September NorCal Tournament- Pacificon

Our September event was held at Pacificon in Santa Clara last weekend.  Late War 1625 points.  I decided to pull my old German infantry out of retirement and build them as a CT 44. Reichsgrenadier company from Cassino.  I haven't played CT Germans before and wanted to see how they would operate.  We had 30 player arrive and most of us decided ahead of time to bring a more laid-back attitude to the event.  Less must-win, more have-fun attitudes and lists.  I saw some fun and creative lists there, stuff rarely seen anywhere.  Dave Partak brought a Sicherungs list with a huge train!  I saw King Tigers, armoured trucks, all kinds of fun stuff.  My list even featured Reserve Panthers.

Round One I played a relatively new player, John Marquez, who brought a KG Pieper King Tiger list. Five King Tigers and some Wirbelwinds, that's it!  The scenario was Pincer and it was already an uphill climb for John.  I deployed four platoons, 10.5 howitzers, a Pionier platoon, a Reichsgrenadier platoon with full Panzerknacker upgrade, and had PaK40s in Ambush.  John's Tigers had just crossed into my deployment zone when my Reserves all showed up at once, Marders behind one platoon of Tigers and the Panthers behind his CiC.  They killed the CiC and one other KT, while bailing the second.  On his turn he turned the remaining Tiger platoon to kill the Marders and the Pak40s popped their Ambush on my turn.  Combined fire killed two more platoons and with no CiC, was forced to retire.  6-1 final score.

Our table's town square.  Un fortunately the other shots from this round are super blurry.

Round Two I faced of vs. Brad Feliz and his Fortified 2 ID cheddar list. (Just kidding Brad!)  He had a fortified platoon, two rifle platoons, 155 artillery with an AOP, Towed TDs, and M-10 TDs.  Ouch.  My CT dudes were obligated to attack in Counterattack and just couldn't get into a position to bring thier combined force to bear.  ToT artillery had wiped about half of my infantry out before I could get far and then they wouldn't unpin all game.  Of course the Panthers, which always must be in Reserve, didn't show until Round Three.  My artillery didn't have good sight lines and by the time I had troops in position to assault the objectives Brad's TTDs were already firmly entrenched there.  Looking back I should have deployed differently and focused all of my platoons on one objective.  Brad was gracious enough to let me get a platoon as time expired.  2-5, the 2 ID strikes again!

Frontal attack by Pioniers and a Gren platoon has stalled out.  The Grens were hit on Round One, four stands killed, and pinned.  They never unpinned in 2.5 hours.  I didn't want to send the Pios in by themselves, and kept waiting for what never came.  Marders should've gone TD hunting, but would've been completly exposed.

Second Grens platoon making for the far objective supported by Paks, but Super Fast 2 ID can get there way before I can.  Panthers still haven't arrived.

Here they are! But so is Brad's TTD security section...  I just couldn't match Brad's mobility and firepower.

Round Three I had the pleasure to play Craig Burdine and his 101st Airborne in a Free For All.  The only vehicles Craig had were two sections of Armored Jeeps and they came out guns blazing!  He gutted one of my infantry platoons on Turn One and pinned the second, who again couldn't unpin for like five turns.  For a second game in a row, my infantry had failed me early and often...  The Panthers showed up early and killed a Jeep section, but that's all they'd do before being bombed into oblivion by P-47s, who arrived for the first four tuns and killed about half of my army, haha.  Craig's airborne were more than a match for what remained of my infantry and he won the game just before time expired.  2-5.

Jeeps doing jeep stuff.

P-47s right before blasting my Panthers.

My experiment in Trained Germans has left me missing my Vets.  The firepower that many armies (US, Soviet, etc.) can bring to bear will just gut a Trained platoon, especially a small-ish German infantry platoon.  I never noticed the reliablity that comes with running Veteran troops.  Assaults, artillery bombardments and Stormtrooper moves can be counted on.  The 50% chance of Trained troops making it is just that.  A big maybe.  I also felt outgunned all day, the one victory I got was a very good matchup for me in about the perfect scenario. (automatically hitting Tiger IIs on the flank)  The Reserve Panthers were actually really cool.  I might try them again with the Veteran Panzergrens from the same book.  Very fun event, and Eric Riha's last in our circuit, as he is off to North Carolina.  Good luck out there man!  We all will miss you.