Flames of War - Tournament Report

For this entry we take a step back from the cold black depths of space and into the past with Flames of War.

Last weekend my son and I played a 1750 Late War Tournament at Empire Games in Arizona.

I took my trusty Americans of the 2nd Armored Division.

US 2nd Division - Tank Company

 My Company consisted of the following units

1 HQ  (2 x Sherman tanks)
Tank Platoon  (4 x Sherman76)
Tank Platoon  (4 x Sherman)
Armored Rifle Platoon (Half tracks and Infantry)
105mm Field Artillery Battery
155mm Field Artillery Battery
1 AOP (air observer)







We also provided a table of terrain.

Our Table

My first round was against Jeff and his German Company (Hermann Goering I believe) a combo of Infantry, rockets, tanks and anti-tank guns. Ironically enough I was assigned to the my own table for the first round.

Round 1

I was Attacking in the scenario Fighting Withdraw. A timed mission that sees the defender slowing pulling off the board.
  Jeff put a large platoons in the left and right with the bulk of his armor in the middle. 

 The battle went well for me but Jeff had some atrocious luck. His Tanks and Ambushing Paks whiffed in the middle, expert shooting by Poole and my arty killed the Ambushing platoon and most of the German tanks.

American Infantry pour over the hedge and capture the objective.

My attack was up the left flank with a Sherman platoon and Armored Infantry.
It went off without a hitch, swarming over the hedge and wiping out the majority of the defending Germans.

Jeff had nothing mobile that could get over in time to stop the American victory.  6-1 win.








Round 2

Was breakthrough against Sam and his German Paras. Sam had several hard core falschemjager platoons as well as some nasty Anti tank guns and rocket launchers.


I do have a tournament history with Sam, having played him once before several years ago, in my very first Flames of War tournament at a now defunct game store in the East Valley. He defeated me easily then. He's such a great guy  you really can't hold a grudge...

 In breakthrough the Attacker needs to book it across the board and capture an enemy objective.
My Tanks would sweep to the left and my Infantry would arrive late in the game, flanking the enemy.

My Tanks hit the wall that was Sam's Germans, they repulsed a couple of Tank assaults. unfortunately for Sam this did get the Germans out of their foxholes and they were mercilessly machine gunned. The Platoon finally broke, taking the Company Commander with them.

Sam was very gracious even when the game was going against him. He even went as far as pointing out I needed to move a unit within 16 inches of the objective or I would auto lose the game. He could have kept his mouth shut and won. (Yes, he got my Sportsmanship vote!)

My flanking force finally arrived and linked up with my remaining tanks to knock Sam off the objective for the win, 5-2 to me.

Poole and his buddies move out, only to be picked off by an AT gun.

Round 3:

Sadly, by this time my Camera batteries had died and I didn't get any pictures of the last round. Which is probably for the best. I played Andrew in Encounter on a pretty wide open table. Only a single small wood to provide cover for my outgunned Shermans.

Andrew's IS-85s tore up my Americans, soundly thrashing me to a 1-6 loss. Andrew would go on to win the Tournament.

I finished with a respectable 12 points, not too bad... and enjoyable time spent with my son Jake and my Flames of War friends.


Here are a couple of other pictures I manages to take before my Camera died.

Andrew's Tourny winning Soviet Army

My Son Jake's Welsh Gaurds Tank Company. Jake started out poorly but played well. 1-6, 5-2, 6-1

Great looking 21st Panzer Division

Mark's 2nd Place British Armored Cars

Other Jake's German StuG Company

Great night board, ruined factory!

Hope you enjoyed it... see ya next time.