In an effort to try and catch up with a bit of gaming picture backlog, high time to catch up with some of the recent tournaments that have been held. Dreamers Vault Minneapolis had a 64 point Team Yankee tournament this past Saturday, Keith Gilmour was the TO.
Armies
The unpainted lead/plastic continues to disappear as across the community the painted armies are showing up more and more.
These are Chuck’s Brits.
Ray’s Americans, his wife gets savior of the day as he’d left some minis at home and she brought them in just in time.
I think this is Mike’s force…
Chris’s East Germans, really love his T-55s.
I think these are Keith’s Brits.
Ian’s East Germans.
Walker’s West Germans.
My Russians.
Alas I don’t think I have a picture of Jacob’s Americans tho you’ll see some action shots from the round where we played each other.
Tables
We had more tables than we needed as across all the players we’ve gotten in the very good habit of bringing terrain. I’m going to do something a little different then what I normally do and talk about some things I like or don’t like about tables and their design.
Lots of trees, good amount of cover around the edges of the table. Central area is good but I think a bit sparse as far as terrain goes. I think throwing in some shell holes might be a good add.
This one is a bit more open. The hills are placement of the town being offset I think are good choices in the table design. Players will have to make some interesting choices when approaching this table.
Having played on this table, I’ll say it’s a wickedly fun design, that thin strip of woods in the middle and the hills all give players a number of choices for moving around the board.
This was my favorite table of the day. Lots of terrain, quite a number of things to throw at players as far as selecting which side, your approach and so on. Lots to be said for tables that challenge players.
This table has a few open spots that I think a little additional terrain would help. Just some simple fences, maybe a hill. The central portion of the table is busy and will offer all sorts of terrain that will bring drama to the game.
In summary I like tables that present players with choices, layers of terrain where on the attack or the defense, you have avenues for which you can attempt. Put another way, you’re making movie, what would you choose as your cinematic set?
Round 1
Ray and I were matched up, which was just like the prior tournament. We faced off in exactly the same round. Just like last time, my Russians vs his Americans, tho our lists were a little different.
I choose maneuver and he choose attack, so that ended up putting me on the defensive. I believe the first mission was breakthrough, as you can see Ray’s two objectives in the picture below.
I had my medium sized BMP-2 company in the field, and my infantry ready to head into town. Likewise my small BMP-1 company and T-64s can be seen off in the distance. I made a critical error in judgement in deployment as I thought I would have more avenues to fire through the thin tree line. That turned out to just not be the case and thus my first few turns I needed to adjust how my armor and longer range weapons would cover the field.
I expected that Ray would funnel his forces following the dirt road down e middle of the table, taking the shortest route as well as going towards my tanks and BMP-1s, thus avoiding the BMP-2s and infantry there. He didn’t and decided to go in the back door if you will, engaging my BMP-2 company first.
His initial attack with his tanks pretty much took out most of my BMP-2s that had a LoS to his armor, which then heavily blunted any sort of salvo to take out a few tanks with missiles. This meant his tanks would be a bit of a thorn in my side through the game.
I decided I was ok with his line of attack and I’d use the hills to my advantage, going after his infantry that he’d need for later on. My reinforcements were heavily anti-tank focused so I figured taking care of the infantry problem sooner was the right priority.
I likewise brought up my T-64s and their 20″ range machine guns were able to land some hits as well. I did cave to the temptation to take a short or two at his tanks.
With lots of burning BMP-2s, the remainder high tailed out of there. I was able to maul one of his infantry platoons so it was in bad spirits. The closer objective was secure as was the further, so Ray would have to either come over the hill or down the closer road in this picture, which would then be driving towards the center of my strength.
Ray under the cover of the hills moved his armor forward as I expected and my delaying force was in understandable peril. They had however done their job.
Last picture in the series. We just made it to turn 5 when time was called so it ended up being a draw, I managed to score 3 points however.
Round 2
Chuck and squared off. I went with attacker vs his British force. No Retreat was our mission. This game I was hoping that I’d be able to use numbers to get on the objective fairly quickly.
Chuck place his minefields on my right flank in front of the forward objective and the second objective was back where the 4 garages were. It seemed unlikely I’d be able to get to the far objective, so I formulated a plan where I’d kick my T-64s far right, and then push down the middle towards the yellow cafe where Chuck had a couple of Milan teams. I’d use my BMP-2s at range to maybe take out a team or two in the house while the infantry made a run for it. On my left flank I’d use my BMP-1s try and cover the road in support.
First turn, I took out some of Chucks scorpion scouts on the left flank, but over the right, lots of misses.
A better shot at what I needed to do. That infantry in the woods by the objective would need to be dislodged. I figured however the T-64s and their brutal guns with infantry streaming at them from the cafe (the yellow building) was my best chance.
As my infantry moved up Chuck brought in his swarm of FVs. Last thing I needed was lots of machine gun fire, so I raised the ante and brought in my T64s unfortunately my shooting was slightly below average and my infantry was a bit too far out in order to start with RPG rounds. My BMP1s and Spandrals on the other hand were in a better position to take some out however again, I wasn’t landing hits like I needed to.
Chuck decided to leave the cafe as more volleys of BMP-2 missile fire was starting to land and inflict casualties.
Wrecks were starting to land in the middle of the table, however my infantry was pushed back until all this machine gun fire could be taken care of. I landed a few salvos of hail rockets but again, just could do much more than get a single vehicle or bail one out. Just not enough.
Final picture of the machine, a victory for Chuck 4-3 as I wasn’t smart enough to get a T64 within 8″ of the objective for top of turn 6.
Round 3
As fate would have it, 6 points going into round 3 I was still in the hunt for top honors. Lots and lots of draws going around and through the second round, only one 6-1 game and Chuck’s 4-3 win.
Jacob and I were matched up for the final round, with his Americans, with lots and lots of transports, infantry and a number of helicopters.
We played on the river and once again I perhaps foolishly choose attack. The mission was Contact, and Jacob rolled for time of day and got dusk. As such I knew I needed to press and press very hard as once we were at night the American advantages would become even greater.
I went ahead and decided to go for my right flank with the BMPs on one side and the infantry flowing through the cover up to the river crossing.
With my reinforcements I figured I could bring them on in such a way to deal with whatever Jacob might try to counterattack with. I left my small BMP1 company, T-64s, BDRM-2s off.
Immediately I had to decide if I wanted to strike at range with missiles or move up to get ready for an assault as well as get more volume of fire with the 30mm guns. Not sure what the right answer was but my thinking was press, move up and prepare to assault not only with the infantry but the BMP-2s as well.
Luck was with me in so much that when I took fire from the various AT assets I was getting bailed not blown up. Thankfully I was able to also pretty much take care of the M113s in support.
Invariably when I tried to assault that just didn’t go well between bogs, and fire, while I had them pinned I just couldn’t dislodge the American infantry from the position, so through the course of a few turns until night fell, lots of firing, American vehicles getting taken out, loss of BMP-2s and some infantry but no real ground taken.
On the other side of the map, a bit more high drama. Jacob had both Hueys and Cobras. First round he takes out my gophers and my gophers barely knocked out anything. Besides my Gremlins my real AA was gone for the game. For Jacob that mean this objective was very much in play. Through lots of luck, my T64s came on, and did their best to throw up some AA MG fire as well as drive off his Hueys from landing infantry. Then my BMP-1 company came on and likewise drove off another attempted landing of his Hueys at the same time taking out two of the helicopters.
Jacob would later land the remaining Huey in the woods, drop off the infantry and for the late game, we had lots of jockeying for the position but thankfully it didn’t fall into Jacob’s hands.
We ended up with a 3-3 tie.
Closing Thoughts
We had 2 tie for 1st place. We had 3 tie for second. I was in that group, so the top 5 positions were heavily knotted up.
One loss and 2 ties for the day was a bit surprising but I account that more for just being rusty then anything. It’s hard to get to a definitive result when v4 flames of war-isms and Team Yankee-isms are running around in your head.