Tournament Results and painted US Armor

I didn’t post during the last week because I was on holiday for half-term, but a lot happened hobbywise.

My wife and I traveled to Glasgow to watch the women’s team finals in the World Gymnastics Championships. The goal was the watch the Romanians (her team) and the USA (my team) battle it out. However, the Romanians failed to qualify for the finals for the first time in 40 years, so it was all USA for us.

This is what the Romanian girls were doing instead of qualifying. 

If you've never seen gymnastics live, it is worth doing. This was my first time and I was blown away by the spectacle and the talent. I’d only ever watched on TV during the Olympics but I'm for sure going to go to more events.

Also, the USA blew out the competition without a single fall or mistake to win their third straight world championship. USA! USA! As a bonus, we got to watch Russia have an epic collapse. Simone Biles, the American star, was awe inspiring. She was performing some of the most difficult combinations in the world but made it look as easy as walking down the street. 

3 time world champion all-around, 3 time team champion and first women every to win 10 World Gold Medals. Can't wait to see her tear up the Olympics!

When I returned to London, it was time to get my army ready for the tournament I had on Saturday.

The tournament was my first Flames of War tournament since I was a sophomore in college (8 years ago). The tournament was an 8 player, 3 game 1675 one-day tournament run held at the Ibuywargames store in Woking. Fez, one of the Breakthroughassault guys, did a fantastic job keeping the tournament moving quickly and smoothly. Great job Fez!

After debating army choices, I decided to finish my American armor. I worked hard throughout the latter half of the week to get the army done and by 11:30 on Friday night I was spraying matte varnish on the force (and missing some spots, I've discovered).

Company commander and his 2ic

I realized I didn't have enough 105mm Sherman turrets to run my original list and had to switch a few things up.

Here is the list I took:

I think it may have been a little too much list for the casual nature of the tournament, and I probably should have taken air instead of Patton (Fez was sure to give me an well earned amount of grief for taking such a strong list).

George C. Scott in all his glory

The 8 lists taken were:

My Patton 7^th armored

Panzer Lehr from Panzers to the Meuse

Tiger company with Otto Carius

7^th armoured Cromwells

Desperate measures panzers with panthers, tigers and Rudel

American paras with Guards Armored support

Hero Tankovy

31 T-34 Tankovy

There were lots of tanks. My 105s only shot at infantry once (Volksrockets in the first game) and were mainly relegated to flanking tanks. They did kill 2 SU-100s, 1 Panther and bailed 2 more!

These fellers missed every shot and bombardment in the game while fleeing from the only time they were shot at all day

After 3 games, I ended up placing 2^nd with 42 battle points and a record of 2-1-0. The winner played the Otto Carius tiger company and was able to earn 43 battle points. In third place came my usual opponent (and third game opponent) Alex running his fiendishly fast Cromwell tanks.

Marc from Breakthrough Assault was able to capitalize on some bad tactics and rolling on my part of take the objective and beat my 4-3 in the first game. He ran 4 Panthers, 4 Panzer IV, 2 units of 2 pumas, Volks rockets and an aufklarung platoon. I was able to pull off a first turn assault to threaten the objective, but great shooting from his Panzer IVs destroyed my unit on the objective and I couldn't hit the pumas who were capturing the objective to save the game. Great guy to play against and I learned a lot during the game.

In the second game, Fez’s Hero Tankovy defended in Cauldron in what was basically a terrible matchup for him. He ran 2 IS-2s with bedspring and tankodesantniki, a unit of 4 T-34s with 2 T-34/85, 3 SU-100s, another unit of T-34/76, a unit of 3 T-34/76 and some heavy rockets. He only had the IS-2s, SU-100s and the T-34/85 platoon. On turn one he forgot I had detroits finest and doubled his T-34s. I was able to move 14 and kill most of the unit. The IS-2s went down to flanking Easy-8s while the SU-100s got taken out by the 105s on the flanks (after he failed 5 of 6 bogging checks over 2 turns). I believe I had one tank bailed during the entire game, but that was more a factor of bad match up than anything I did.

These guys never fired a bombardment and only killed one stand of infantry.

The last game was against my usual nemesis Alex. The mission was fighting withdrawl and I thought it was going to be easy. He had an objective hung out on the left flank with a train track keeping the rest of his army from rescue. I ran my entire force to kill his one platoon and capture the objective. My recon was able to block off all ambush positions on that flank. However, awful dice meant I didn’t kill his platoon quickly, and when I finally did, he made the 5+ morale to save the game. By the time I killed all of his tanks and break him, I was down 2 platoons (one to air, one to being foolish and letting him hit the 105s alone) for a 4-3.

The tank platoons (which need more matte varnish)

The Tiger player who won needed a 6-1 in the final game to win and unfortunately his opponent wasn't able to take anything out. 

As my 2^nd place prize, I won a “medium” box of FoW. Since I have too many armies right now waiting to get painted, I found another player who would swap the prize for an infinity box they had at the store. I was able to get some new Janissiaries for my Haqqislam. The models are so beautiful and what list doesn't benefit from an Akbar Doctor?

I can't wait to paint these. I think the missile launcher will become an HMG tho.

 I had a really fun time and enjoyed a low pressure tournament environment. I did notice I got more competitive as the day went on and that concerned me. I got out of the tournament game because I hated how I felt competitive and it stopped being fun. I think if I keep the right attitude, I could get back to loving tournaments.

Some of the guys were talking about the tournament at Warfare in Reading in mid-November. I've decided to play in that and bought my ticket yesterday. It is a 2 army tournament (one Axis, one Allies), so I will have another opportunity to finish a late-war army (this time Wiking SS).