Back on June 18th Keith Gilmour ran the first Flames of War tournament at Dreamers Vault in Minneapolis. This was remarkable in that it was the first Flames of War Tournament in the Twin Cities in a very long time. On the order of at least 2 years we figured.
A huge huge thanks to Keith for putting the life back into Flames of War up in the Twin Cities. Huge metropolis like that and it’s a super example of what a few players can do to get a community of gamers going!
The tournament was a Mid War, 1665 points 3 rounds set. I decided to take my German Gren list.
I was jet lagged as all get out and trying to readjust from living in an approx 12 hour time difference. I was really wanting to make it to a Napoleonic reenactment but I just was not trusting myself to actually stay awake for a 6 hour drive. An hour up to the Twin Cities, now that I could do…. barely with lots and lots of caffeine.
Writing this up after the fact is quite a struggle as my memory is pretty cloudy but it was overall a fun day, that much I remember. I think I took 4th place? Rick Davis was the over all winner. After that I forget the break down.
Keith put together a nice set of prizes. Thanks to Battle Front and Dreamers Vault in Minneapolis too!
There were I want to say 12 or 10 in attendance. I remember we had either 6 tables set but only needed 5 or we had 7 tables and only needed 6. Something like that. For a first time event and getting back into the swing of things it went well.
We’re still building people on the Twin Cities Flames of War Group to coordinate playing every week on Wednesdays. Do join! https://www.facebook.com/groups/260088791007289/
It is great to see people coming out of the wood work and showing up! Likewise we’ve been helping new people into the hobby.
This was Chuck’s winter table that he put together.
This was Neal’s table using a Cigar Box battle map. Mighty pretty and took the prize for best table as I remember.
One of the desert tables. There were 2.
The new ruined building set that Battlefront had just released was out on 3 of the tables.
My first game was again Bill Wojahn and his infamous Hungarians. I was the attacker. Bill setup a defense line across the middle of the table to protect the closer of the two objectives.
I figured I would have to move my infantry across the little cover that was to be found, mostly through the shell holes. Likewise I needed some time to prep the position I was going to have to assault as there were 4 anti-tank guns that could make easy work of the armor that I had. With one Tiger, 2 Pz IVs F2s and 2 Pz IV F1s, a Stuka, confidence was high!
I rolled with my infantry down the middle and my armor on the flank. Bill popped his 3 STuGs that were in ambush giving me some work to do.
Towards the end of the game, my dice largely were cold as could be which translated into lots of wrecks on my part tho the Tiger lived. I assaulted fairly effectively but just couldn’t put enough damage into the position such that by the call of time, it was a 2-5 loss.
Second Game was against Neal who is one of the “new” guys. He likewise had a German list with Panzergrens, and this time we were playing in the desert. This time I was defending, and immediately had to make the tough choice of how to split my forces.
Here you can sort of see how I made my choice. On the far right I have my Pz IV armor and on the extreme left just barely in the picture was my 88 gun and Tiger. Then in the middle is the infantry, with one platoon ready to move and sit on the objectives.
Part of the key to my plan was trying to hold and/or win one of the flanks and then bring my armor back to aid in the “last defense” of the objectives as the reinforcements arrived on my flank.
Neal sent his STuGs and one platoon of troop filled half tracks against my armor. Between the Stuka and my shooting I managed to stabilize this side of the battle fairly quickly.
While on the other my 88 and tiger just where shooting really poorly such that Neal’s other platoon of panzergrens made it to the objective to assault my Pioneers who were defending. Thankfully in a very pitched assault I was able to win that fight but then face Neal’s Pz IVs coming on my flank.
I think we exchange about 1 turn of fire before time was called, very tough game, but a 5-2 win if I remember right.
The last game of the day I played against Patrick. It was a great time, facing his Russian Matilda horde. He had me on the ropes the entire game. Between his SU-85s and Matildas I was having to do some serious dancing to even staying the fight.
So in the middle his Matildas I was picking off one by one but they had command of the field. From the left just out of the picture were 3 SU-85s that were engaging me at distance.
My 88 was covering the objectives and trying to get some flank shots on the Matildas but that just wasn’t working out. Patrick gave me one turn of shots but that was it.
My Tiger would come in from the bottom left of the picture as a reinforcement as would my infantry. I double timed them to get to the back objective on Patrick’s side. (Again it’s out of the picture but basically to the upper far left)
My Tiger moved to then cover one objective on Patrick’s side and the infantry on the other. Patrick couldn’t defend all of the objectives since his SU85s had to either contest against the tiger or the infantry. That ended up game for me 5-2 (I think).
Had we gone just one more turn Patrick would have definitely beat me. I had very little holding the objectives on my side so this really came down to the wire.
Thus is the tale of the tape. Was a fun day and I didn’t sit down the entire day just to keep awake. It was a struggle but I made it and happily picked up some new Japanese lead for my Pacific army I’m working on.