FOW Tournament at Good Games

The Kingston Bunker Rats put on a one day tournament at Good Games yesterday.  1750pts Early War, 12 players, 3 2 1/2 hour games in the day.  Camp Cromwell were represented by Jim's Schutzen & Mark's Fucileri.  There were also players from the Launceston Gaming Club.  There was a bit of a profusion of German armies (the Bad Guys do get the best toys) making Blue on Blue's unavoidable, but it was a good day renewing aquaintances with the other Tasmanian FOW players.  The venue was excellent as well as free, Good Games truly is our FLGS.  The Rats as always provided a great set of tables to fight on, with Nick Ridge doing most of the organising.

Your correspondent did not have a particularly succesful day, but a good day all the same.

Game 1 was a Counterattack.  I probably picked the wrong quarter to deploy in and Rob from Launceston did all the right things.  The only consolation was knocking off enough enemy to score 3 probably undeserved VPs.

Game two was against Smithy's Soviet horde in a Fighting Withdrawal.  In not my favourite mission, a mass of tanks I had limited counters to & an opponent that really knew made what he was doing made scratching up 2 VPs seem like a good result.

Game 3 was a Blue on Blue Free For All v. NickB who had a similar army to my own.  I felt I had to attack because of the enemy's superior artillery.  I had some good moments taking out the dreaded 88 that dominated the battlefield and the artillery with my HMGs. rushed forward while Nick was destroying my Paks.  But the critical fight was between his 4 35t's and my 5 35t's.  It went on for ages as pop guns fired ineffectively at tin plate, but a lucky round & a bad morale throw left me tank-less. Nick sent his tank rushing forward toward an undefended objective as I launched desperate infantry attacks on both my objectives.  Both attacks were far from hopeless, but both failed.  But Nick's tanks reached their objective, my Stukas didn't come and blow them off it, so it was Nick's victory.  It was FOW at it's best despite the Blue on Blue - two equally skilled players with good plans slugging it out until one of them got lucky.

In the third round, our Mark and NickR fought it out for first place.  The battle had not been decided when the time ran out, but Nick gained more VPs for killing enemy platoons than Mark to gain first place.  Mark did well to come second with two 6:1 wins and an honourable loss.  It seems he learned more in losing our two practice games against each other than I did in winning them.

Thanks to the Rats & NickR in particular for a great (though exhausting) day.