (yes we named them x,y,z and alpha, beta, gamma, we were in a hurry remember) and my general had mistaken my hastily scribbled alpha for an x ! Never again was the fog of war this well captured :-)

Again during a WWII game I was playing the German commander. I was a happy German commander as among my troops was the dreaded annihilator of tin cans, the infamous flak88 gun. When this beauty entered the field (on my left side of the table) right on the spot where my opponent was planning his major tank putsch I could see the colour strip from his face. He immediately started to do some frantic major redeploying while I did some major gloating. The gloating lasted till turn two when the umpire (BartV you bastard ;-)) passed me an order from my NPC supreme commander stating that the flak88 should strengthen the (off-board) eastern front immediately!. The entire game the flak88 was seen making its way to the right side of the board. Causing serious bewilderment to my opponent who was franticly trying to make out what the hell I was planning, all the time adapting his plans to the ever changing flak88’s position... until it disappeared off board that is. The look on his face was priceless :-)

So what are your memorable moments?