Historicon 2014 - I-95 Doubles

I was able to squeeze a trip to Historicon in again this year and paired up with Eric Riha for a second year for the I-95 hosted Doubles tournament.  We won it last year and (misguidedly) thought we would try to defend our title.  I let Riha put the list together for the 2000 point MidWar event and figured he would try to put a wacky trick list on the board and catch everyone by surprise. (Man, was he wrong!)  The lists were a Churchill Tank Company and an OSS Raid Force.  300 points of interdiction raids meant that our opponents would have a tough time with reserves and we could always attack at night.  Small Trained platoons and no solid anti-tank capability meant we would fail miserably against Panthers and Tigers and large Soviet formations.

Round One we were paired up against the ringers, Stephen Tinsley and Mark Riney.  They had a Panzerspäh (with Panthers) and some Fallschirmjäger (with a Tiger).  Crap.  This is the board, we played Dust Up.

We deplyed our French Legionaires spread out around the rear Objective and a Guerrilla platoon up front.  Churchill CS tanks are in the centerand the OSS platoon is poised to attack.  

On out Turn One we Doubled our OSS dudes behind a tree line (They can Truscott Trot double at night, through terrain) and moved a Guerrilla platoon to get at their flank.  Their Tiger zapped a Churchill on their Turn One.

They continued to be very aggressive with the Tiger, assaulting our Frenchies and forcing them back.  We had to bring the Guerrillas back to defend.

Once they brought an FJ platoon up to support the Tiger it was pretty much a done deal.  2-5 for us,  we got their second FJs on the far flank but even that took seven Churchills and the OSS squad assaulting for three turns.  These guys were lots of fun to play and we also got to hang with them during the after party.

Round Two saw us paired up against Ed Forbes and Byron Synor, two old nemesis' from NorCal.  They were running a Strelk/Tankovy combo with 30+ tanks and tons of infantry...  The mission was Blind Domination, an I-95 home-brew.

Piles of Lend-lease tanks and some T-26s all slammed to the objective points in the middle.  First side to claim eight uncontested points at the start of their turn was winner.

The Churchills on the left were flanked early by Lees but the ones on the right were able to fire round after round into them and the Stuarts.  4-3 victory for us.

Our final round saw us matched up against  Stephen and Josh Wagner, who were running Grenadiers backed by a Tiger Company in Free For All.  The Tigers immediately charged at the objectives, defended by a single Guerrilla platoon.

The Churchills make their way through the village, avoiding the Tigers, but finding a pair of 7.5cm PaK40s lurking between the buildings.

Our OSS and a Guerrilla platoon ran up the flank at a Grenadier platoon, assaulting it and a 3.7cm FlaK platoon in some woods.

The Churchills make an assault on the anti-tank guns before the Tigers can turn and fire on them, killing the platoon.  We scored a 6-1 after the OSS guys claimed the wooded objective.

The event was very well run and the I-95 guys put on a great event.  There was a ton of prize support, including Battlefront boxes and blisters and some swag bags from World of Tanks.  We placed somewhere in the middle of 36 teams but were one of the door-prize winners.  I snaggged a SSGT Poole Sherman for an event I'm running in November and Riha got some sweet aviators and a Bluetooth speaker from World of Tanks.