Thursday, January 24, 2008

Wolfkrieg '08 AAR

General Intro
To begin with, let me just say that Iron Tom has set the standard on herding gamers along through a large event. If he had any serious problems along they way I couldn't tell. At 48 players, this was the largest event like this that I've participated in, but everything ran smoothly.

The best part of the event was the people. Asside from getting to know some of the local and regional guys better (in that road trip kind of way) I got to meat several folks from the forrums and put real faces to fake names, including various "Forum Personalities," like CrazyIvan, General Zod, Mike McMann, Bressiadies, and more. With almost 50 of the central US's most dedicated gamers out for the event, from as far away as Illinois, Kansas, Georgia and all points in between, how could you not have fun? See, look here, this thing was huge!

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NOTE: I had my new camera with me, so these pics link to some BIG versions.

It was a great venue, too. Pet Shop Comics is just HIGE!!! The family that runs the joint kept us fat and happy all day with grilled pork chop sandwitches. Uhm... pork chops...

Tables
The tables laid out for the event were pretty good -- none dipped below the "good" mark, and several were offically designated Way Cool. Some belonged to Pet Shop, but many were set up by the local guys. Check it out -- these are pics I took of the tables before a bunch of unrully gamers made a mess of the place.

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Armies

I don't think I got shots of every army there. I was expecting the normal buty pagent sort of set up, where everybody lays out their toys to gawk at over lunch, but that didn't happen. Instead, judging for the painting competition was done mid-game. I did get shots of some of them, but I hardly think these show the work in its best light. Unless you wanted your army to look good in a cardboard box top. At any rate, here are a few that looked good (the pictures, I mean. Most of the armies looked pretty good.) If you were there and don't see your army, don't take it personally, I just didn't get a good shot of it.

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Game 1 - Encounter

The morning started off spastically, as I tend to do when asked to think before all the coffee sets in. This ended up being one of two training missions I operated on, as my opponent was new to the game. This isn't a bad things -- when you have world class players in the same tournament with folks who don't know the rules, what you've got is a healthy game system with a growing community, which is a Good Thing. And for a new guy, Dave just about kicked my ass! I ended up with a marginal win, just because I killed more stuff -- no one took any objectives in this pointless, non-decisive blood bath. The only reason Dave didn't take it for the win was that I still had more platoons on table. And by "platoons," I mean officers, as I was mostly down to command stands. It was fun, and the bloody indecisiveness of the fight was to set a tone for my day. In the end, no one could take an objective but I killed slightly more (hay, officers still count as platoons as long as they pass that moral check!) and walked away with a 3-2.

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You can see here the high cost of stupidity. I didn't have to let him take that side shot, but I did.

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Game 2 - Break Through

Sliding my toys over to another table, I got to meet another new player, Shelby, who was there with his dad. Again, new blood is always good and I enjoy teaching. On the other hand, its hard to do at a tournament. Meaning, its hard to teach the rules without giving the other guy hints you wouldn't give a more experienced opponent. You feel bad pulling the woll over their eyes. So I didn't do that, I just played. And Shelby won.

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Still, it was close, bloody, and crazy to the last turn -- just the way I like 'em... except for that whole "I didn't win" part. I tried to deply my forces to funnel Shelby through the village in the middle of the table, and it worked. Too bad for me the first Russians through the gap were JS-2s! Very quickly there were burning tanks, including one of my precious panthers and his Company Commander.

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On the far side of the table my infantry did make short work of a few tanks...

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We danced around the village, both taking casualties, but his reservers arrived on the objective. I tried, but just couldn't put enogh fire on them to force the moral check that would have won me the game.

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A 2-3 win goes to Shelby.


Game 3 - Fighting Withdrawl

I don't care to recal this one in any particular detal. It wasn't that my opponent, Mike, wasn't a good guy. Its just that by round 3 my endurance was down, my impatience was up, and I rolled right in there and got myself killed. I nice tidy 6-1 for him. By turn three, I was literally wishing he would just kill me faster.

You see him setting out all those AT guns in ambush?
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They ruined my day:
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Game 4 - Free for All

This may have been my best game of the day, in no small part because of my reckless, devil-may-care attitude and tactics, as well as a really great guy on the other side of the table. I think his name was Mike -- but if I'm wrong, I blame the swiss cheese effect of time travel on a person's memory.

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We pretty much just rolled into range and started blasting away. In the table center I tried to trash the escorting armoured cars before the tank destroyers beamed in, but couldn't pull it off. The M-10s materialized on my Panther's flank, and got a quick easy kill.

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This kill was quickly avenged, and the surviving M-10s quickly left the field, leaving my Panthers to hunt for targets.

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On my left, we had us a gun fight! He had AT guns and infantry along the crest of a hill, I had halftracks and MG teams in the village. At about 15 inches range, we spent 3 or 4 turns seeing what we could get out of small arms. The fight on this side of the table was mine, despite the burning halftracks. At one point, the crest of that hill was full...

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Meanwhile, on my right, I thought I was getting ready for a knife fight in the woods. That was before these Shermans showed up...

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Anyway, the right flank was his. Eventually, we ran out of time, and men. I've never seen so many "Last Man Standing" rolls in a single game! We both walked away, bloody and laughing, from a hard-fought tie.

Meanwhile, at other tables...

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Awards

So, four games later and we were all houling at the moon, ready to hear the results. Iron Tom called off the names, and it sounds like us southern boys went up there and owned: Disgruntled walked away with the overall Axis win, Rarier took long march (though there may have been some dispute, as the literal award went to another), DakkaDave was awarded Best Allied Army for his pretty little men, and there's a funny story about my own award. As they announced the best Axis army, and I got ready to puff out my chest in acceptance, they called the name of General Zod. What? Are you kidding me? Don't get me wrong, he's got a beautiful force. He'd brought his gebirgsjaeger company, and I LOVE all the base work he did on them, esepcially the deep mountain masses and climbing troops. But at least in my own little unbiased mind, I mine the clearly superrior artist endeavour (and if I put as much time into tactics as I did painting, I might win on occasion...). OK, I'm not really that serious about it, but still. Anyway, all was made right when I checked the actual score sheet -- I'd beaten Zod by 2 points on painting. Now, he had me on unit history, and the award may have been a combination, but those 2 points were all I wanted. I didn't want to make a big deal of it, but word got around. I even got an email from Pet Shop comics after a few days to find out what I wanted for a prize! What a class act all around, from the shop, Iron Tom, and Zod -- he'd given the actual prize to kid in thier gaming group. I can only hope to learn by these classy examples.

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Also, did I mention the food? Richard, owner of Pet Shop comics, braved the cold all day long, grilling up pork chops. And by pork chops, I mean mouth wattering goodness. I'm serious. These things were GOOD.


Patton Museum

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On the way home, we decided to check out the Patton Museum. Hay, how often do you find yourself with a major armour collection about 20 miles out of your way? It was cool. The tank museum we saw in Diekirk, Luxumberg kept their stuff in better condition, but the Patton folks just had so damn much of it!

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I'll let the pics speak for themselves here. But if you ever find your self in Kentucky with a few hours to kill, check it out. There is simply no other way to really appreciate the mass and bulk of WWII armoured fighting vehicles. The things are beasts.

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Caesar poses by a Priest, because he doesn't feel the cold
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Rarier by another Prist, because they are his favorite
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DakkaDave by a randomly selected armoured vehicle
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Caesar posing next to his former lodgings
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Rarier gives his review of the same vehicle and its utility as a beauty aid
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All told, it was a hellova weekend, and I had a blast. I don't like cars or road trips generally, but if I had to be stuck in a metal can I could do much worse for company. The gibberish was non stop. It didn't hurt that we had such a worthy destination, either. Pet Shop Comics, Iron Tom, Richard, and the rest of the gang up there are top notch in my book.

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