Mighty Armies!

Last year at Historicon we all jumped into 15mm Fantasy pretty heavily.  I picked up goblins, one friend got Dark Elves, and another Leonines.  Most of the figs we've assembled come from Rebel Minis and Splintered Light.

Well, it's been nearly a year and we finally all got enough figs put together or somewhat painted to play a game.

We ran a three-way brawl, with last-stand-standing winning.

My 40 pt list was something like:
6 Light Infantry with 'Fast'
3 Light Cav with 'Mobile'
3 Light Archers
General

My opponents had a mix of cavalry and heavy infantry, and even a witch.

Scorpio should have a post with better photos up soon (EDIT: and here it is http://metal-skirmish.blogspot.com/2013/05/mighty-armies-first-game.html), but in the mean time, crappy phone photos!

Archers and the General moving around one flank towards the Leonines

Leonine Heavy Cavalry making their way toward my lines

The same group from my side

The game itself was a blast.  My cavalry quickly found themselves overextended and turned into kittie litter.  The Leonines eventually took that high hill, and paid for it via the Dark Elves' attention.  My remaining troops engaged some Dark Elf infantry and even managed a stunning upset, routing a couple of stands and killing his witch.  In the end, my General, who'd been hanging out with the archers, eventually made his way to the fight and proceed to butcher the surviving enemy stands.  

It's a solid, fun set of rules that gets your figs running around and killing each other in no time flat.

Marsupial Garden - Huzzah Hobbies 1500 Point Tournament

On Saturday the 13th, I made it out to Huzzah Hobbies for the I-95 Market Garden tournament (lists only from Market Garden or Bridge by Bridge).  It was a 3-round, 1500 late war event.  Since I don't own any of the involved allies (I guess I could've faked a sub-competitive Sherman list), I ran Germans.

My list was a StuG Batterie (because they're awesome):

CiC in StuG

3 StuGs

3 StuHs

1 King Tiger

3-Team SS Recce Infantry

Full F/V Fallschirmjager w/ 1 Faust

Sporadic FW 190B

Not having a 2iC (and thus losing Kampfgruppe) was rough in the third game (Dust-Up), but otherwise the list fared pretty well.  Read on for a summary of each game (I'll just discuss highlights) and lots of photos!

Round one found my StuGs attacking John Sulek's gorgeous 82nd Airborne in the village of Mook.  The I-95 folks had these cool fluff pieces for each board. 

Here's the board.  I was attacking from the bottom right to the top left in Breakthrough.  The river basing was all "Polder" the washed-out fields found all around the area during the occupation.  This meant slow going and a bog check.  I placed the objectives in the river next to the grey bridge and in the far corner near the farm building on the left.  There was a rail bridge to the right, but it was clear that I would need to make a drive at that grey bridge quickly.

John's Paras:

Set-up from my corner.

Summary: Basically, John placed his artillery and a short para platoon to my left and his Shermans, full paras and 57s across the river.  I sent my FJ in a flanking attack..

My StuH's sped around his artillery's flank, ignoring his arriving recce jeeps and basically rolled up to the railway in the picture you see below.

StuH's and CiC contemplating their next move:

Meanwhile, my King Tiger advanced right at the Bridge and eventually claimed it, giving me the game.

My FW took out a Sherman:

King Tiger on the move:

Remnants of the StuGs and Leg Recce (in the forest)

John's AWESOME 57mm platoon:

StuGs and King Tiger:

The other funny moment was my FJ coming in, occupying the farmhouse and then assaulting a few para teams on the objective.  Pushing them off this would've likely given me the game much earlier.  3 teams made it through defensive fire, but of course I whiffed.  He then came back at me with a vengeance.  Thankfully I didn't break and went back into hiding in the farmhouse.  

The StuHs and King Tiger won this game, the former by chewing through his artillery and the latter by being nigh invulnerable without the artillery on the board.  John was a great opponent, and the result was a 5-2 win for me (lost the StuGs).

Round 2 was against Bob Everson (eventual champ) in Nijmegen.  This was fun, as I've actually been there.  The board was a rather built-up town with some polder and forests scattered throughout. 

Bob ran the Canadian Infantry list with Kangaroos (turret-less Sherman transports).  It's a pretty ridiculous list, as it plays as Infantry (i.e. I had to attack, in No Retreat), but he gets mechanized transports.  He had 2 Infantry platoons, 2 full Sherman platoons (i.e. 4 Fireflies) and a little carrier Recce platoon.  

I attacked from right to left based on this picture.  My plan was to advance quickly on the objective in the open field, hopefully avoid his Sherman ambush and leverage my armor or an infantry assault to take out his other Shermans before reserves really arrived.  

I committed my Recce to the tree line in the bottom right of the above photo, which in hindsight cost me dearly.  I advanced quickly into the row of houses facing the objective, (FJ hitching a ride on the StuGs and successfully stormtroopering into the houses), but on his turn two, it went south fast.  2 StuHs bogged in the tree line, my StuGs whiffed on his Shermans and the return fire was devastating.  His ambush from the trees at the end of the road in the next photo obliterated my StuHs (the survivor fled) and I lost 2 StuGs as well.

I still had a shot, but my King Tiger refused to hit anyone.  My FJ lined up a decent assault, but failed their tank terror.  My CiC stayed bogged for 3 turns in the tree line and his kangaroos and infantry showed up relatively quickly.  I almost got one Sherman platoon, but didn't, so a 6-1 for Bob.  In hindsight, I should've seen the obvious ambush spot and dedicated a FJ team to screen.  I also should've sent the KT up the middle instead of around the edge, as his flanks would've been protected by the buildings and given him prime LoS onto the objective.

Nevertheless, it was a fun game despite my lack of success, and it was good to get another game in against Bob after the match at Cold Wars (round 2 of that tournament) when the results were the opposite.  

Round 3 had me playing the other StuG Batterie in the tournament (we ended up with 4 more German players than allies, which is the exact opposite of the turnout everyone expected, so there were some Red on Red games).  His StuG Batterie had 2 King Tigers and 4 C/T 88s.  I don't think I got a shot of this board, but basically, there were hills and forests scattered around a long main diagonal road, with 2 houses at opposite ends.  This was really, in all senses, a mirror match, from the board, to the lists (almost) to the fact that our King Tigers both got Rapid Fire for our ace skills.

We played Dust-Up, which was comical.  The first 3 turns took about 10 minutes, as our King Tigers danced around at long range doing nothing.  My StuGs showed up, but I was overly scared of the 88s (long-range + Vet kept me rather safe).  This led to me not racing at them head on and instead trying to flank.  This put them in LoS of his Tigers and some decent rolling cost me my platoon.  His StuGs and StuHs flanked towards my objective through a forest but took their sweet time.  Meanwhile, my SS Recce and StuHs arrived and did what the StuGs should have: drive right at the 88s guarding his objectives behind a large hill that screened them from the rest of the fight.  Even at range, the StuHs made mincemeat of the trained guns, whose return fire did nothing (poor luck to my opponent).  His StuHs kept me from just racing mine onto the objectives, so I first sent up my SS Recce.  He killed them, but exposed his StuHs doing it, leading to this fun scene:

One turn later, my StuHs and King Tiger had taken them out.  It looked like I was going to win!

Meanwhile, his StuGs tried to take my CiC and a few FJ off my far objective.  I was able to fend off his assault, but instead of pursuing his last StuG (who made his platoon check) to the edge of the forest where I could ambush him and hopefully kill him, breaking his company, I stayed back in the forest.  My King Tiger then failed his Stormtrooper roll after waxing the StuHs.  His King Tiger obligingly pumped three shots into my side armor, killing a third platoon, and, with my StuHs on the objective, but with no CiC, I'd lost.  It was a very back and forth game, and turned out to be highly entertaining despite the sillyness of Dust-Up + 2x Armored Companies.  This left me with 9 points (5, 1, 3) and 15th or so place.  Shame I couldn't do any better, but that's the way it goes.  The Allies won a few more games overall, giving them the win.  

The event was great overall, the terrain was top-notch, and the host store was clean and well-stocked.  

His StuGs attack my objective:

FJ and my King Tiger guard the other objective:

The rest of the boards:

Review: Battlefront Focke-Wulf 190 F8

In preparation for the Market Garden Flames of War tournament at Huzzah Hobbies next weekend, I decided I wanted to take some air support.  Unfortunately, the lists in Bridge by Bridge only use FW-190 F8s, which I didn't have ready access to (even through friends).  As such, I decided it was worth trucking over to Eagle and Empire and plopping down $18 for the plane.  This would be my first German plane and after seeing that it can be used in both mid and late-war (slightly different model, but whatever), it's a decent investment.

In the kit, you get a fuselage, 2 cannon pieces, a nose piece, 2 bombs, a flight stand and some decals.

Everything came through ok with the exception of the rear of the fuselage.  Both sides on the bottom had some miscast areas that looked like the resin had folded over itself.  Not a huge deal, but noticeable upon close inspection.  Everything went together ok, though the cannons are a tight fit in the grooves on the front of the wings.

I sprayed it dark grey on top and white on the underside, and then washed both sides with black.  I then hand painted on some Vallejo London Grey on top and Sky Grey on the underside.  The camo scheme that BF suggest was ok, but I did a quick google search and turned up this page (http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2004/08/stuff_eng_profile_fw190a4.htm).  I tried my best to copy the Buehlingen scheme.  I think it turned out pretty well!  I opted against the swastika tail markings, but did add 2 Tank Kill markers.  I'll let you all know how this foul fighter ace does in his attempts to thwart Frost's landings around Arnhem after the tournament.

Cross-Post: Nova Cisterna

Check out Scorpio's excellent post on our Gruntz recreation of the WW2 Battle of Cisterna, in which apparently some 6-700+ Rangers were captured or killed over a few hours (link at the end).  This was part of the battle of Anzio and jumped out at me as an interesting scenario as I read a couple of books on the larger battle.  These Rangers infiltrated behind enemy lines via a drainage ditch at night for like 4 hours, only to emerge completely and unexpectedly surrounded.  The fact that they were able to inflict the damage they did was impressive.  Our battle actually mirrored the real battle pretty well.  Gruntz, as always, is a fun, flexible system.  I need to get more 15mm Sci-Fi painted (i.e. Colonial Marines, Aliens and Predators).

http://metal-skirmish.blogspot.com/2013/03/gruntz-nova-cisterna.html#comment-form

WWPD 4 Vets

On the 30th, Aaron (El Flama Blanca) and I trucked down to Game Vault in Fredericksburg to partake in the WWPD Podcast's Charity Event, WWPD4Vets.  We'd game for 12 hours in support of Wounded Warrior and other veterans groups.  There were other sites around the world, including California, Georgia, Alaska and New Zealand!  The goal was to rais $2,500 for Wounded Warrior, which WWPD easily exceeded.

Our contribution was a copy of Super Dungeon Explore.  This brought in $95 in total ticket sales that all went to Wounded Warrior.

In terms of gaming, it was a fun & productive day.  I managed to play 4 games across the eight hours and just generally shoot the breeze with the WWPD gang (check out their twitter feed @wwpdpodcast for some choice shots of me looking confused as someone explains just what exactly they mean by 'executed for being a toaster').

First up was a 2v2 Flames of War game (we all brought 1500 points of late war, so there were 3,000 points on the table).  WWPD Luke and I ran Allies (him with Market Garden Brit tanks and me with U.S. Rangers in Brittany) defending in Hold the Line against WWPD Chris' Schwerre Panzers (5 Tigers Incl. Wittman)  and El Flama Blanca's Gepanzerte Panzergrenadiers.  It was a slog of a battle, as we all had impressive swings of luck.  The only constant was that we all failed pretty much every single roll that would've had a big impact on the game.  In the end, they finally failed their company morale test, but not without hammering both of our companies pretty well.  The most impressive moment was the attempted assault on two tigers by one of Ranger Companies, who apparently were all doing their best Vin Diesel impression, leading to the entire Company's destruction in defensive fire.  Ouch.  The big swing for us was an early ambush from some daring Brit tanks (using Joe Vandeleur, the Warrior), that decimated both Gepanzerte platoons.

Next up was Battlestar, with WWPD Jon (Lee Adama), WWPD Chris (Adm. Adama), El Flama Blanca (I don't remember), me (Starbuck), Luke (Baltar) and WWPD Sean (the Admiral from Pegasus) taking part.  The game saw a distinct lack of active Cylon presence on the board, as we only flipped one or two Crisis cards that placed Cylon ships.  I was not a Cylon and was able to confirm that Sean wasn't either.  I had strong suspicions that Jon was a toaster, but didn't play the social aspect correctly, allowing him to cast aspersions on my loyalty.  Luke was outed pretty early as a Cylon due to an unlucky combination of cards in a Crisis vote.  He resurrected and played his Super Crisis, spawning a ton of Cylons and declaring that anyone in FTL control or the Pegasus Engine room when we jump next would be executed.  Unfortunately, Sean and I were in the Engine room.  Sean was able to get out, but on Jon's turn, he promptly went into FTL and jumped us prematurely.  He was a Cylon, naturally and I was executed; this was probably the coolest Cylon-orchestrated sabotage I've yet seen in this game.  After respawning as Boomer, we humans were able to hold off and make it with juuuuuust enough fuel.  So survive we all.

After lunch, we broke out Lords of Waterdeep with the same group (-Sean).  It was an entertaining game.  I really enjoy the mechanics it shares with Agricola, and the lack of stress makes it so much more enjoyable.  Luke ended up winning with a strong come-from-behind effort.

Accompanying dinner, Luke, Jon, El Flama Blanca and I sat down for a game of Spartacus.  Jon and Luke were intent on dogpiling El Flama Blanca's House Glaber early on, while I took the opportunity to control the games and jump out to a decent lead in Influence.  Jon caught up and managed his funds very well.  As Princess Leia says, something about gladiator movies, slaves, and slipping through my fingers...  Eventually, Jon got to 12 Influence, and we were able to knock him down to 11, prolonging the game.  I was then able to bring one of his slaves into the arena to face my Thing in the Pit.  He promptly eviscerated the poor lass, prompting Jon to play a card that gave him an influence via crowd sympathy (and thus, the game).  Crap.  Jon played the social aspects of both Spartacus and BSG very well.

Anyways, it was a very fun day of games and it was cool to be able to contribute to the charitable side of things.  A HUGE thanks to Jon and WWPD for hosting/orchestrating the event.  Until next time!

Flames of War Doubles @ Cold Wars

The main event for me at Cold Wars was a 2000 pt Mid-War Doubles tournament.  My friend, Aaron, and I decided to join forces for this event.  Our main goal was to have fun, and if we managed not to strangle each other (i.e. actually work as a team), even better.  NOTE: there are no photos, just words.  Sorry.

Aaron plays mainly Germans and I was happy to run veterans, so that was our first decision made.  From there, we experimented with a few different list constructions, from dual pioneer lists, to pioneers and fallschirmpioneers.  Finally, we decided upon dual gepanzerte Panzergrenadiers from Eastern Front.

With the 2,000 pts between us (2x 1,000 pt armies w/ up to 200 pts swinging), we set out to build a balanced list that had elements we liked.  Aaron's primary goal was to bring 8 Panzerwerfers with extra crew, giving us a massive artillery bombardment.  I wanted to take Marders.  We ended up with the following lists:

Maurice
HQ + 1 Knacker
Full Gep. PzGrens + Knacker
Min Gep. PzGrens
3 Marder IIIHs
2 8-Rads
Limited HS-129 Air Support

Aaron
HQ+1 Knacker

Full Gep. PzGrens + Knacker
Min Gep. PzGrens
8 Panzerwerfer + Extra Crew
2 sdkfz 10/5 half-tracks with 2cm AA guns

These lists had mobile elements, some decent AT and a whole lot of template action.  Lists created, we had to paint the damn things, with me painting all of the infantry and Marders in about 2 weeks and Aaron getting all of the halftracks and werfers, along with the HS-129s in a similar amount of time.  I painted the infantry in Winter themes, and since Aaron wasn't too pleased with the halftracks and intended to strip them, I gave them a nice whitewash to match.

The tournament itself was three rounds, with (almost guaranteed) red-vs-blue matchups.  There were something like 27 or 28 teams.

SCENARIO 1 - BLIND DOMINATION
The Domination scenarios are a series of scenarios created by the I-95 Gamers that scatter a series of objective points around the board worth varying VP levels.  You want to have 8+ under your control at the top of turn 6 (you don't have to keep sitting on them; once you've started your turn controlling one, you can move on until the opponent takes it back).  The Blind Domination scenario adds the additional fun of your forces entering the board in waves: turn 1 brings Recce and Observers on, turn 2 is an advanced guard of 2 platoons and a warrior and turn 3 is everything else.

Our opponents had US Rifles and Armored Rifles, with core platoons + some Stuarts, M10s and cannon half-tracks.

The board, from our left was as follows:  Our third had a forest, the outskirts of a village with accompanying roads, and a hill with forest beyond it.  Two 1-point objectives were close to our side in the village outskirts.
The middle third had a road skirting from one short edge to the other, with the left side flanked by two long and deep forests, the rest of the village and a hill, and some open space on the right.  There was a 2-point objective on the road to the left between the 2 forests, a three on the edge of the forest along the road, and a 3 all the way on the other side on the far edge of the forest.  Their side had some open space, a forest, a hill, a road, some open space, and a forest (we won the deployment roll and got a far better board edge).

Anyways, we advanced across a broad front, trying to put at least one platoon on each of the three big objectives, but that's not where the action was.  That was all on their side: there, they moved their leg infantry up on our left flank (the snow preventing their truscott trott), the M10s and Shermans behind the hill, and the Armored Rifles advancing up the road in their tracks.  On turn four, our Rockets promptly ranged in on their lead ARP, blowing up a couple of tracks and killing their passengers.  The platoon failed their platoon check,  kicking out all the passengers and sending their rides to the rear.  Meanwhile, our planes arrived, bailing two Shermans and (critically) killing the platoon leader, keeping them from advancing any further.  From there, they made the odd decision to advance the ARPs on foot, leading to another barrage that wiped the first platoon.  Meanwhile, the rest of their advance stalled and they couldn't get through the forest in time.  At the top of 6, we had 8 objective points and won with nary a casualty.  Great opponents, just not their day.  These scenarios are great, as they create a much more dynamic battle than the Fair Fights, in my opinion.  They feel like the Close Combat video game series and create a nice mix with the defensive and mobile battles.

SCENARIO 2 - HOLD THE LINE
We faced Americans again, this time in the desert.They had Armored Rifles and Armored Recon.  Highlights were two platoons of Grants and 3 or 4 Recce patrols.  We won the roll to defend and took the end of the board with the majority of a town in the center.  The main feature of the board was a Y road that went straight down the middle of the board from their end to ours, with the prongs at our end.  The village clustered around the intersection with a trail of buildings leading back to their deployment zone.  Either side of the village had a nice hill that blocked LoS, saving us from long range Grant fire.

Our Panzerwerfers went in our back right corner behind a forest and a big PzGren platoon deployed on our left objective.  CiCs went on the objective in the middle of a big Mosque with 8-Rad support.  Our ambushes were the Marders and the other big PzGren platoon (a mistake, we should've kept the Werfers in reserve).

After recce moving their patrols, they proceeded to advance, with one patrol rushing our Werfers, another clearing the forest in front of them and a third moving up to remove GzG on the PzGrens.  Everything else moved up, with a Grant popping an 8-Rad at long range.  The patrol attacking the Werfers bailed one and destroyed one.  They expressed overt worry about the Marders and thought they'd done a decent job of preventing a decent ambush.  Or did they...

Starting our turn one, the Marder crews threw off the tarps covering their vehicles, revealing their positions almost smack in the middle of the board in a four-walled courtyard that the American Recce ignored in their rush forward.  After remounting the panzerwerfer and deploying our other ambush in the Mosque, we got down to business.  The Marders earned their keep, 2 of them combining to wipe out a Grant platoon (the third missed 2 shots at a Recce patrol).  The 8-Rad combined with a CiC's 1/2 track and the Werfer command team to destroy and bail the 2 cars in front of them (and captured the bailed one in assault).  The Werfers ranged in on a 2iC in a forest towards the center of their advance, killing a number of teams and pinning pretty much every pinnable US platoon.  The HS-129 screamed in, bailed a Grant and took out a halftrack.

On their turn, their advance continued with their primary objective being eliminating the Marders.  2 Recce patrols and the forward ARP clustered around the courtyard, dumping .50 cal after .50 cal into the tank destroyers.  In the end, all 3 were killed.  However, this left us with a juicy clustering of vehicles for the rockets.

Our turn 2 basically saw us lobbing a ton of rockets into the outskirts of the village, reaping a heavy toll on the ARP, including sending their rides to the rear, and wiping at least one Recce patrol.  The HS-129 was much more helpful this time, killing a Grant and bailing another.

Their next turn saw an assault into the edge of my PzGren platoon, which I missed rebuffing by just 1 hit.  Their M10s also deployed hull down and lobbed some shots at the same platoon.

On our turn, we prepared to launch a counterassault and the Rockets and HS-129 combined to blow 2 M10s to pieces and kill a third Grant.  At this point, we were somehow at full time (there might've been a 4th uneventful turn in there), but it was really taking them a lot of time to move their forces up and then roll all the saves from the rockets.  Anyways, we ended up winning 6-1.  A fun game, but a bit contentious at times.  They let the Marders dictate their play throughout, focusing solely on foiling their ambush and, failing that, bunching up to ensure their destruction.  We took full advantage.  I think if they'd instead rushed the Werfers with all of their patrols, they had a really good shot at minimizing their impact, freeing their ARPs to actually get into a decent assault on an objective. Instead, the Werfers mucked up their assault and the Air support neutralized their other armored elements.

SCENARIO 3 - BREAKTHROUGH
The recap on this one will be much shorter on the details side, as we were pretty much wiped out.  Our round three opponents were Steve M of WWPD Fame and Bill with the Soviet Mixed Tankovy horde.  70 or so armored vehicles mixed across T-26s, T-70s, T-34s with Escorts and BA-10s.  To top it off was a Night Witch-piloted biplane that our HS-129 dueled a couple of times.  Aaron and I knew this list was in the mix and had figured that we'd have to hope for a decent scenario and luck with the Werfers to stand a chance.

You can find some photos of their horde here, as well as a shot of the end of our game:
http://www.wwpd.net/2013/03/cold-wars-picture-dump.html

The board had a huge desert fort in the middle that forced them to maneuver around the edges to get to the opposite corner and our objectives.  We had to abandon all of our halftracks to have the Werfers on the board.  We could've done a better job of hemming them in to their deployment zone, but our brains were off at this point.  They pretty much rolled to the objectives, with the Werfers hitting but not killing.  The HS-129 also didn't show up until turn 2, but did so in fine fashion, killing 6 of the 7 T70s it hit. That didn't really impact the outcome, since the platoon passed it's morale, but it at least made it entertaining.  Fun game overall, but we definitely were slaughtered to a man.

Overall, it was a very fun event.  Having a second person to discuss tactics and generally shoot the breeze with helps lighten the mood, and our list worked pretty well against other non-armored lists.  The Soviet Armored Horde was the one thing we didn't have sufficient AT assets for, and the additional burden of losing our half-tracks really hurt us.  I don't see how one can really justify other artillery over rockets when points allow, whether panzerwerfers or katyushas.  The huge template and rerolls mean you're getting max efficiency in terms of teams hit and with that many targets, they're bound to fail some saves.  US-style boards with tons of terrain also enable you to hide them well.  The lack of opposing air support helped us as well.  Speaking of Air Support, the HS-129 is another value buy, as it's very unlikely to be driven off by allied AA (flying tank) and it hits on 2+.  Against almost any allied armor, they're saving on 5s or 6s and then you just need a 4+ to kill.

Looking forward to the next event!

Cold Wars 2013

Well, Aaron, Paul and I are back from Cold Wars in Lancaster, PA.  We were only there for a day and a half on account of my awesome wife’s awesome chorale concert, but we had a lifetime of fun (or something). 

Aaron and I drove up early Friday, encountering little traffic and arriving with plenty of time to spare before our team tournament, despite somehow winding up on the far side of the hotel’s golf course. 

We grabbed our badges, linked up with Paul, checked into our room and headed out for the Flames of War Doubles tournament (see next post for full recap).

Suffice to say, the tournament was a blast.  We followed that up by playing some Zombiecide and Lords of Waterdeep.  The next day, we hit the Flea Market with a load of stuff to sell.  I was able to move a lot of the surplus from Historicon.  Of course all of the proceeds were immediately reinvested in the hobby. 

All-in-all, I ended up with a mid-war Tiger, some Pak50s, a late-war Brummbar, some more Splintered Light Goblins (15mm Fantasy is on the front burner), some Space Samurai and Space Pals (15mm Jedi and Smugglers/Bounty Hunters), and probably most excitingly, some excellent Bocage and trenchlines made by Luke and Jon from WWPD.  The 10ft of Bocage fits nicely into some boxes I picked up from Target, and the trenches were a fantastic deal.  I can see myself buying more and making a full-scale fortified battlefield (or at least half-fortified). 

From there, Aaron and I rolled out and made it home with time to spare before the concert. 

Successful trip!

Up next: tournament recap.