Bat-rep Twin Cities Regional Flames of War Tournament

December 28, 2018 | Tom Gall | Flames of War

By Tom Gall

This past weekend the Twin Cities crew hosted the first ever Midwest regional tournament for Flames of War at Dreamers Vault in Minneapolis. The goal was to crown the regional champion for the year.  Between D6 Games in Rochester and the two Dreamers Vault locations in the Twin Cities, we’re really blessed to have an active and fun group to spend many a Saturday with pushing lead and rolling dice.

It was a 3-round Flames of War tournament, mid-war at 109pts. We had 18 players in attendance with the Novaks traveling the furthest. The special aspect of the tournament was players were to mark allegiance to a store and the top two scores from that store would result in taking the title of Regional Champion for the year.

The plaque is all ready to be filled in.  Thanks much to Keith Gilmour for all the planning and especially TOing the event.

The tables for our tournaments are all player contributed. Everyone is pretty good about sticking to themes and theaters.

John Cedarberg and his son JB brought this special bit of eye candy for a Stalingrad themed table.

Cities, desert, open country across the plains of Russia, a good set of tables to challenge the players.

Armies out, departure ceremonies held, the crew ready for their first table assignments. We had exactly nine allied and nine axis players so that made for the obvious Red on Blue pairings for the first round. In the Twin Cities scene that’s something we try and strive for. While Allied on Allied or Axis and Axis can happen especially in the later rounds, it’s nice to be able to be fully Allied on Axis for the more historical play for the first two rounds.

My list for today was a Bersaglieri Rifle company:

  • HQ – 2 Carcano Rifle teams
  • Rifle Platoon – 5 Rifle/MG teams
  • Rifle Platoon – 5 Rifle/MG teams
  • Breda MG Platoon – 3 HMG teams
  • 81 mm Mortar Platoon – 3 81mm Mortar teams
  • 90mm Lancia – 4 teams
  • 88mm Anti-tank battery – 4 teams
  • CR-42 Falcos – 2 planes
  • Semovente SP Battery – 6 Semoventes
  • L6 Light Tank Company HQ – 3 L6/40
  • L6 Light Tank Platoon – 3 L6/40
  • L6 Light Tank Platoon – 3 L6/40
  • Never misses and For Italy command cards

For round one, Chuck Hiner and I were matched up, his Russian horde of scout cars, Stuarts and infantry against my Italians with plenty of 88s and Lancias. We immediately out of the gate had some choices to make. I typically opt to defend with this list, though Chuck and I play against each other often enough, so I needed decide if I wanted to stick with the plan or get creative and go with attack or maneuver.

I stuck to the plan, and he chose defend as well. We ended up playing Encounter. Having lost the roll for which side of the table I was on, I had problems where Chuck could out deploy me, choosing to hold where he would place his thunderbolt until I was already deployed. My 88s and Lancias couldn’t cover the entire table due to that wonderful set of palm trees. There are games that are lost in deployment this was one of them!

Chuck rolled in hard between his spearhead and winning the die roll to go first, he came in under reasonable cover. My Italian infantry would have to hold a couple of turns before I could get things shifted over and I’d need a lot of luck with reinforcements.

No surprise he pushed me back to building where I was stubbornly holding on barely at just under 4″. I shifted over my Lancias in turn 1 as well as moved over my mortar platoon. I managed to take out a few BA-10s at range but didn’t get them to run away. Chuck easily assaulted into the building and that was the game with a 1-8 victory for Chuck.

Round Two

Nathan and I matched up, his American armored infantry list with one platoon of M-10s, rangers and some 75s mounted in half-tracks, a platoon of half-track with mortars and 3 platoons of infantry with half-tracks.

We played Dust Up and this time I had my choice of where I wanted to deploy, and so I selected based on the field of fire. Given that Nathan didn’t have a lot of armor on table (he kept his half-tracks and tanks off), that allowed me to do some long range sniping at all that infantry. Way off in the distance you can see his six priests, that was the unit I was most concerned about as only my air could do anything about that and they’d be starting the game off the table.

First order of the game, was some lucky long-range sniping to take out Nathans 75mm half-tracks beyond that not much action as I needed my reinforcements in order to press the attack towards the objectives.

Turn three my six Semoventes were able to arrive on the table which meant as of turn four between my 81mm mortar platoon and the Semoventes the artillery was raining down to clear out Nathan’s two platoons there were hunkered down. Thankfully my Falcos were also available as of turn four so they tried to do their part and managed to bail out a single Priest.

Through turn seven, my L6s started to arrive and I was set to force things to a conclusion.

On the opposite side of the table, unfortunately, I neglected to take a picture of Nathan’s progress which was quite good. He’d managed to get his tank destroyers on the table and his third platoon of infantry.  They came on in their half-tracks and dashed into a number of good hiding spots. His rangers had likewise started to move in close to the nearer of the two objects in town. I had one platoon of infantry and my platoon of HMGs to realistically cover the objective as well as my Infantry formation commander.

Last picture for this round, between two platoons of L6s, the Semoventes, and long range snipping from the 88s and Lancias, I managed to clear off enough infantry from the objective to assault it with the L6s. Nathan would counter back with his Priests but he wouldn’t kill enough for me to not have a viable force to start within 4″ the next turn. I managed to take out his two priests that had moved to be within 4″ and that was the game. It was an 8-1 win for me tho just barely. Another 1/2 turn and likewise Nathan would have been contesting the objective in town.

Round 3

The last round Neal and I were matched for a German on Italian conclusion for the day. We ended up with Contact. I was the attacker.

Neal set up with mounted Panzergrens far left and far right. I kept my 88s and Lancias centrally located and then had my formation command on one objective and my infantry on the other objective. Neal held a platoon of four Marders in reserve. My first round of initial shooting was hotter than hot. Not only did I manage to hit all four of Neals Panzergrens on one flank, only one stand got out alive. The Lancias made quick work of two of the short 75 half-tracks and my L6s inched forward.

Over on the left flank, I brought on my Semoventes which then Neal sprung his ambush. His Marders would end up taking out all but two of my Semoventes but in the grand scheme that was a fair trade as the L6s on my far left flank had only one stand of infantry to take out before the objective was taken and nothing to contest with. A quick one due to very hot dice on my side, I ended up with 17 points overall on the day.

 

At the end of round two, there were three players with 16 points, Chris Novak, Keith Gilmour and John Cedarberg. Chris Grau and Chris Novak played on one table.

Keith and John going at it.

And at the end of the final round, Keith ended up as the overall winner. Chris Novak took second. For the regional championship, it went to the team from the Dreamers Vault Minneapolis store.

Our next event up in the area is again at Dreamers Vault Minneapolis on January 12th, LW, 1625pts. Maybe see you there?