August NorCal Tournament- Late War De-escalation

Hey, finally got to get some more games in, my two regular opponents have both been super busy.  Reno just had a new little one and Riha is getting ready to move all the way to the east coast.  This event was a three round Late War event with point totals of 1775, 1525, and 1275.  I brought my FJs and went 1-1-1.

First round was Hasty Attack vs. Niel Pamandanan and 4th Armored Division Shermans.  After about two and a half hours of fighting I was left with only my CiC, a single platoon command stand, and one Marder II, with Niel's 105 Sherman platoon sitting on an undefended objective, but the lone Marder got a lucky shot in on a weakened platoon of M4s without a commander and killed one, causing them to run.  I made my Company Morale check but he couldn't make his.  I somehow pulled out a 4-3 win.

Round Two faced Dustin Harnois with a KG Pieper list of King Tigers, Pz IVs, recon and FJs in Dust Up.  We played to a 3-3 draw, though it took a platoon of his KTs, his Pz IVs and his recon to kill off one of my FJ platoons, while his CiC KT and FJs were able to hold off my reserves.  Great game and a learning experience for both of us.

Round Three was vs. Ken Boothby and a Panzer Lehr list from the PTTM PDF in Surrounded.  Even though Ken said he was a relatively new player, he pushed his armored infantry and Panzers like a pro. Looking back I could have probably deployed a little better, but Surrounded is a mission that takes practice to figure out.  5-2 for Ken, as he was able to secure an objective with massed force.

All of my opponents were new to me, even though we've attended several events together and they were all great.  Thanks all.  Oh, I did win Best Painted and got the new Atlantik Wall book, looking forward to building some Buete StuGs!

Wargames Illustrated Painting Competition

So, I entered my Cassino FJ objective into the Wargames Illustrated painting competition at Historicon last weekend.  Since they were handing out three placings in each category I figured I'd enter it just in case I won something.  There were 130 great entries in 10 different categories from fantasy to historical and there were two specific Flames of War categories: Objective and Platoon.  Ultimately I won first place for Objective and surprisingly took home the Iron Cross award for Best Flames of War entry against some very awesome competing entries.  Thank you to Dave Taylor, John Matthews and all of the other judges and congratulations to the other winners.  The Königstigers from Michael Jacques were amazing and won Best of Show.
Link to WI web article:
http://www.wargamesillustrated.net/Default.aspx?tabid=221&art_id=4042

1) My Cassino Front Fallschirmjägers At Rest

2) George Lukach's Stopping the Beer Truck

3) Dan Larke's General Patton in Tunisia

1) Michael Jacques' Königstiger Platoon

2) Hugh Alderson's Australian Rifle Platoon 

3) Rob Chandler II's Easy Eight Platoon

Some great looking armies at Historicon

Thought I'd post some of the nicer armies I saw at the Nationals.  I wasn't able to get as many shots as I wanted because it was rather unclear to most of the players when we should even lay our armies out.  Next year I hope they have a set time for display instead of just having us put them out during lunch.  We had two days to go look at these but many players didn't even know we were supposed to put them out and many didn't have a name with them.  I never saw Todd Sunday's excellent SS Panzergrenadiers until I played him in the last round.  Display boards also seem to give a huge advantage.  Players who wanted to compete for the Best Presentation award got lost among the more than 50 tables if they didn't have a large display to attract attention.  Todd thought that maybe next year they should have anyone who wanted to compete for the award lay out their army at a set time and without any huge display board as anyone travelling by air couldn't possibly have something like this and would be at a disadvantage.  I tend to agree.

This was the winner of the Best Presentation award.  Nicely painted figures but ultimately the display board was the deciding factor.

Nice looking British tanks.

Very detailed Airborne force.

US armor.

Canadians!

Winter US.

Dennis Campbell's 21. Panzergrenadiers.  These were really top notch and full of little added details.  The display board was cool too, but didn't distract from the models.

Ammo dump objective

HQ teams.  Dennis mounted them on larger bases to show off some extra elements.

Panzerwerfer platoon with Pak 40 proxied by Vielfachwerfer models and a custom Mk VI.

My Fallschirmjagers.

Historicon Report- pt. 2

The doubles event was a ton of fun but the main event for the weekend was the Nationals tournament, 1780 Late War.  I brought the fortified Cassino FJs hoping to turn the US infantry lists around and make them attack me.  Best laid plans and all that...  Having said that, I faced zero US lists in six rounds fighting Soviet, Finnish, German, British, British and another German list.

Round One was over so fast I didn't get any pictures.  Encounter against Soviets.  31 T-34/76s came screaming at me before any reserves arrived and quickly put me out of my misery... 1-6.
Round Two was Cauldron vs. an Allied Finnish infantry list supported by heavy artillery, Panzer IVs, T-34/85s and AA.  My opponents random deployment really hurt him as his Heavy Artillery were forced to deploy in the open quarter opposite of any support.  When my reserves finally showed up they were in a good position to do some damage.  5-2 for me.
Round Three was against Dennis ' beautiful 21. Panzergrenadiers and a pile of french funnies in Pincer.  The first turn really hurt the panzergrenadiers and the Stugs coming from reserve could have really done some damage to the lightly armored Buetes so the advance was stalled until they arrived.  When they arrived they were able to finish off the panzergrenadiers while the FJs in reserve cut off the Buete Stugs.  6-1 for me against a very great opponent with an awesome army.

I was able to salvage the rest of day one ending with 12 points.  Could I just maybe crawl back into contention?

Round Four was Counterattack against some Night Assaulting British Paras supported by a crazy amount of guns.  The FJs moved to secure the open objective but were quickly pinned down by artillery.  They were never able to unpin and were hammered mercilessly by artillery before getting assaulted by some engineers.  Stugs were unable to get into position to contest and I lost 1-6.
Round Five was against Ben and his pizza box of hard hitting artillery in Hold the Line.  I thought I'd be clever and ambush both infantry platoons but the forgotten about AOP prevented them from starting near the objective.  Huge templates crushed my hopes and my FJs.  Another 1-6 for me.
Round Six was Free For All against another expertly painted army, Todd's SS Panzergrenadiers.  He had some Sturmtigers, Jagdpanzer IV/70s and some flame Hetzers all charging at one flank while I tried to get my FJs across to his.  Speed lies with armor (even slow armor) and he kicked me off of mine before I could do any real damage on his sid eof the board.  Another 1-6.

To answer my previous question, NO, I could not even get a point, haha.  Day two was by far the worst day points wise that I have ever had playing Flames of War but I have to say I still had a fantastic time and all of my opponents were great guys.  I'm not sure if I'll make it back to Historicon next year but I think I'll definately try.

The cauldron.  Nebs and large FJ platoon hold the objectives while the Marders ambush secures the side that the Fins are attacking from.  Ju-88s attempt to range in but my flak nest shoots them down several turns in a row.

Random deployment drops an infantry platoon and some Panzer IVs on this side so my Marders ambush to defend.

His 15cm artillery deployed on this side and had no cover.  A lucky HMG bunker happened to be in range of them and ultimately killed them, rolling long range shots and getting 6s for FP.  T-34s arrived turn one from reserve.

My Stugs don't arrive until turn six but are able to break the Panzer platoon before tuning to engage the T-34s.  I'm able to break my opponents company and lost only the Marders, though I did have a few others rolling for motivation.

Dennis got a little crazy and doubled his halftracked infantry up one side but about half of them broke down.  I think he must have forgotten about the Marders in ambush as they were able to gut one platoon before the Nebs hit the other.  At the end of turn one two infantry platoons were under half strength and it was now up to the Buete Stugs to carry the attack forward.  

The objective area held by Nebs and FJs. 

Dennis' artillery park and some 7.5cm PaK halftracks.

Round five vs. 51st Highlanders and a huge artillery party.  Ugh.

Can my FJs get across the board and do some damage?  Almost.

Flame Hetzers hetzing all over my face.