Liberating Bazookastan

Remember those fearless Bazookastani halftrack drivers? Now, the US, under Dave's command, is assisting in liberating Bazookastan from the evil Germans, under my command. Besides, you can only refight similar battles so many  times before it becomes hard to come up with names.
I had 1750 points of German infantry, while my father had 1750 points of American armor.
The mission was Pincer. Two objectives were placed for me to defend. I have delayed reserves coming in on my flanks, hence the moniker "Pincer".
Here are the pictures.

Deployment. The Americans are in two main  groups, one for each objective. I am set up the same way.

After they advanced, I killed one tank with  my own tanks, who promptly Stormtroopered back into position.

The Americans advance into Bazookastan.

My tank positions. They are well-hidden behind the terrain.

The motor rifle gets close to the objective.

A successful assault overruns most of my positions on the right flank.

The tanks on  the other side of the battle kill a single stand. They don't assault due to my fearsome anti-tank weaponry.

Here we see the Bazookastani drivers proudly helping to recapture their homeland. The MGs in the halftracks are what kept me  from assaulting.

They got a panther!

I only have one team contesting the objective, and it's looking grim for him.

The Americans on the other flank have circled around, also bringing death to my Panther.

I have to do something in  the next turn to avoid the capture of my fuel dump...

Nothing but a small infantry platoon and two bailed-out tanks stand between Dave and victory.

After causing large-scale carnage, my forces are beaten back.

One of my panthers stayed bailed, while the other went to shoot Shermans off the objective. It wasn't enough.

A view from the other side. A narrow victory to the Americans.

 

           What I learned from this one is that infantry lists at 1750 get BIG (lots of stuff never made it on  the table), and also that balanced lists don't often win. If I could have had more on the table, including mortars and artillery, I would have been able to take back the objective.

           Also, US armor is finally viable with the book Blood, Guts, and Glory. We had 20 or 30 Shermans that never got used because they were bad. Now, with Jumbos and Easy Eights, they are a force to reckon with. Jumbos keep the tanks alive, and Easy Eights shoot very well, moving and firing without penalty. Both were proxied this game, sadly. We have had bad weather lately, so we can't get outside to prime the tanks for painting.

          Happy holidays, and see you again soon.

Veterans' Wars at the Local Club

Every November, my (relatively--it's still an hour away) local club runs a three day mini convention called Veterans' Wars, in honor of those who served. I went down on Saturday this year and played in a couple of games-- I tried to storm the American trenches in World War I, then I tried to attack Rorke's Drift as the Zulus. Both games were a lot of fun. Here are the pictures!

The Germans move up on the trenches after a deadly gas barrage.



In the next couple of turns, we will be in the trenches, hopefully.



On the other flank, tanks line up on either side of the trenches.



In the center, the assault on the MG bunker does not go well.

Now, the Americans have brought down artillery, on their men as well as ours. More detonated harmlessly on the hill behind us.

I have taken the trenches.

There is still plenty of hard fighting still to come.

At this point the battle is hard to call.

The Germans have made slight gains, but there is much still to do.

Now the Germans take the trenches on the other flank as well.

they have made two breaches in the line.

We attacked,  but we were beaten off.

The bunker still will not fall, no matter how much force we throw at it.

At this point the afternoon games were beginning, so we called it in favor of the Americans.

More time and we could have done it, I think. We were close.

Now, I take the Zulus and assault Rorke's Drift in the British Colonial era. The game is based on the movie Zulu!, and it is a fun and fast playing game designed by my father.

The Zulus first hit the compound. Only a couple fall.

We wounded a Brit and set the building on fire.

Now, we begin to circle around.

The British strip whole segments of the line.

We line up for hand to hand action on the rocky slope.

A view of the hospital. Some of those men will be in for a long time!

The British fall back in the face of the second wave.

Zulus converge on the kraal, then fall back.

We gear up for the third and final wave of Zulus.

Wounded men finally serve on the line.

The Zulus have been beaten back.

None left, and they are very likely to fail morale.

Both sides have been  greatly reduced in number. 34 British and untold numbers of Zulus have perished. The British have persevered, but not for the Zulus' want of trying. One more wave would hve done it.

 

These were a couple of good games. I may have lost both of them, but it's more fun to attack anyway.

I shall have a report or three up next month, but none more this month as I am headed to California for Thanksgiving!



TactiCon 2013 Report

Welcome to Jordan Wargames' special report on TactiCon 2013, which is sadly more than a month late. Oh, well. I hope that my next post will be far more punctual than this one, although I do have school now.
First up will be a training montage of the three or so battles I fought to get ready for the Flames of War and Warhammer tournaments I played in there. First up, you will see my German infantry take on some Americans and the Commie swine, and then selected images from the first half of a Warhammer game in which my Skaven beat up the Empire of Amazons. Finally, I will give a quick summary of what I remember of TactiCon 2013, along with selected (Read: 2) pictures.
There were some amusing quotes, most notably "Bazooka man from Bazookastan" and "quadruple-decker halftrack."
I can't remember my list exactly, showing that I really should post more often, but it was an infantry company with a customizable platoon, Marders, Panzer IIIs, MGs, and Mortars. My father used a great variety of things. I was Surrounded, defending two objectives in the middle from and attack from both sides. Then, we played a Hasty Assault.

The Training Ground





 Infantry set up to defend the objective.

 Motor rifle set up to TAKE the objective.

 The Marders were in a wood in the side of the table to counter my father's tanks.

 More motor rifle on the other side.

An overview of my position.

This showcases a phenomenon I know as "triple-decker halftracks."

 My father's armor-- in front of the Marders pictured earlier.

 The halftracks rush at my position and cause light casualties.

My tanks show up to kill some halftracks, at least one driven by a bazooka man from Bazookastan.

 On the other flank, many things die.

 I feel a lot better about my defenses on  that flank now.

 My tanks all got killed by his darned Ambushing tank destroyers.

A picture from the other side, which I always like to take.

 The Sherman killed my Marder. It was supposed to be the other way around.

 I had nothing better to do and no pressing reason to go to  ground, so I decided to pound this one gun into smithereens. These are the hits.

 The predicted result.

A big assault took the other objective. Things look grim.

How am I going to get out of this one?

I send most of the other infantry platoon rushing over, but not quite fast enough to contest the objective.

My Marders do it, though.

This does, however, only solve the immediate problem. I still have a lot of things to kill.

My Marders got killed. This was expected  but it still sucks. We called the game at this point.

The beginning of the next game. My infantry defends the right flank against T-34s. 

My other infantry on the other flank does some hits to the Soviets.

Tanks close fast!

So do mine.

Dave's infantry close rapidly.

My Germans are outnumbered like always.

The Soviets dig in. My MGs are too much for them.

It's a tank brawl.

Until the infantry, who are Pioneers, clean up the T-34s.

My other infantry platoon along with Dave's KVs shows up.

We agree that the game has reached a stalemate by this point. Eventually his tanks will shoot me off the objective, but that would be no fun to play or to report on.

Now I show selected images from a Warhammer game. This shows a very  effective Scorch spell killing 13 models.

Skaven advance.

My Hell Pit "Abomination." Ain't he just so abominable?

My plague monks take the hill.

One of only two pictures I remembered to take at the con. A Soviet "infantry" battalion with more tanks than infantry held me off, but with another turn I would have won.

Four teams are all that remain of his infantry, and he was running very low on tanks as well.

 

Summary of the Con:

 



          Friday night, I played in a game of Dust Warfare run by somebody from the local club. This is a hypothetical game with World War II extending several more years. It has things like walkers, futuristic armaments, and battle zombies. I was the Germans, defending a command post from the Americans. It was a fun game, and I ended up buying a basic set of the game on Sunday.
          On Saturday morning, I played in a homebrewed 15mm Vietnam game. I was the Vietnamese army attacking a French fortification. It was a very nice looking game, but sadly the rules did not live up to the same expectations. They were slow as heck and poorly presented. The scenario was very one-sided as well. He was running it as a campaign, but none of us cared, so we just went balls to the wall to overrun the French, doing so with ease.
          Saturday afternoon and evening, I played in a Flames of War tournament. I fared very poorly, with three losses. This was because our first game was slow getting started, so I didn't have time to win, losing 4-3. This gave me an opponent who steamrolled me 6-1. The  third game, I played a better opponent who had slightly better luck. Oh, well. I deserved this 6-1 loss. I also lost the tournament.
          On Sunday, I played Warhammer. I won, demonstrating very effective use of Skaven weaponry and beating the Dark Elves, my first game. I then lost my second game against the Empire. My third game was against the fabled Chaos troll army, which also kicked my butt. At least I didn't lose this tournament.
          All in all, a good con, with me going 3 and 5 and probably deserving 4 and 4. I played in some fun games, bought some cool stuff, and now know what games not to try next time.
          Until next time, at least once in November!