Weekend 'Sitzkrieg'!!

(The poster I designed for the WWPD Forums)

While I can not take credit for the term, 'Sitzkrieg' is a new word that defines a not so new tactic, being employed by mostly infantry based lists in order to win games. These missions are usually the ones where the defender literally has to sit tight for 6 or less than 6 turns while playing out the clock in order to secure an easy victory. While I see the two sides of this dilemma, I can not help but think that sometimes it is on the attacker to simply do what he or she is supposed to do when facing dug in infantry....and that is simply ATTACK!

It's too easy to look across the table a lot of the time and think that all is lost. You have to find a way to dig out Veteran infantry when you are in a tournament. It's a fact that you have to deal with and comes down to aggression and tactics. I am, by no means an expert at Flames of War, but over the course of Historicon and countless games afterwards, I am slowly gaining confidence of simply giving it all that I have to secure a win. Granted, my 82nd Airborne list falls into the 'Sitzkrieg' stereotype, but I have also been on the other end and have had to attack more than defend with this list. Most of those games I did lose, not because I was unlucky. I lost most of those games because I failed to use the rest of my army's assets to their strengths. If you saw my game against Steve Wagner's Panzergrenadiers, I now know that in some cases, shooting some smoke at targets in order to advance my troops would have likely won me that game. In the very least, would have given me a better shot against losing it.

New Desert Table Top

New Table Top Covering

 What do you think of the new tops? I trimmed the desert one a little too much, but it doesn't really show on the table I built. The other camo pattern looks a little 'busy' without terrain on it, but once you add some buildings and roads, it comes off being pretty nice and a lot more interesting than the green game mat I have. While the desert material is a little tougher, the one below is a little stretchy, I might stretch it over the 2'x4' 1/4" MDF boards that I use. Then they are permanently setup and can be placed on my modular gaming table, or the spare six foot table I use for when we have two games. I don't host very often, but lately people have been willing to come out and play in my workshop. It's slowly becoming a hideaway to get out of the house and roll some dice. I have a small TV setup in there on my workbench for movies, and my beer fridge is only a short walk to the side door of my basement. The way my house is built, this setup offers a little more room for two tables believe it or not.

Weekday game vs. Scotty. My Germans against his 11th Armored.

Panzer IV's pressing the center of the table!

Panzer IV Commander rolls by two of his victims to secure the objective!

It was pretty nice to play two games this week. The first I played against Scotty's 11th armored, and he gave me a run for my money. All in all, it was a fun game that went down to 10 minutes left on the clock and I came out on top to win. He was a little irritated to find I had Tiger's in my list and Panzer IV's to back them up. He used arty, Firefly's and a clever M-10 ambush to dispose of my Tiger Commander on the first turn!! So, for the rest of the game he had to cruise around in a Panzer IV. The more I look at my Panzer IV's the more I dislike how they are painted. I got some PSC Panzer IV's a LONG while back so I could make a decent Panzergrenadiers list with them. It was also a time where I was not painting that much. Look for them to get a touch up!

Tigers roll into the 82nd's defenses.

Counter Assault!! 82nd knock out two Tigers!!

My second game and the one I had the most fun playing was against Duane. We rolled up Dust Up I think, and it played to time and Duane came away with the win. We were back and forth for a while and in the end, I ran out of armor and he was able to take the center objective to secure the victory. We each took heavy losses. He lost his 'King' Tiger on the North Eastern objective, I made a push with Fireflys and Shermans, but could not dig out his infantry without taking on a few of his Panther tanks as well. I had to choose, I chose to try and kill the armor first. I did that with four shots on his second last Panther, Duane had one on the center objective and if he got to his turn, then he wins. I had a last ditch effort to break his Company morale. His IC was dead, so I hit one of the two Panthers with long range Firefly shots. I missed with the first two shots, but re-rolled because I was outside 16" for Indirect Fire. I hit both shots, he saved one and the other one I had a chance to 'pop' him. No dice, only bailed him out. All was not lost, in the Assault Step I decided to leave the safety of my foxholes and took out his bailed Panther. He needed to pass a test, he did. Duane's turn, he wins. At least it was close! The game ended, was a 3-4 loss.

Three bombs fall, narrowly missing their targets!!

The Germans push for the center!

82nd Airborne reserves arrive, making a push in the face of MG fire!

Stalled British armor, move in slowly as to expose themselves to Panther fire!

The lone Panzerkampfwagen V sits on the objective for the win!

Operation Overlord

Trying to get in as many games as possible has been difficult as of late. With all the Historicon prep time, I missed out on the bulk of the campaign. I tried to get some more bat reps in with my doubles partner, but had issues with the reports being submitted twice. So here are two solo reports on games that I played at Historicon against the only two Axis opponents I had during the event. The club will likely get together this Friday and get some more games in so we can do some more write ups if required.

GAME 1
Hold the Line vs Steve Wagner (German Panzergrenadiers)

The mission was simple, the layout did not leave me many options to attack without getting hammered each turn by arty or air attack.

The only option in the early going, was to leave the woods and move towards the objective I placed on the bottom part of the deployment area. I drove my armor alongside to support the infantry, yet lost one to artillery fire in the process.

 

 To the north, the 82nd attempted to swing around the side and give the Germans something else to shoot at. They did better than expected and inflicted more wounds to the incoming Americans! Here you see the second platoon of tanks laying in waste as their commander continues to drive forward!!

 Consistent air attack was key if the Germans were to hold and secure the win.

In the late stages, the Americans finally inflicted a casualty. Some long range shots from my Firefly's were able to knock out this Hummel. Steve sprang his Pak-40 ambush and destroyed the remaining armor platoon that was supposed to be supporting my push to the objective. By this time, we were down to only a turn or two until TIME was called.

The end result on turn 5, was being only inches from the objective, but Steve was able to close to 4" as well with his infantry protruding from the relative safety of the woods. I really could have done better in this game had I simply smoked his AT guns and take the risk of simply over running the objective a little earlier, before he could re-act to my movements. I was simply overwhelmed by 10 German platoons of opposition and not playing the 82nd Airborne as they deserve to be played. Speed and violence of action would have given me a different result. In this case, it was a 1-6 loss.

Game 2

Counterattack vs Russ (Panzerspah!!)

Expecting a massive counter attack, the 82nd Airborne dig in one objective, they lie in wait as their reserves try and take the German objective to their North-West.

Early in this game, the P-47 air support was able to track and target an advancing column of Panzer IV tanks. All but one of the Huns' tanks were destroyed in the bombing attack.

The armored Guards platoon looks down the road and ready themselves to lay waste to any enemy tanks that attempt to drive towards the left flank.

At this moment in time, I was only a turn or tow away from reserves, where I would make the Germans force themselves into making a choice to defend an objective with a small Recce platoon and attempt to over run the 82nd's position on the other side of the hill. The Germans came over the hill in mass and attempted to rout the Americans!

Looking at this while I took pictures, I definitely felt a little overwhelmed and for sure thought all had been lost, the 82nd would have to give ground back to the Germans. I was able to bring my armor from the left flank and my 57mm Anti-Tank platoon acted as a great deterrent to make the enemy think twice before charging in their with all his armor. The Marders and Luchs of the 'Spah company certainly came over the hills in numbers, but quickly their numbers fell to Anti-Tank, bazooka and long range shots from my armored platoon.

The end result of this game, if you caught the video in a previous post was 4-3 for the Americans.

Standby.....GO!

This is it, the last of my three part series on Historicon 2013. 'Sitzkreig' is the new thing taking over Flames of War posts far and wide. It seems a lot of people had issues with people taking too much time during their games and now the community is looking for a way to fix it. That subject is for another post, for now I will close out this post with coverage of my games and my own thoughts on how Nationals went from my perspective. My first game was against Russ from CGR and we had a busy and great game! He really pushed with his forces and really put his Panzerspahkompanie German list to my limits, the 82nd really had to fight them off and keep the enemy from capturing their objective. Everything from Infantry, Panzer II's and Marders, this list had it all and was tough to fend off.

Looking back on this game a week later, I think I was luck with my deployment area and it worked out that I could only allow Russ to get to the objective by pressing hard against the dug in Airborne platoon. The Anti-Tank guns were able to suppress the incoming armor, and there was a lot of it! I got a lucky roll early in the game and was able to range in on a column of tanks and blew up three of his Panzer IV's. That was a big boost, as then my Sherman and Firefly platoon that came in on the secondary objective in the Reserve area, only had to deal with one Panzer IV. Russ had no choice but to trade shots with me a few times and we both went to the end, never losing that one Panzer IV to enemy fire. The Sherman and Firefly that were engaging it never hit it to take it out. Back to gunnery school for the guys in the platoon. My other tank platoon did not fair as well, they bogged a few times and got a little bottle necked and Russ was able to capitalize with Marder shots, nearly wiping out my platoon.

These two games were just plain tough! Steve was really patient with me and knew I had my hands full moving across open terrain, the threat of air attack and constant artillery kept me from getting an entire platoon across the board, they assaulted one of his observers and moved into the woods with intention of taking out his Nebelwerfers but we ran out of time. Dave kept me busy with his Canadian list, his use of devastating bombardments time and time again was enough to rattle the fillings out of my teeth! I was aggressively defending two objectives and was able to hold him off the right side of the table. He came at me with everything on the left, Shermans, Archers, Buffalo's, and infantry. We literally went down to time with his platoon commander carrying on the assault all by himself as a last ditch effort to win the game. I held my ground with four remaining stands and came out with a single point in this close loss.

Russ closes in with all the armor he could muster!

Really nicely painted Audie Murphy.

Get off the road!!

Beach landing display board.

I love airfields, this one was excellent!

Hard to taxi through a cratered runway!!

Rob and Dennis plan their next move at the I-95 Doubles

Cool rocket effects!

M-57 Anti-Tank guns cover their 82nd Airborne brothers as the Germans move in!

Now that it's all over for the next little while, we'll likely be looking at heading down to Fall In, being held in Lancaster PA. The ten hour drive was a long one, but worth it for this great event. I'll be busy in the next little while getting some battle reports ready for the Overlord campaign and deciding on whether to prep  an Early War army for next year. I'll likely get some more posts done in the coming week, hope you enjoyed the series!

Check Your Equipment!! Part 2 of 3

In the first installment, I went over my list and some of the expectations and experiences of this years Late War Nationals Tournament held in Fredericksburg, Virginia. After a ten hour drive and a no show for my first game, I was ready to get into playing and have some fun to make this trip worth it. I was not the only one without an opponent, as I soon found out in game two. Chuck Leach was my opponent and we both discovered we each sat out round one with no one to play against. Not a big deal for either one of us, only we could have played the first round if it was caught in time. There were a TON of players, so Dave and Bruce had their hands full for sure. So much so, that I presented them each with one of the WWPD coins for doing a great job running this event. I can't wait for next year and Early War!

I know I mention never having played Cauldron, this was only the case in tournaments. It doesn't get played much though, but after the tournament, it's a fun scenario and not sure why players don't like it.

I won that game by only a narrow margin, Chuck's reinforcements gave something else for my Sherman V's and Firefly's to deal with as I tried to put some more pressure on him. The game started out with Chuck electing to use the Night Attack rule out of the rulebook, so visibility was cut to 4" at a time and rolling the dice to see how far our troops and armor could see in the dark. As shown in the video, I struck first and was able to cut down three out of four tanks in one of his armored platoons. He made his motivation and was able to shoot back, only the visibility was so poor due to low light, the sole surviving Sherman V couldn't see his targets due to darkness. I think it ended up being a 4-3 win for me.

The Canadians Prepare To Move In!

A Kangaroo Takes A Long Range Firefly Hit!! Everyone Off the Bus!!

Game three, and the last one of the day! I faced off against British Paras and came face to face against a former Marine. The military is a dominant force for Flames of War gamers. It seems a lot of players either served or are are still serving in the US military. I wish there was as much interest up here in Canada to play Flames of War, it would be great to have a larger following and larger events in Canada. I get that there is a 'Nationals' being held in Calgary this year, but really.....it's more of a West Coast Regional event than a National one in my opinion. I'll be looking to perhaps figure something out for this region as it boasts more players in the top 25 than any other part of Canada. On to the pics of my game against Mike, the super friendly and former Sgt. Major of the USMC. Video is after the pics!

Typhoon!!! Incoming!!!!

Armor Moves Towards The Objective Under Heavy Artillery Fire!

Multiple Typhoons Close In On The 82nd!

Another Pass To Finish Off What The Minefield Couldn't!

Historicon Nationals Game 3 vs. Mike Hall

Lost this one 1-6

Get ready!...Stand up!....Hook up!! Historicon 2013 Part 1 of 3

So, I had planned on doing a large video and picture dump from our trip to Historicon. I felt it would not have looked as I wanted, I didn't want to rush it and get it posted. Stay tuned for a three part series with pictures, video and more in the coming week.

This is how my army turned out and what I took to Historicon to compete. The group of us that went down, discussed all of us running Canadians for Nationals. After Dennis (MattVarnish) was the first to bail, I went ahead and completed the army I had started some time back. I figured it would give me an opportunity to get it done and on the table!

I think the only thing I added at the end was a .50cal AA to my command Sherman V in one of the platoons. It cost me five more points and got me to 1780 points on the nose. Over the course of several weeks you have seen a few 'in progress' sessions in trying to finish painting my paratrooper stands to get them ready for this event. Right up until the night before we left, I was finishing up the basing, all the painting had been finished.

I had a lot of positive comments and for my first attempt at painting such a large portion of infantry figures, I think they turned out awesome. Thanks to Mike for stopping by and giving me some advice and tips on how I can make a few changes and really improve my painting skils. I take in as much as I can get when I have an opportunity to get tips or tricks when it comes to painting.

I'm not intimidated of getting into assaults as much as I used to be. It's the one part of the rules I have yet to nail down, all the opponents I had made it easy and helped with any questions or problems I had. I only found myself going to the rulebook a few times during the whole tournament. I was even able to point out to a veteran player that plane stands can NOT be placed in or on terrain. That was a great game on day two I think. I'll have all that for my battle reports when I get all of it ready for posting. Russ from CGR painters passed on quite a bit of info that helped me in my later games. A big shout out to him in this first of three posts. If you need anything painted and you don't have time to do it yourself or you're just overwhelmed with everything that's in your queue, look up CGR painting services.

World of Not Painting and FnF

With some well deserved time off of work, I have been busy painting, reading, and trying to get some things done around the house. With the arrival of my parents from the east coast of Canada, I need to get this all out of the way and finished so I can make my way to Historicon relatively 'guilt' free.
Having time off and having friends living close to downtown, it's easy to get a game in at Boutique FDB's (Freres de Bataille) new store. Obviously with the french name, it's a short trip over the bridge into Gatineau Quebec, where they recently moved into their newer, brighter and roomier space. Dennis and myself were eager to trial our Historicon lists and generally talk about our other passion at the moment, World of Not Painting, also known as World of Tanks to everyone else in the Flames of War, or PC gaming community. If you're not a PC gamer, the Xbox 360 will soon have it as well, I know the July 4th weekend was the BETA for the game and so far has had great reviews. The game however will be hosted on a separate server, so right now Xbox vs. PC for World of Tanks is a no go for Wargaming.net

Most Tank Battles End Up Like This

Cold War Gone Hot First AAR: Soviet Motor Rifles vs Canadian Armour in West Germany, 1986

Hey guys, long time no see!   Hard to believe its been since end of April since I last posted, but I've been busy.   Historicon is very soon, and I have been busting my ass putting in extra details on my 21. Pzrs (but thats for another post) but in the interim, I was lucky enough to receive some Vietnam stuff to review for WWPD.net in the form of PT-76 and T-54/55's http://www.wwpd.net/2013/05/product-review-battlefront-t-54s.html     As my main Modern Warfare opponent, Rob, is also going to Historicon, we have only got one game in so far, but here it is!

The ruleset we are using is from http://stoppingtheredtide.blogspot.ca/ as well as the army lists.   Whats nice about Cold War gaming in 15mm in western Europe is that 90% of Flames of War scenery works, and the other 10% you can get from model train stores, as you can see with the shipping containers.

 PT-76 Recce light tanks, still in use today.   (Wasn't in our game though, but these pre-painted shipping containers are ace)

 Rob's Canadian Leopards roll past having dispatched this BTR-80 and T-80M

 Close up of Rob's M113 on the left, and Lynx Recce vehicle on the right.  He even found decals.  Very nice

Prior to them getting blown up, my Command BTR80.  In this ruleset, all transports are crewed, so can move about with no one in them much like german halftracks in FOW.  I found this very useful for killing Lynx's.

Anyhoo, here is the video, enjoy.