AAR: Battle on the Mississippi 2017.1

We held our first Battle on the Mississippi for 2017 on Feb 18th with a very special Battle of the Bulge Edition. We kept it to just those two books and went with 1700 points. Originally we had looked at 1515, but upped it thinking for late war and the likelihood people would want to get out some of the fun heavier armor, but still not go overboard on points.

Once again, it was at Deaf Ear Records in LaCrosse. Unlike all the times before the person that was supposed to open things up at 9am didn’t show so we ended up waiting around for a good 30 minutes or so before the door opened and thus that pushed back our schedule for the day.

Thanks to Chuck Hiner and Bill Wojahn for all their hard work. They put almost all of the winter tables, trees and all, it was a huge effort.

A huge thanks to Chloe for minding the TO table, tallying the scores from the rounds to the best Sportsman scores. While we started late, it was Chloe’s efforts that allowed us to make up time and get to the next rounds without delay.

For the prize table, once again, a huge thank you to BattleFront for kicking in some prizes as well as to a number of attendees for throwing in some prizes too.

I’d neglected to get a picture earlier on, so alas here’s Jim having a his choice of what to take home, which was after the major trophies and the big prizes had gone. There was lots of good stuff tho!

Here’s what was the Best Commander trophies looked like! Once again Chuck went all out and got some really nice ones.

Tables!

As always we tried our best to have themed terrain that goes with the tournament. Snow, snow and more snow on every table, which was quite a challenge.

This was meant to be Trois Pionts where Peiper took on some Engineers ….

This was Malmedy

This was Mairy-Mainville where the 90th Inf Div faced the 106th Pzr FHH.

This was Le Roche where again Peiper faced the 82nd Airborne.

This was St Vith, where the 12th Volksgrenadiers faced the 99th Inf Div.

This was Stoumont.

This was Bure Belgium

Last, Bastogne.

Action

We played 3 rounds. Swiss of course for the first matching Germans vs Allied as best can, and the next two determined by points. There were only 5 German players vs the 9 Allied so it was really hard not to pit Allied on Allied.

We played Free-for-all,  No Retreat and Breakthrough. The first round also was under the effects of a Snowstorm and Blizzard (if rolled by the players). Lots of fun if you’re counting on your tires to get around. (Not!)

Germans on average had a pretty hard day. Not a single Axis victory the first round and at the end of the day, 17 points to the highest Allied Commander while just 10 for the best Axis commander!

Brian during the second round, looks like he was defending on this one.

Rick’s airborne on the defense ….

Jim vs Chuck under way…

Keith vs Lee, from the second round of action.

Chris vs Nicholas

Results!

Congrats to all those that made it out for the tournament. Always great to get an afternoon of gaming in with great people. Special thanks to the Novaks, the Battle Badgers and all the folks that drove down from the Twin Cities.

Over winner, Chris Novak

• Chris Novak (17) Allied – Overall Champion
• Rick Gearhart (15) Allied – Best Allied
• Keith Gilmour (14) Allied
• Patrick Barkuloo (13) Allied
• Tom Gall (10) Axis – Best Axis
• Richard Novak (10) Axis / Nicholas Angelici (10) Allied
• Jim Bodine (10) Allied
• John Dudkiewicz (8) Allied / Brian McLaughlin (8) Axis – Best Painted Army
• Lee Shaver (8) Allied
• Chuck Hiner (6) Axis
• Dave Ekstam (5) Axis
• Bill Wojahn (4) Allied – Best Sportsman

We haven’t planned out our next Battle on the Mississippi, either period or v3/v4. We will however be at AdeptiCon, so if you haven’t already please join us for the Team Yankee on Friday or the Nationals Team Tournament on Saturday. Tanks on Sunday.

Till next time, may your forces find the way to the objective!