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.

 

 

 

 

 

A Mid War Dust Up

I had a chance to play a game a couple of months back with Keith and I never got a chance to post it up. I had my german infantry with Marder II's and Panzer III's.  He had his Irish guards with Churchhills and his mounted AT guns.

The battle started out with a shootout between my Marder III's against his AT guns mounted on trucks.

My Panzer III's try to assault his objective guarded by an infantry platoon and 8 6 pounders.  I din't have much luck.

Keith assaulted my objective with his Churchhills and an infantry Platoon. I kept my infantry and pak38's gone to ground since I couldn't crack his front armor.  He never took the bait to assault me so I could blast apart his Churchills.

My reserves came on the table but were too late to save the tanks and got ripped up by some machine guns in the Manor house.

A bird's eye view from Keith's side of the battle.  He was almost ready for the final assault.

I narrowed down his forces but I just didn't have enough left to kick him off the objective.

Keith was sizing me up and dialing in the range.

Keith finally ended it by crushing my flank and destroying my morale.  It was a fun and it's probably about time he gives me a rematch.