Gencon 2024 – Flames of War / Team Yankee AAR

By Tom Gall

Gencon sold out this year for all 4 days, 70,000 gamers which makes for a very busy downtown Indianapolis Indiana. I went for Able Kompanie’s Flames of War and Team Yankee tournaments that they ran Thursday-Saturday.  This is a tale of some of my adventures.

First a few shots from around the con before I cover the tournaments.

First, there is cosplay and there is cosplay. This was, I think, the most fun of all the ones I saw. Great art and it’ll end with a lot of bangs!

HMGS Midwest was there with this and other very pretty tables and very interesting looking games. Many might not think Gencon has historical miniatures gaming, it sure does.

Another HMGS game, this one a Napoleonic scenario which was setting up when I dropped by.

There were a number of Dawn Patrol games, which continues to be amazing to see. This very old TSR game is a WWI air combat classic, still being played, square map board, flat chits and all.

Day 1 – Team Yankee

First day, was all about figuring out parking. Thankfully the place where I usually go worked out, so smooth sailing and a short walk to get to where al the fun and excitement was, which for Able Kompanie was on the field at Lucas Oil Stadium.

I brought my Russian BMPs force tho I was waffling between BMPs a plenty or Afnasty which is also very fun list variant to play featuring Soviets, lots of air, many Hinds and so on. With the new dynamic points, I need to retune my Afnasty lists, so I decided to keep them at home for this year.

At 82 points, it’s still quite a bit of vehicles, but that’s Team Yankee these days. BMP-2s and BMP-3s with 7 T-55s to keep things interesting, with Nonas and Acasias for artillery, some recon, Storms and last AA assets just in case people bring air to deal with.

This was round 2 as I forgot to take some pictures of round 1 alas. The fellow I was playing against had a Russian T-64 tank formation as well as 8 T-55s. I thought the T-64s would give me plenty of trouble, but thankfully by starting out at night with a dawn attack, that allows for some shenanigans  with both of us needing to carefully pick our shots. I want to say the mission here was Dust up.

The BMP-3s were off table as the core of my reinforcements but the BMP-2s were able to missile away as well as sacrificing the tunguskas to take out the artillery and shilkas.

The T-64s and T-55s of his took hits, melting away piece by piece and then my T-55s and BMP3s arrived, the sun came up and that made for a quick taking of the objective for the second win of the day.

Last game was in the desert against Americans with their M1A1 uber tanks. The BMP-2 and BMP3 missile fests wouldn’t do much to them but the Storms might accomplish something. Likewise close in assaults and flank shots with tanks might accomplish something but then again maybe not. This mission was Covering Force, I had picked Maneuver since I had attacked the prior two rounds and couldn’t use the same stance 3 times.

As fate would turn out my storms were the ambush unit, they managed to take out a tank, Aiden drove hard immediately he didn’t wait for me to start withdrawing units.  This allowed me to send over a few stands to go for RPG (the good ones!) into the flank as well as T-55s into the flank. The BMP3s managed to get some long range missiles into the VADs and then Bradleys.  AA took care of the choppers and that was the game.  I ended up in 1st place for the day.

Day 2 – Mid War!

It was great to play a Midwar Flames of War tournament. Mid war seems like it’s taken a bit of a back seat this year. I brought my Italians with an L6 force. While the dynamic points haven’t been kind to the force, it’s a fun one to play and importantly for convention games like this, easier to pack and transport.

First round was against Russians in the desert. While I was able to get to 3 points as the attacker in Surrounded, I just couldn’t make firepower rolls to root out infantry and especially the infantry in the building. Without having any infantry of my own to send in, victory just wasn’t there.

Round 2 was with Rich Baier, against his Americans. Always a great guy to get a game in with no matter the outcome.  I decided to go for it where we were playing Bypass. Drove hard, sending a platoon of L6s to run for the far objections straight from the get go.  They were on the objective on turn 2, well the platoon commander was. Rich threw a unit of recon to contest the objective and then dropped his ambush of 37mm guns to try and hit the L6s from range, needing 6s tho. He missed, and without anything else, back to turn 3 for me I blazed away at the recon and managed to either blow up or bail everything so that was the game.

Last game of the day was against one of the GITSUM fellows (great people to game with) where we played Dust Up. We both made a dash for the objectives, his aircraft, P40s however came in over the course of two turns with 5 of 6 hits and then 6 of 6 hits that munched my L6s very very hard and basically making it from a close game to a lopsided and well deserved win. L6s and no infantry can only do so much!

As I recall, 9th place over all for the day or about middle of the pack of 20? was it 22 players?

Day 3 – Late War 92 points

Last day of the three tournaments was well attended with 20-something people playing. Some participated in all three but there were certainly some people who only played in one or two of the tournaments. After all other things were happening at Gencon!

First game of the day was in the desert, alas a very slow game against Russians. We were only able to get in three turns, but this happens sometimes where newer people and folks playing forces with too many moving parts can slow things down. It takes practice and it’s very important for everyone to be patient! I managed to get three points out of the tie and threw caution to the wind just to get down the field as quickly as possible instead of developing the action.

Second round, playing against an American Armored Rifles with Patton. The mission was Encounter, and with Patton it was going help out the Americans significantly. As fate would have it I managed to win the roll to go first which allowed my one group of triplings to move up and blaze away as well as the recon and 251s. Much carnage was achieved which effectively stabilized the right side of the front. As I had my other infantry off table, and Panthers, I was faced with a chance to try and push with what I had (Claus infantry, 5+ motivation) on the one flank or see what I could do on the other flank.

Over on the left flank the PaK 40s in their trusted 251s managed to take out three American 57 ATGs, and then three motorized mortar teams, this allowed one of my recon units to get on the objective uncontested, the other armored rifle infantry didn’t have half tracks and while they were in the middle of the board they were pinned down until Patton came over and yelled at them, alas too late. Crazy dice gave me the win.

Round 3: it seems I didn’t take any pictures, which is really disappointing as it was an interesting game involving a Brigade Panther company. Eight Panthers as the core with three STuGs and four whirblewinds along with some infantry and mortars in support. I ended up with a 6-3 win on that one which lifted me to 3rd place over all on the day. I was very surprised by that, two wins and a draw with a 20 some person field.

Thanks to Able Kompanie for a fun weekend! It’s a lot of work to pull together 3 tournaments. Additionally thanks to Family Time Games in Indianapolis for the terrain on the tables, mighty kind of them, do send business their way!