Monday, June 01, 2015

Kingston Kup 2015 FOW Tornament

The Kingston Bunker Rats' annual Flames of War tournament was run this weekend at the Battery Point Community Hall.  

The format was Late Late War with escalating points lists of 1250 point for round 1 Counterattack, 1350 for round 2 Breakthough, 1750 for rounds 3 Domination,  & round 4 Hasty Attack and 1945 for round 5 Cauldron.

16 players took part including 5 mainlanders from the Monday Knights and 4 Camp Cromwellians.  Team Cromwell comprised Jim Gandy (Panzer), Leigh Watson (Panzer), Mark Oakford (US Armour) & Chris Arthur (Soviet Motostrelk).

Round 1: 1250 points Counterattack.  I had the good fortune to draw Andrew Oates of the Monday Knights, arguably the best FOW player in the country.  It was pleasure to play him - he knows the game so well, makes no mistakes but is an affable opponent as well.  The mission/table combination suited my army, I had a good plan & could easily have won but for some bad dice at critical times.

Round 2: 1450 points Breakthrough.  Again I drew one of the Monday Knights' gun players.  This time it was blue on blue and the terrain did not suit me, providing too much open space for the enemy's expertly handled 88's & Panthers.  I also learned the hard way about some of the newer rules & troop types.

Round 3: 1750 points Domination Mission.  A good plan and a bit of luck gave me a quick & decisive victory v. the Soviets.

Round 4: 1750 points Hasty Attack.  Another blue on blue. Faced with a killer list with Panthers & 88's on an open table I needed either enemy mistakes of a lot of luck.  My 14 year old opponent made no mistakes and there were no miracles from the dice gods.

Round 5: 1945 points Cauldron.  Yet another blue on blue.  I defended a Cauldron on table where snow made all but the roads slow going.  This time I had places to hide from the Panthers & a good plan with good luck gave me a big win.

Last year the Monday Knights were beaten into 3rd place by the Bunker Rats & Camp Cromwell, but they came back with a vengeance this year.   Andrew Oates came 1st and other Knights came 2nd & 3rd.  The Knights won the team trophy easily.  Camp Cromwell came second in the teams comp in a close contest with the 2 other Tassie teams (aided by the fact that some top Bunker Rats were running the show and not playing). 

Leigh did best for Team Cromwell with 3 wins, Oakie & I had 2 wins while Chris at least got a trophy with no wins.


As always with the Bunker Rats, the tournament was very well run and the terrain excellent. 

There were 4 aspects that I didn't much love which I mention only as constructive comment: 
1) The points escalation system seems a lot of maths for no gain I could see.
2) Late Late War is where you get the worst of FOW's recent proliferation of Mickey Mouse rules & lists. 
3) Too many blue on blue games.  I would have changed to allied if I'd known that the number of Axis v. Allied entries was unbalanced.
4) They used the straight FOW Victory Points system which I think is silly (though on this occasion I suspect it favoured Team Cromwell - we didn't win a lot of games, but scored well when we did).
But these are just my own peccadillos, no big deal.  I had a great weekend regardless, and many thanks to the Rats - Nick Ridge & Patrick Oxborough in particular.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice wrap up of KK.

It was great to catch up with all the Tassie guys over the weekend

Best regards

Phil (Monday Knights)

Anonymous said...

All I can say is hail Caesar

Anonymous said...

Nice ARR - I am sure that Patrick is tickled pink to be referred to as "one of the Monday Knight guns"

Sorry I couldn't make it - it would have been great to catch up with you and the Camp C gents at KK.