Gottacon Flames of War Tournament AAR: Day 1

The weekend of February 28th I played in my first real Flames of War Tournament.  It was 1750 points Late War, with lists restricted to the Normandy, Eastern Front, and Italy Compilations.  This meant few big cats and less high AT allies.  We had ten players come out which was a bit lower than what was expected.  But major Warhammer, Warmachine, X-Wing and Malifaux events going on at the same time definitely drew off a few players.

The tournament was set up with a campaign element where your sides results in the last run would affect the mission you played and who would be attacking and defending.  We had 6 German players using Herman Goering Panzers (Me), Italy 26th Panzers, Panzer Lehr Armoured Panzer Grenadiers, a Fortified Grenadier Company, Schwere Panzers and Grey Wold Panzer Co. Facing off against them was 2 British: 3rd Royal Tank Regiment and British Paras, 1 American infantry and 1 Soviet Strelkovy. (The American player dropped out the second day and was replaced by a Soviet Tankovy).  My friend Cam, playing the Lehr Panzer Grens, got switched to the allied side to even things up.            

All's Quiet on the Western Front

Round One:

I faced off against Lachlan's British Para's in No Retreat. He had ten platoons, but half started in reserve, he had 6 pounders in ambush.  I used my recce aggressively early to push back his ambush from the most likely tree line.  He dropped them in the buildings though, which I did not anticipate, and routed my Pz III's.  My Stuh's were doing well blasting out his forward infantry platoon while I kept one unit of Panzers watching the far side of the table.  I then unnecessarily assaulted his unit of paras in the treeline and was soundly beaten.  With the infantry hanging on and the 6 pounders covering that whole flank I decided to switch my axis of attack.  

       

This would have worked well if I hadn't of forgotten about the 6 pounders in the buildings.  After moving my Stuh's out of their line of sight I then storm-troopered back into it, and was suitably punished by losing the unit.  My remaining Panzers went into assault the other objective and ground down a few units but were unable to secure the objective before time was called.  I destroyed a unit of 17 pounders and an infantry unit, but due to Lachlan having 10 platoons it was a 5-2 for him  

Doh! forgot about those 6Ilbers 

Assaulting dug in Paras across a stream

Things were looking ok for the Germans but too many British reinforcements were flooding in.  

Other games in the first round saw the German's sorely defeated, all other games were 6-1's for the allies but mine.

 Round Two: Encounter 

I faced Kip's 3rd RTR, 2 units of Shermans, a unit of 4 Fireflies, 4 Achilles, and two units of Recce. 

We traded shots from cover in the middle while units in the far right wood got embroiled in a knife fight.  My Dice got the better of Kip and he lost a unit of Shermans.  In the middle my Stuhs were having fun crashing into trees and decided to fail almost every bog check they were called on to make.  At one point the entire unit was either bogged or bailed.  His Recce came on, on my left, but were taken out by my Panzer IIIs arriving from reserve.   

Werfer command stand assaults a bailed out Stuart, pretty pleased with myself for setting that up. 

 Kip failed a string of firepower rolls with his fireflies and I was able to force a moral check.  With both command teams dead his company broke.  6-1 to me.

Too many 17lbers to go toe to toe with

 Other Games in Round Two  

 Round Three: Counterattack 

I faced Cam's beautifully painted Panzer Lehr Mercenaries check them out here! I think we messed up the rules for this mission and he only started with two units of Panzer grens in tracks on the board, nothing in ambush. My Panzer IV's went to set up a welcoming committee for his arriving reserves while the Stuh's, 8-rads and Pz III's went to try and whittle down his infantry.  The plan worked and I got a 6-1 although I had to do a pretty risky assault to get the objective in time.   

Those dang half tracks would survive all game despite some concentrated shooting. 

 

Cam tries to get his reserves out of the "killzone" to mixed effect 

Other Games in Round Three

At the end of the day I was the leading German player with 14 points, while strategically the allies were winning by a large margin.