Flames of War Day in El Paso

Alex and I met up for a few games at Jon's house in El Paso yesterday, with Alex and Jon playing the first game.  Alex took a 4-3 win with his Sperrverband vs. a Hero Motostrelkovy.  Alex and I played the next game, with my Panzergrenadiers attacking his Sperrverband in Counterattack.  We played 1750 point lists.  I had nine platoons, but not by design.

Alex had two Sperr platoons with HMGs, one Sperr Pionier platoon, Sperr Mortars, Sperr StuHs, Veteran RSO Tank-hunters, a platoon of armored Panzergrenadiers, Hs-129bs, plus Windgruber and Von Sauken.  He would build a kampfgruppe to get to eight platoons.

I deployed in the industrial corner of the board, Nebelwerfers in the rear, supported by the Panzerpionier platoon and 2cm FlaK.  Marders are deployed in the rubble with the StuGs and one Puma patrol near the wrecked train.  Turn One, sees a Marder Bog Down, and the other armor cross the tracks.  Nebs fail to hit anything.

Both infantry platoons advance towards the open Objective near the buildings on the far side.  Alex's Sperr also move in that direction.

A Puma patrol (proxied) opens up on Von Sauken, destroying his Sd Kfz 250, but he survives.

Alex springs the RSOs from Ambush, but they are unable to take many shot due to the Puma's position.  They still manage to kill one of the Pumas.  His troops continue to move towards the Objective.  On my turn, the Pumas swing around to the rear of the RSOs, Bailing two of them.  One of my infantry platoons launch an assault, destroying the RSO platoon.

Alex's StuH platoon arrives on his Turn Two, but Pumas and StuGs were waiting.  One destroyed, one Bailed.  

The next turn sees Alex's Panzergrenadiers arrive from reserve, but the presence of the StuGs and Pumas force him to leave the halftracks off-table.  He begins moving through the rubble.  The StuHs fails to remount.

On my Turn Three, the Pumas fail to hurt the remaining StuH.

Over the next two turns, my infantry platoons launch a series of assaults on Alex's Sperr platoons, clearing the Objective of defenders.

A 6-1 victory for my Panzergrenadiers, I'm really liking the aggressive play with my infantry forces lately.  I've always relied on support units since the small size of German units have always been a weakness, but the large number s of attachments in some lists really helps mitigate that.  

My second game was an Early War match-up against Jon.  1600 points to practice for the Austin Nationals, Jon wanted to test out a fortified Finnish list.  I threw together a standard DAK Schützen list.

Jon had three Defensive Positions, a Pionier platoon, 40mm Bofors AA, Mortars, and Fokker air support.

My army lines up to attack the near Objective on the right position.  Lots of Barbed Wire up front.  

Panzerjägers try to keep this position from shifting.

On Turn One, the Panzerjägers move up to the wire and destroy the FT-17 turret, but cannot cross the wire.

Everything pushes forward, guns stopping at wire.  An 8-rad Bogs Down.

Jon's Fokkers arrive, killing the infantry gun platoon commander.

Jon begins shifting his troops in their trenches.  They move At the Double, but keep their Gone to Ground and Concealment.

On Turn Two I contune the push forward.  Panzers take out another FT-17 turret, the wire in the center of town has been breached by my 2iC.  Now both 8-rads are Bogged!

Guns try to get into position to fire on the trenches.

By Turn Four my Observer (!) has breached the wire to let the Panzerjägers pass, but a HMG bunker has destroyed one.  The Panzer IIs have launched an assault, losing one tank but killing two stands.

The infantry has also finally breached the wire, and prepare to launch an assault.  One 8-rad frees itself, removing Gone to Ground.

Well, Turn Five I launch a disasterous assault, missing six times.  Jon's counterattack kills all seven of my assaulting teams...  A second assault goes about the same.  The Panzers kill the remaining teams from the other platoon, but are destroyed by another platoon that has moved up to support.  That'll be it for me!

I destroyed one platoon at least, 2-5 loss!  That was a lot of wire to cross, and with so many gun teams and a platoon of half-track movement tank destroyers, I couldn't get around it.  His mortars were on target, gutting my gun platoons before they could get any shots off, and my terrible assault rolls sealed my fate.  Even with stellar rolling, Jon had two more platoons in position to take the Objective back if necessary.  Well defended by Jon!  

Thanks to Jon for hosting the day and providing food and drinks as well.  Looking forward to the next game.

6 Month Mountain Reduction and Painting Challenge- I'm In!

Last year my friend Dai participated in the first 6MMRPC and was able to make a pretty signifiicant dent in his lead mountain and I couldn't wait to jump into the next challenge.  This year they decided to start a bit earlier, so to avoid the holidays.  Here are the rules:

1. No purchasing of new miniatures, except if you use a Joker.  You get three Jokers to use on a miniature purchase.  Can be a blister pack, an eBay bundle, or a single figure.  The only exception is if you need to buy a single figure to complete a unit.  In addition, you can earn additional Jokers by completing an entire project, complete with starting, WIP, and final pictures.

2. Gifts do not count against you.  Holidays, birthdays, and gift cards given to you do not count against you.

3. Paint, terrain, and hobby supplies do not count against you.

4. At least one hobby-related blog or Instagram post a week.

5. Zombie-related stuff during October is encouraged.

http://historyspiderweb.blogspot.com/2015/05/alright-everybody-its-time-for-2nd.html

I've got a few projects to work on, for Flames of War I have a Great War British commission force for my friend Sam to finish, I'd like to get a few more Early War options completed for my Fallschirmjäger, and I'd like to at least start on some 1945 Volksgrenadiers.  I also want to complete a few projects for the Iron Cross competition at Historicon.

I need to build a 7.5cm artillery battery, a 3.7cm PaK36 platoon, Ketternkrad transport, and a few more command stands.

I have about six platoons of guns and infantry to build, plus three tanks for Sam's Great War British.

I also want to keep working on my Dungeons and Dragons minis for my seldom-run campaign, paint up the Kensei stuff I bought for feudal Japan, and paint some modified Star Wars minis for home-brewed X-Wing.

Just a sample of the Reaper minis for D & D.  My wife's mage, Paola's barbarian, and a shifty thief.

Some models I kit-bashed for X-Wing.  A modified YT-1300, an Imperial Patrol Ship, a Shuttle, and a Scout Ship.

Some of the feudal Japanese Kensei minis I bought a few weeks ago.  Samurai are awesome!

Really looking forward to this!  

NorCal Tokens

The NorCal Flames of War circuit has a tradition of some kind of annual items for attending their events.  So far we've had:
2011- Battlefront-produced Objective markers
2012- NorCal dice from Chessex
2013- Patches for the Battlefront/Battlefoam bag, with badges for each event attended
2015- Battlefront-produced Tokens

The group posted a poll and, while personalized beer steins were considered, status tokens won out.  Nick contacted BF and they agreed to produce custom NorCal tokens for us.  For $9 we got: four each of the Gone to Ground, Bogged Down, Bailed Out, Pinned Down, Dug In, and Non-Assaulting Team tokens, and two each of the Ranged In, Reorganizing, and At the Double tokens.  I was very glad to see the new types included and grabbed two sets!