The Theme of the event was, Duel in the Desert, Early and Mid War desert battles between the Italians, Germans and British. The event was a 2,000 pt. team event and I would be teaming up with my son, Jake.
Day one would be Early War and day 2 would be Mid-War.
The theme was my first challenge. At heart I am an American player... Which obviously would not be an option for this Tournament. My Early War army of choice are the French, again not an option. I'm really not a fan of playing the Germans so we decided to go British.
This Tournament was a major commitment as neither my son or I had really any appropriate models painted up so we would be essentially building four 1000 point armies from scratch (Plus the terrain)
Just because we went British doesn't mean I would be abandoning my American roots and decided my "half" of our 2000 pts would be made up of American made tanks. Stuarts and Grants for me!
Here is a pic of our combined Early War Army
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| Combined British Companies |
I would tank a Honey Tank Company Early War which would convert to a Heavy Armored Squadron Mid War. Jake would take an Infantry Tank Company for both EW and MW.
Day 1 would be two rounds of Early War games and one round of Raiding.
Round 1
First Round would be against Aaron and Jeff. They were playing 2 Italian Companies, Armored and Infantry.
Seems like I always play Jeff in the first round of almost any tournament, which is good because he is a great guy to play with. His Partner, Aaron, was also a really good sport.
Round 1 was No Retreat! with the British attacking.
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| Italian Defenses |
We would be playing on a desert table that was end capped with two large escarpments, in the valley between was a small Oasis.
The British plan was simple, rush the closest objective as fast as possible.
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| The British Starting line |
The Initial attack goes well however the Italians roll well for their reserves. and additional tank units stream to the objective faster than the British can destroy them.
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| Stuart Horde moves forward! |
Ultimately the battle would time out for an Italian Victory.
Even with Matildas and Infantry pouring onto the objective the Italians had enough tanks to feed the objective and time out.
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| Jake's Matildas churning up the desert floor |
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| The Final rush into the objective! |
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| The Italian line is shored up. |
Round 1 Conclusions:
4-3 to the Italian team of Jeff and Aaron, well played guys!
We knew Italians would be a pain and we weren't disappointed. Those little Italian tanks are a good match up against Stuarts and on the defense their weaknesses are not as pronounced (Slow speed).
Objective placement hurt us as well but we really only had two options for the forward objective. In the Town (where digging out the infantry would have been even harder) or in the hill. On the plus side our force did perform well.
We didn't lose a platoon but my Stuarts and armored cars were in tatters.
Round 2: Would be Raiding for us. I was paired with my good friend Jacob D to play a couple of raiding games on the Airfield table. The results of these Raids would give our "side" a certain number of Air Dice to use next round.
We would be using the Tournament Coordinator's beautiful Raiding forces for this battle and the SAS would be attacking the Italian and German defenders.
I would be the attacker first, I started dismounted and things went bad from the start. Jacob immediately started getting Re-enforcement in right where he needed them and he lit up one of my platoons from the get go.
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| The Air field swarmed by dismounted SAS Troops |
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| SAS mounted up and ready to escape |
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| Jacob successfully tempted me. He doubled his Company commander after me....I had to take the 30 shots at him! |
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| More airfield action |
We then reversed the sides and Jacob took the SAS, he stayed in his jeeps ( A better idea in hindsight) and booked it off the table asap. I still caught a few platoons before Jacob managed to get 2 VP off the board.
Next Round the Germans would get 5 Air Dice and the Allies would get 4 Air Dice.
Round 3:
We would be facing the out of town duo of Marco and Hugo, they had a combined Italian/German Army. Great, more Italians!
We would be playing Witch's Cauldron with us attacking again.
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| Stuarts hiding from the Immediate ambush! |
Our Matildas, Stuarts would make the assault while our Arty would hang back and provide covering fire.
We survived the Ambush and pushed into the enemy position, taking out the Italian Artillery and German Panzers on the way.
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| Brits pushing the Axis Objective |
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| Stuarts on the move |
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| Italians race to reinforce the objective... |
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| More German and Italian Reserves arrive... almost wipe out the Brit Artillery. |
The Axis never had a good counter for the Matilda II and it was only a matter of time before they would power through the German defenses while the Honey Stuarts picked on targets of opportunity.
Axis reserves were too late to alter the outcome on the objectives and the company broke before they could take out any of our platoons.
6-1 to us and giving us a 9 point total heading into Day 2.
Overall the Tournament of Day 1 had been a blast! Mark and Chris had put on a great show and we all enjoyed ourselves at Vul-Con. After dinner out with friends, new and old, we head home for a quick night's rest before resuming the ultimate struggle of good versus evil!
Coming soon.... Part II
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