Battle on The Mississippi; A Flames of Tournament

I attended a Flames of war tournament this last weekend with a couple fo friends this last weekend in La Crosse, WI.  The tournament was held in the basement of a record store called Deaf Ear Records.  It was your typical gaming space.

The Tournament was a mid-war 1710 point tournament. with 16 players showing up.  The terrain was a nice selection of mid-war themed terrain including Itlay, Russia and North Africa.

My army was an eastern front German Pioneer company with 2 platoons of pioneers, a machine gun platoon, 3 Panzer III late J's, a Ferdinad, a looted KV-1, 3 nebelwerfers and a limited HS-129.

The first mission was hold the line and my first game was against been an experienced player from Madison, WI. He played Fearless conscript Tankovy with a Company of M3 Stuarts, and 2 companies of long barreled Lees, with a small unit of recon.  The game didn't go good for me.  I misappropriated my assets and couldn't get a reserve on my first opportunity on turn 3 and the game was over in the top of Turn 4.  I lost 1-6.

The game game was Dust Up, one of my favorite scenarios. My 2nd game was against a newer player that had some problems in writing a list. He had 6 Tank destroyers in one platoon so I had him correct that before we gan playing.  He also didn't really understand many of the rules.  His army was a US Para Company with Tank Destroyer support along with 105mm howitzers.  I won this one 5-2.

His Tank Destroyers smoked my KV-1 and the pioneers were poised to assault the objective.

 The last Mission was counter attack one of the wonky missions in the book.  My opponent play US Armored Rifle company, with 2 ARP, armored mortars, machine gun platoon, 105's, 3 scoots, 5 M5 Stuarts, and 3 long Barreled Lees. It was a pretty good game, besides the fact he had trouble list building and some rule explanations.  The most important rule he dismissed was not allocating save dice to teams before he rolled them. I won a bloody 4-3 match.

He took out my ferdinad on the first attempt with his air support.  I should have left it in ambush.

I ended up finishing middle of the pack.  My 2 friends finished tied for 1st and it came down to sportsman scores.  The first place finisher received a nice Iwo Jima flag trophy and some minis.  All of the contestants took home at least some form of prize.  I felt the tournament was well run.

Joe won the T-Rex for the worst dice of the day. It is supposed to be a new traveling trophy.  I'm glad I din't have to take that one home!

Mid War Batrep Soviet Armor v. German Pioneers

I had a chance to play my friend John in a game and we roled up the pincer mission.  John played his Soviet armor. He had a big company of T-34s, a unit of T-70s, 4 SU-122s, 2 units recon and 8 Katys. I played my German Pioneers. I had 2 units of Pios, a machine gun unit, a unit of 3 nebs, 3 Panzer IIIs, a Ferdinand, a looted T34 and a HS129.

I started the game with 2 units on Pios on  the table along with the nebelwerfers, and the panzer IIIs in ambush.  I kept a kompfgruppe of a small unit of pios, the Ferdinand, T34 and machine guns in reserve.

John came right at me with T34s up the middle, T70s on my left and SU122s on my right. Ipopped my PZ IIs from ambush right away to slow his T34s down.  They seemed to do the trick and hung in for a while while they chipped away at the T34s. John had a hard time hitting them while they were hidden in the woods.

I shot the nebs at the recon  on the right and my air attack was pretty unaffective the whole game.

 I forgot to take more pics but I tried assaulting his Su122s twice once I killed his recon protecting them but I could not pass a morale check to assault him.  Finally I did assault him and I failed to hit with the whole platoon. The Su 122s proceeded to kill my infantry with the breakthrough guns and eventually he broke my company.  It was a great game and look forward to playing him again soon since all of our games seem to swing back  and forth to make great games.

Mid War CounterAttack

I had a chance to play Eric, a new player that needed some practice before he goes to Adepticon to play in the nationals.  We rolled on the scenario table and came up with Counter Attack. He had US Shermans, Lees and some 105mm artillery.  I had German pioneers with a Ferdinand, 3 Panzer III's and some Nebs.

 

To start the game he pushed one group of Shermans up the middle and one on his right flank and he moved his Lees around the buildings in the middle. I had one group of Pioneers set to move to the objective on my left and positioned one on the objective in the middle. I positioned the Ferdinand so he could get a good line of fire on the right flank and also to protect the nebs.  I got my Panzer III reserves in right away and put pressure on the back side of his Shermans.

 

Below is Eric. He's a newer player but he played a pretty good game.

 

He kept pushing for the objective on  my left side. I kept shooting at him with my Panzer III's and Looted T-34.vthe Ferdinand and nebs took out the Shermans pushing up the middle then moved toward the left to help secure the objective. He managed to decimate my pioneer platoon on my left with an aircraft attack with one dice to call in the planes then he needed a  6 to range in then 4' s to hit and then I failed 4 out of 5 saves. Then I had to move my machine gun platoon to contest the objective.

 

 

 



 

 

The game finished uneventfully by Eric conceding the victory tome. I had taken out his Lees and I guess he thought he couldn't deal with the Ferdinand so 6-1 victory for me.

 

 

 

 

 

4Ground Log Timber Village Review

I finally decided to try out some of 4Grounds terrain so I picked up the Log Timber Village to use for Flames of War. I looks pretty nice and wasn't too bad to put together. The pieces are finely detailed and they give some extra pieces for the small fiddly ones that I broke trying to pop out of the wood. The wood looks really rustic and fits the Eastern front terrain style. I know I 'll definitely buy more in future. I think I'll add some of the ruined timber buildings next.  The only real draw back would be I don't think wood buildings go together well with resin buildings so I don't think I mix terrain styles when putting together a battlefield.

 

 

Late War British in the Caldron

I got a chance to play my friend Keith in a game of Flames of War a couple of weeks ago. We decided to play at an existing LGS that moved to a new location. Village Games in Champlin, MN is a great store with a lot of gaming area, the only draw back is that they don't carry any historical miniatures anymore.

We decided to play a late war game and rolled up the Caldron mission.  This mission is a little wonky, I think the games played in this mission are usually fun but I feel the defender is at a big disadvantage.

Keith played his trained Irish Guard with Tank Destroyers, anti tank guns, 8 25 pounders, mortars, and universal  carriers in support.  I had a Panzer IV panzer company with Aukalungs, Stug G's, 2 8 rads, and some Nebelwerfers in Support.

 

I started off deploying almost all of my force in the right back quarter of the table, hiding what I could for Keith's first turn. I had a great bottom of the first by destroying the whole platoon of tank destroyers leaving only his anti tank guns as a real threat to my tanks until he brought  in some reserves to distract me from my goal.

Keith tried to take out what he could with his artillery and anti tank guns but didn't have much luck.  I slowly chipped off all of the guns as I advanced on the objectives. I turned a few of the tanks around to wait for the reserves to come on from my rear.

 

I moved on to the objective and started to sweep  his flank to take out the rest of his guns. My infantry came on over on the far side of the table.

 

 

 

Keith is planning out his next move.

 

 

His Shermans in reserve come on the board and take out my  nebs and a small unit of Panzer IV's in the same turn.  He just got his 2 units to make this a close game no matter what the out come.

 

 

I had too much fire power waiting for the Shermans and shot them up pretty good. He tried a desperation assault on the objective but that didn't work out as planned and I ended up winning a 4-3 game.

 

 

 

It is always a great time playing Keith everyone of battles are hard fought and fun to play.   I hope to play him again soon.