Halloween Game at the Club: Very Serious Stuff

 Last night I ran a very serious military simulation at the club, set in Normandy during WW2.  We used Flames of War (version 3!) for this truly academic exercise in WW2 military theory and practice.  The scenario was a meeting engagement in the quiet little French town of Clermont.  Both sides had orders to investigate a crash site in the town.  The Germans thought it was a crashed allied transport plane while the Allies thought it was a crashed V2 rocket.  The tranquil town of Clermont is very close to the Swiss border and both sides had an alternate victory condition to liberate as many of the 1,400 gold bars in the bank of Clermont and make a run to the Swiss border.

Upon entering the town, it was clear there was something amiss as all the townspeople were missing. The first few turns were played with limited visibility but on turn three, as the fog cleared it was revealed that the crash site was.....

Aliens!  Yes, those "Get Away from her, you B*****!" type of Aliens and lots of them.

5 egg catches were hidden in the various building which acted as spawn points for swarms of the monsters.

General hilarity ensued and even some of the club grognards who despise Flames of War on principal seemed to have fun.  Truces were made between the Americans and Germans and then just as quickly broken and general carnage ensued.

Oh, Ed really hates it when you blow up one of his Tiger tanks - something for all of us to remember.

 Of course, I forgot to take a lot of pictures during the game but did manage a few.

 The Germans got the win by looting the bank but the American won a moral victory by destroying 3 of the 5 egg sacs.  Sherman tanks lived up to their reputation of blowing up - a lot.

 The Building are from Ed's collection and are a mix of Crescent Root and Total Battle.  They are superb.  He also loaned me the game mat which is from Cigar Box.

This was my first test run a planned convention game and I learned a lot.

- The stats I used for the Aliens worked well - they were not over-powering but still posed a challenge.
- - the Aliens stats where essentially tank like with infantry close assault.  It worked surprisingly well.
- - I do need a more refined set of rules to govern alien turns - the attack the closest unit isn't the most interesting

- The table needs to be bigger for the forces used,  maybe 8x6 rather than 6x4.  I did want a large mix of unit types but it was just too crowded and did play to the stereotype some people have about Flames of War rules (tightly packed groups of tanks)

- I use area movement chits for the first few turns which speeded up play but needed a lot more space before it made sense

You'll see this game again at a convention as I'm working on a small selection of easily transportable games to put on.

It was fun to get the FOW minis out again and brush off good old Version 3 of the rules.

AHPC VII: More FOW Pacific Stuff

 Added a few more units to my FOW pacific inventory for the Challenge - first up a US Marine 37mm AT unit

 Another US Marine Infantry Platoon

 3 Japanese Ho-Ro self propelled guns

and finally a group shot of the entire set of FOW Pacific units.  Not a bad haul for a few weeks of painting.

AHPC VII: FOW Pacific Submission

Whew - I'm finally caught up with all my submission (to date) in the Challenge.  This submission was fairly large (458 points) and was made up of FOW Pacific units.

 First  is a Japanese infantry platoon with 54 figures.  I really like playing the Japanese - they likely not win any tournaments but you're in every game until the end

 A second infantry platoon.

 A machine gun platoon and AT section.

Some Type-95 Ha-go tanks

 A finally their command stands

 Next up are some US marines - a basic infantry platoon with LVTP transport

 A Marine Engineer Assault section.  It's small but packs a bunch with 3x Pioneer stands, 3x bazooka's and 3x flame throwers.

And, finally some Amphibious tanks.  I've got some more Japanese and Marine units to finish up for next week.

FOW Cold Wars Doubles Tournament 2016

 Last Friday (March 18th), I drove up to Lancaster to play in the Flames of War Doubles tournament.  My partner was Luke from WWPD.

We played a US Infantry / Mech Infantry list that had two artillery batteries ,2 leg and 2 armored infantry platoon.  For AT assets we had a platoon of 3 57mm AT gun and 4 Lee's - Lees are a hoot to play.
We were on the defensive for all three games and to cut to the chase we won the tournament! going 6-1, 4-3 and 5-2

 Our first opponent was a Tiger  heavy list with mech infantry and a pair of Stug 105's - Once we had dispatched the Stugs and a tiger the game was over.  Great game and opponetns

 The second game was against Jesse and his Tiger, Italian light tank list - this was one of the funnest games of FOW I've played in a long time.

 Check out the Tiger ace skills!

 and all the light tanks

 Our strategy was to ignore the tigers and force a company morale test by taking out the light tanks

 Luke's son Alex was with us and brought his awesome dice rolling skills to bear.

 The game game down to a desperate assault by the remaining light tanks and a tiger....

 Which the armored infantry was able to beat back - gotta love all those bazookas!

The last game was against a father son team that had 10 Lees in the force.  We also managed a win here

While at Cold wars I did pop into the vendor hall and picked up some Battlefront Japanese infantry and tanks and finally succumbed to the Frostgrave virus and picked up a bunch of stuff for that game

All-in-all not a bad day and a nice break before the final crazy painting days of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

Yet More FOW Stuff

 Some more 15mm FOW stuff for the Challenge in the form of Japanese artillery and germane Panzer III's

 The artillery marks the start of my new Japanese force for the Pacific war themed books that are coming out.  I've got a bunch of Command Decision Japanese infantry that match up well with the Battlefront artillery crewman so don't have to wait on Battlefronts rather slow supply chain.

 The guns and crew were done as a test set on uniform colors and I like how they came out.

 Next up is a platoon of Panzer III's for the Italian campaign.  These poor lads had been sitting primed in a drawer for multiple years so I thought it was time to finally paint them up.

 The miniatures are from Battlefront and where very easy to paint up.

Next up will be a company of Japanese infantry and some anti-tank teams...

Did I mention that I was excited about the new pacific books?

Some FOW Stuff for the Challenge

 Over the past few weeks, I've been painting up a lot of odds-n-ends in 15mm to finish up some Flames Of War armies - first up is a Fallschirmjaeger  Pak 40 AT gun unit and a Elephant.

 Next up some more FJ's in the form of a heavy mortar unit and and Panzer IV / 70 AT gun

Next will be some Japanese FOW stuff - I'm getting very excited about the upcoming Pacific books!

Fall In 2015 Con Report, Part 1: Overall Thoughts and the FOW Doubles Tournament

 Fall In 2015 is done and I've just returned home.  To be be concise, it was a blast and a hearty "Bravo Zulu" to the HMGS staff for doing a superb job managing the event.  This con was one of the best HMGS cons I've attended in years.

Without a doubt the highlight for me was the chance to meet Paul O'Grady (of the Man Cave blog) and his son Reilly in person and gets some X-wing gaming time in with them.  Paul is a fantastic fellow and his son is a most impressive young man (and, by the way, a newly minted Eagle Scout!).  I was very pleased to see that parents from the southern hemisphere of our planet take the same great pride in their children that those of us from the Northern one do.  More importantly, these Southern Hem parents both excel in and take great delight from embarrassing their teenage offspring in public with goofy behavior.  There really are traits we all share on a universal basis.  I've now got a great excuse to find my way to Australia!

The con mainly consisted of meeting and getting to know Paul and his son, playing in the Flames of War doubles tournament with Luke of Friday and then playing X-Wing, lots and lots of X-Wing but more on the in a following Fall-In'15 post.

One thing I do feel compelled to comment on is the con's venue, the Host Resort in Lancaster.  I have been extremely critical of the Host in the past.  While I didn't stay there this con, I did think the facilities management and food service was much improved.  They place was kept clean and the staff seemed to be a lot more motivated.  All-in-all they did a good job and should be recognized for the significantly improved efforts.

FOW Doubles Tournament:

 I really like playing in a Flames of War doubles tournament and Luke's a fantastic partner.  The tournament's theme was Italy (my favorite on the FOW book sets) and we brought a US Inf and Mech Infantry list.  Out list structure meant we'd be on the defensive for all our games and that suited our playing style.  The first game was against a German tank and infantry company which had some Brumbars who you can see by turn two had advanced very far forward...

 Maybe a bit too far forward, as they got shellacked by one of our M-10 platoon and some 57mm AT.  I think this turn of events may have broken their player morale.  We ended up winning that game 6-1

 Our next game was against another German tank / infantry pairing with Brumbars and Elephants.

 This game we tried to show our sportsmanship since we technically "won" the game but the other side was in possession of one of the objectives so we elected to give them the win.  Winning on a technicality isn't a good way to advance in the rankings.  We marked the game down as a 2-5 loss

Our last game was against another German tank / infantry list (but with FJ's).  This was a great game and the two house with the roof's removed became a bit of a fortress and withstood 5 rounds of being hit by 150MM artillery and 120mm mortars.  It was a really fun / tight game and I learned that the threat of "popping" an ambush is often more impactful that the ambush itself.  This  game was a 6-1 win which placed Luke and I in third place for the tournament - not a bad showing for a very rusty FOW player.

WWPD Wounded Warriors Tournament Report or Confessions of a US Arty Party Partier

 I had a great time at the WWPD Flames of War tournament yesterday at the Games Vault in Fredericksburg, VA.  It was a Battle of the Bulge themed event and all of the proceeds went to support Wounded Warriors.  It was a bit of a "silly" tournament as a player could buy up to 25 "re-rolls" for $1.00 each.  I bought 25 but only used 10 as I forgot about them most of the time!

You can still donate by going to the link.

My first game was against Ken who was running a german infantry list that was backed by 2 king tigers and panther and three Panzer IV's.  The focal point of the game was the objective in the center of the picture and we fought back and forth for it.  I had Ken one platoon away from a break but my remaining infantry platoon failed its tank terror test to assault his remaining King Tiger that was sitting on the objective.  A well deserved 4-3 win to Ken.

 My second game was against KJ who also ran a german infantry list that was backed by 2 Jagd Panthers and 3 Stugs.  We rolled the fair fight scenario.  This was the only game I took the offensive by sending one infantry platoon, the recon and M-10's down the right side of the table.  KJ sent an infantry platoon to try and attack my artillery park down my left flank and it was touch and go and all game but I manage to seize the right side objective and win the game 4-3.  This was one of the best games I played of FOW in a tournament.  We also only used about 3-4 re-rolls each as KJ did;'t have a lot remaining and I only wanted to match his number to keep it "fair"

 My last game was against my friend Jon Baber, who I've played many board games with but never met across a FOW tabletop.  Jon ran a Confident/Trained German Panzer list with Jagd Panzer iv/70's and Hetzers.  He was a most gracious opponent and kept his disdain for my legal but rather gamey "arty party" list in check.  We rolled "Counter-Attack"and the game really focused on my right edge of the table and the objective in the center right of the picture.  Jon sent his Panzers on a sweep around to my ride side and then down to the objective,  The heroes of the game were my Priest artillery unit which entered as reinforcements in the upper right of the pictures and managed to survive the game and tie down Jon's Panzers until my artillery could chew through them.  I won the game 6-1 but more due to the dice gods frowning on Jon's dice rolling and the overly positive US artillery rules than anything else.

I went 2-1 for the day and placed solidly in the middle of the pack so I was very pleased with the results.  This is my fourth FOW tournament and the second one with a winning record.  Through four tournaments I'm 6-5-1 and having a lot of fun.

I do think this is the last event I'll run a US list that has more than one artillery unit.  While they're legal and completely within the rules, I don't think they're very fun to play against and they provide an incentive to the player (me!) to just turtle up and let your opponent come to you while the artillery pounds him to dust.  It's an effective strategy, but just doesn't seem fun for my opponents.  I can prevent that situation in the future.

Here's the list I ran yesterday:

Airborne Engineer Combat Company(Glider)

Infantry Company

Platoon	Qty	Unit	Points
Headquarters
Airborne Engineer Combat Company HQ (Glider) - p.21	2	Cmd Carbine team	15
Combat Platoons
Airborne Engineer Combat Platoon (Glider) - p.21	1 1 2 4 2	Cmd Pioneer Rifle team Pioneer Supply Jeep and Trailer Pioneer Bazooka team Pioneer Rifle team Pioneer M1919 LMG team	235
Airborne Engineer Combat Platoon (Glider) - p.21	1 1 2 4 2	Cmd Pioneer Rifle team Pioneer Supply Jeep and Trailer Pioneer Bazooka team Pioneer Rifle team Pioneer M1919 LMG team	235
Support Platoons
Tank Destroyer Platoon (Veteran) - p.27	1 2 4	.50 cal Recon Jeep M20 Scout Car M18 Hellcat GMC	410
Parachute Machine-gun Platoon - p.18 Fearless Veteran	1 4	Cmd Carbine team M1919 LMG team	100
Cavalry Recon Platoon (Trained) - p.28 Confident Trained	1 1 1	M8 armored car Mortar Jeep Recon Jeep	70
Armored Field Artillery Battery (Veteran) - p.30	1 1 1 1 1 3	Cmd Carbine team M2 half-track with AA MG Staff team M2 half-track with .50 cal AA MG M4 Sherman OP M7 Priest HMC	230
Glider Field Artillery Battery - p.25	1 1 1 3	Cmd Carbine team Staff team Observer Carbine team M3 105mm light howitzer	115
Field Artillery Battery (155mm) (Trained) - p.30 Confident Trained	1 1 2 1 1 4 4	Cmd Carbine team Staff team 3/4-ton truck Observer Carbine team Jeep M1 155mm howitzer M5 high-speed tractor with .50 cal AA MG	235
Company Points:			1645

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Source document: Nuts Book