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.

Gruntz Write-up

I fiiiiinally took the time to wrap and post the write-up of the game of Gruntz a friend and I ran at Gencon this year.  It only took me 3.5 months.  Here's the link:

http://gruntz15.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=aar&action=display&thread=982

And here's a direct link to all the photos:
http://smg.beta.photobucket.com/user/Mkcontra/library/Gruntz

Battletech!

Oi, it's been way too long.  I've done quite a bit of gaming since the last post, just haven't blogged any of it.

Scorpio at http://metal-skirmish.blogspot.com/ has done a great job of tracking some of our games, including Tomorrow's War, The Department, Pulp City, and MERCS.

On the menu for the foreseeable future is a lot of MERCS, 15mm Fantasy and 15mm Scifi, as well as some other things mixed in there.  Maybe I'll actually get to those MERCS strategy posts I was hoping to write...

ALSO, I am like 5 months over-due on writing my Gruntz Gencon report.  I really suck for not having this done yet and owe Robin of Gruntz and the awesome sponsors at Rebel and CMG better.  It's almost done.

Anyways, I did get around to a rousing game of Battletech with my brother today.

We played a simple scenario.  12 turns, kills worth have their tonnage in points, +30 points for killing your secretly selected target, +30 for having your secretly selected leader on the board at the end.

Lances were:
Me:

• Jagermech - 2x Ultra AC5, 2x Med Pulse Lasers, 2x ER Large Lasers (leader)
• Jagermech - 2x Ultra AC5, 2x Med Pulse Lasers, 2x ER Large Lasers (brother's target)
• Dragon - LRM 10, AC/10, Med Laser, Rear Med Laser
• Trebuchet - LRM 15, 3x Medium Laser

Brother:

• Highlander - LBX20 AC, some other stuff (my target)
• Cataphract - PPC, AC/10, some Medium lasers (leader)
• Whitworth - 2x LRM10, other stuff
• Whitworth - 2x LRM10, other stuff

Here's a shot after turn 1 of movement from my side of the board.

Basically, I quickly focused in on his Highlander, who obliged by running into knife-range as he lacked anything with any sort of reach.  His Whitworths and Cataphracts encircled, but didn't get to optimal range fast enough.  I managed to inflict a Gyro critical on his Highlander, knocking it down.  After he failed to get up, I backed my Dragon up to be able to get a shot with my rear laser, while also firing my forward weapons at his Cataphract (bit of a dick move on my part, but we laughed).   Well, I paid for my cheekiness.  His Highlander, from the ground, basically annihilated any rear armor I had, while the Cataphract blew off my left arm.  The his Whitworths opened up with their LRMs and ate into my rear torso structure.  He critted my right and left torso with the same salvo, managing to pop both my LRM and AC ammo.  ~285 points of damage later (the Dragon only has about 250 armor + structure points to start), my heavy was a crater.  Then it was my turn to fire: my non-leader Jagermech opened up on his downed Highlander, hitting with everything.  The 2nd AC/5 shot managed to crit HIS left torso, and popped his LB20 ammo.  This did enough damage to kill him, and also would've triggered his SRM ammo in the same location, probably doing something like 400  damage.  Apparently ammo explosions are bad.  

Here was my 3-year old's interpretation of my Dragon after his demise:

Anyways, from there, I focused in on a Whitworth, killing it with a headshot, and then finished off the Cataphract.  He did manage to kill his Target Jagermech, but at that point, it was over.

I had killed his 90 ton mech (45), a 40 ton mech (20), and a 70 (35), killed my target (30), and likely would've protected my leader (30).  This gave me 160 pts, to his (35 + 30 + 30) 95.  

Good times!  12 turns was probably too many to really have mattered, although we did basically just get stuck in straight-away.  The Dragon seemed pretty pointless, and I dislike the mix of very short and long weapons on the Trebuchet.  The Jagermechs, however, were golden.  Those UltraACs are a fun threat, and getting into range to alpha-strike at potentially 48 points of damage is nice.