ETC 2013 - Big Points vs. Little ones...

So gonna be going to the ETC - Fow Tournament as part of the Team Finland, and it's gonna be my first big tournament, 5 rounds of pure fun... Or not.

Well to the point of the title. Last year the big points as in Wins, meant that a team that scored less on BF scoring than some in the last ladder, actually managed 5th place, for they had more wins. I'm not criticizing this, but it means new approach to the lists, you can have 'glass cannons', you don't need 9 platoons, you can sacrifice platoons f.ex. As the 4-3 is a lot more valuable than 1-1, or 3-2.

Certainly, a list that does not leak points is not a bad approach, but there is also the possibility of always meeting the worst possible opponent, due to pairing, so it's not completely random, and you can't count on meeting all-comer lists, but it's quite probable to meet some specialized ones, all in theory certainly.

Looking forward to this experience and hopefully meet some of the fellows from forums I've had the pleasure to share thoughts with.

HQ Attachments V3 FAQ

This is confusing stuff, but here's the rulebook entry modified by the errata: Here's the modified whole rule... MAY ATTACH GUN TEAMS You have 2 choices with Gun teams in the HQ Support platoon: - "You can attach them all out" - “You can attach out up to half of the Gun teams, retaining at least two Gun teams in the HQ Support Platoon.” “Whichever you do, no more than half of the Gun teams, but always at least one gun, may be attached to any one platoon.” The any ONE platoon is the key here, you can attach everything out as long as you have enough combat/weapons platoons or you can divide the Gun teams evenly to your platoons.

FOW LW Tournaments generally allowed books.

This is something people seem to wonder about, tournaments tend to let you know which books are allowed. Here's a BF run LW tournament example, that's pretty standard for a non-themed tourney. 




Earth & Steel 
Turning Tide 
Dogs and Devils 
Cassino 
Hell’s Highway 
A Bridge Too Far 
V3 Forces Book 
Red Bear 
Grey Wolf 
Market Garden 
Bridge by Bridge 
Nuts! 
Devil’s Charge 
Blood, Guts and Glory 

Army lists available on the Flames of War website listed under Official 
1944-45. (This does not include any army lists currently ‘Under Review’.)

Location Change - Moving is hell... Nothing to do with Fow

Well, now I can safely say I've lived in all kinds of accommodations, barring igloo. We just moved after living in a wooden house built post-war for almost 3 years. The owning a house really opened a new world to a city-dweller. I still think it's the optimal form of living if you don't consider your own time really expensive...

I've done my share of gardening, branch-cutting, mole-hunting, mouse-trapping, cutting down trees and the myriad stuff that the interior of an old house needs to be done in order to keep rolling... I even changed the windows of the thing before we sold it. The last three years were also snowfall records here in Finland...

Selling a house in the economic climate of today is another thing I don't really like, especially a fringe-of-city one, still we managed to get that done, so might be getting more gaming done in the near future.

Our sons have aged from 5-3-  to 7-5-2 years old during the stint to the country-side, and happy to move to apartment in the capital, as they tend to sense the emotions of the parents. Funny enough, now we've got beach less than 500 m from the house, not to mention the public transportation, the shops and social life :) As in the small town we got rumors, cars and petty politics..

It's quite heart-warming when your neighbors are really sad to see you go, never imagined myself as the good neighbor type...

Last Tourney game - Hasty Attack vs. Finnish Jääkäri List 3-4

The final game, was me against the overall winner of the Tourney, Oskari, a very capable and friendly opponent from Nopat & Taktiikka Club, we ended up having the best three from our club in the tournament...

IIRC he had:


HQ

Full Recce Jääkärit with Törni

Another Jääkäri platoon

Full Pioneers

German Stugs

Panssari Platoon with 4 T-28s

Heavy Artillery

Light Artillery

Pak40 platoon


I 'won' the roll to attack, and he chose the table-edge with the woods in the middle and large escarpment.

He had the heavy arty and Törni platoon covering the other obj behind the crop field, next to the rocky escarpment, the other obj, was on the other flank, hugging the small copse of trees, covered by the Pioneers and Stugs.

I had my big platoon of FJ on my left flank with Stugs, the Paks I put to cover my objective on the right.

I started getting my reserves right from the start , and started manouvering them via the 'monastery' and crops towards the left flank objective. I lost few teams and couple of stugs to the Artillery and Stugs of his on the way.

He started advancing with Törni's recce platoon towards my objective, I put my LG40s from the reserves to help with defense there, also the Stummel platoon went to the south end of the vineyards, but lacked the range for anything but the Törni boys.

The attack went pretty well, and was assaulting the objective on round 4 successfully, the Stugs of his I managed to destroy by the combined effort of Schrecks and Stugs, he did not get any reserves on turn three...

Then round four for Finns, 5,6 for reserves, 5,6 for scattered deployment, T-28s and Jääkäri platoon bang on the objective..... Some swearing by me here, sorry for that... The 'blue' platoon was gutted, and my 'yellow' (need to repaint the edges....) platoon stayed pinned for the rest of the game...


The pioneer remnants assaulted my depleted platoon, only to be wasted in DF...
The Törni assault #1 was bounced by the defensive fire by Paks/Light Guns. Later, by the combined effort of Stummel direct fire and Pak shooting, the whole platoon quit the field, after Törni failed his 2+ (2 out of 3 games in the tourney...).

I deployed my Traps to see if I could kill the t-28s but in vain, we were both weary so decided to call it quits, Finn casualties were Stug Platoon, Pioneers and Törni platoon, mine were LG40s, Stugs and 'Blue' FJ platoon, so 4-3 to the jääkäri.

Afterthoughts:

Nothing much to add, if he'd had to attack, it would have been painful exercise for him, but that's how the dice roll, if he'd put the reserves to anywhere but here.. might have taken the objective, been 4-3 to me, bad dice and good dice on both sides, fearless isn't always that, I still don't think arty is a threat enough.

Delightful game until the crushing reserve roll, still managed a good fight after that, hardest game by far.

Tourney Game 2 - No Retreat vs. Panzers to the Meuse PZIVs

My second game was against very aggressive and experienced tanker on a very nice Africa table, he wasn't thrilled to meet my force in this particular scenario...

His list had 2 + 4 +4  PZIVJs , PanzerGr platoon with 4 HTs, 3 IV/70s, 8-rads and Nebs.

I deployed both FJ platoons bit interlocked with the Schrecks on the side with the objective, the footprint was wide enough to make the flank march difficult if not impossible.

The Co, 2iC, first Platoon and the Ducks were on my face very fast, shooting with no effective. I just sit on gtg. One PzFaust killed PZIV on the second platoon.

On 2nd turn, the Ducks moved to Assault range, the Panzers/HTs maneuvers to  better assault me in next turns, some casualties maybe, can't really remember it was hectic...

The table,  Panzers attack from the left side.

The Panzers waste no time, closing the distance

I decide to deploy my ambush, the Paks/Schrecks shoot and Destroy 2 IV70s and Bail out the last.  I shot one Schreck with movement ROF, and assaulted the platoon successive, one down... 

After a very 'lucky' Pak Ambush, Guderian's ducks are burning.

The following turns I witnessed aggressive assaults, first Mounted Assault was thrown back, with no casualties. The shooting from the Tanks started to take toll. I started moving my other platoon to flank, to make the Opponent to react them. 

Before the storm, Trap teams causing harm in the back.

When I get my Stugs from the reserves it looks bad for the attack, the Mounted Assault push my Platoon back, and I'm rolling morale, with the old Necro pulling the dead back to fight. We get called on time and there is one last assault on the Paks, which goes south and with no casualties on FJs, 6-1 to me.


Afterthoughts:

This was my second game with the list ever, and I started to grasp the capabilities of it a little better, my list was the Rock for the Scissors in this particular mission, still I think I managed to keep my calm and with more practice should get more from the Trap teams, the Meuse list is aggressive and the mounted assault is very dangerous in the hands of someone who knows how to use it. VonW I played against is very experienced tourney player who also let me into many useful tidbits about the European scene, which I'm thankful for.

Tourney Game 1 - FFA vs. 7th Armoured US Tank list

My first game was against player, who hadn't played Fow after v2, so as I was a bit rusty as well, so was he.

The game started a bit late, which left to us not completing it in time either.

IIRC he had something like this.

CiC Sherman of sorts 2iC with Jumbo

1 Sherman platoon of 4-5 tanks, 76mm and stuff, Jumbo as well

1 Sherman platoon of 4 tanks again stuff.. As an infantry player I haven't paid that much attention to the different versions, apart from the HBG stuff...

1 ARP platoon with gun in tow

1 HT Mortars platoon

1 Recon with M2 and jeeps

1 large platoon of Veteran Priests

We played on a generic French rural scenery.

I deployed on the side with the railway, the Paks with VDH in the forest at the middle, second (schreckless) FJ platoon left of it, on the objective, LG40s in the corner woods, the Big FJ platoon was behind the big red brick building (that had no openings on sides/back), the mortars between them and the Paks. Stugs were behind the building to the left of the red railroad building.

US player deployed the CiC behind the right flank forest, Bigger Sherman platoon in the middle and Priests behind it, smaller tank platoon was behind the church, with the ARP and mortars on the road at the left flank, the Scouts were also there.

US Player got the first turn and promptly pushed forward, shermans sniped one Stug. the Armored OP moved on the left flank, the ARP bunched behind the small building at the middle.

On my turn I popped all four trap teams, 3 on the tank platoon at the left and one on the Priests. I managed to assault and kill the Jumbo and bail out a Sherman. Shermans counter-assault finished one trapper. My Bigger FJP moved forwards, while the PAKs, LGs and the second FJP dug in. Stugs moved behind the 1 FJP. My Stummels fired a bombardment on the bunched up halftracks, destroyed 2! and killed a few teams as well :)

2nd Turn for the US player revolved on trying to smoke the Paks, Slapping a bombardment on the Stugs/FJs and trying to kill the Trap teams...

I moved my FJs forward and Smoked the Shermans in the middle. Trap teams shot unsuccessfully, while everybody else more or less stayed down.

In the latter rounds, the Shermans in the middle concentrated on the Paks, killind one with MG fire... The Priests kept hitting the Stugs/Big FJP but rather ineffective, Trap teams kill off the Sherman platoon near the church, Stugs move forwards on my right flank, while trap team manages to kill a Priest. What's left of the ARP assaults the trap team next to the church, and lose one to DF. Trap team is killed.

The recon platoon assaults my obs in the forest, only to be wiped out by my FJP, the big Sherman platoon manages to score another Pak but it gets brought back from the dead by the VDH.  Sherman OP drives to the Flank of my Stugs and scores one. I ignore it as time gets thin, Shermans divert from the right objective and move to intercept my bigger FJP.

Another Pak gets killed by the Priests and VDH helps to re-roll and promptly helps the Paks and himself out from the battle (#%6&&""##) ... I kill off the ARP and start on the Mortars, while my infantry starts the assaults on the big Sherman platoon, I kill one, and they fail their roll, so must break off, only the space is very limited, my consolidation forces them to assault range of my CiC who assaults... Another Sherman burns, and we get time-outted...

I don't have much experience on FFA, TBH my tournament experience is very limited altogether, but this was a learning game for me and certainly for the opponent...

End result was 3-2 for me as I killed 3 platoons and lost 1.