I'm still not dead yet...

So after the last tournament I went to I returned home to prepare myself to deploy with my unit to the field for a month of live fire training. Yup I'll admit it, I let my job get in the way of gaming... Kinda jerky of me, but I apologize. 

So I found the pictures I took from the event, not many but I think they give you a great idea of the event and the fun had. I had a blast!

Legio Con is an event held in Winnipeg, Manitoba and is a blast full of a ton of different games for the avid gamer. For the last couple itterations the event has been held at a legion hall in Winnipeg. This is an amazing choice for a number of reasons. While not all the gaming is historical that which is holds strong ties to the many vets who frequent the Legion, and are an inspiring chat when one gets the chance. Second, the place is licensed and has a bar and resturant in the basement... Read pre, and post game drinks... SCORE!

The FOW tournament was 1500pts MW and saw an array of lists from the era, including two of my favorite lists, the Finns and a Dieppe raid list!

I ran a GpPzGren list from Eastern Front with:

Standard HQ with an antitank rifle;

2 x GpPzGren Pl,

2 Panthers (I painted up a friends panthers for him and these three games were the first time I've ever tried using these beasts.)

2 8Rads

2 Quad AA armoured halftracks

3 Panzerwerfers with extra crew. 

6pls in all, a small but well formed group to get in some hard action.

So I took some pictures of the tables that were laid out for the event. 

The first one here was done by a buddy of mine Derek, I loved the river and think they should be more of a priority in most games, but if you notice the forest running the whole way up the end of the table that became the bane of my reserves but I digress.

The next two tables I did up with some of my common fair. Hills, crops and the occasional building or orchard. 

 Bruce (the fine gent running the event) did up some great desert tables. I personally loved them, simple and to some bland but highly tactical if played right and the rolling hills made for a great 3D filled table. Definitely not a billiard board! The battles in the desert were to be knife fights behind the dunes.

 For those gamers old enough to remember the buildings below are from the titan legions box set... Orks in the desert? Yes yes...

 One of the more open tables. This one gave people nightmares with the river and and the open ground but was highly enjoyed.

 Which brings me to the final table, this one was put together by one of the newer gamers from a GW table. His thing is Tunisia and you can definitely see the influence here. He thought there was already too much terrain on it and wanted it left this way, so we obliged. I played the first game on it, which turned out to be the last game on it, as it was while historically accurate, it was just no fun for an infantry force.  This table would be amazing, I repeat AMAZING for scenario play, but for a tournament it's death in the valley.

 I was playing my friend Hugh who came to play with a Dieppe raid list! I was ecstatic about seeing this on the table, it was pretty freaking cool, especially for two Canadian players, who both happen to be in the military.  The mission was Free for all, pitting our entire forces against one another. Hugh's list had a full infantry company, mortars and two, yes two full troops of Churchills. There was probably more but I'm playing from memory here.

 

 My 8rads danced around the central orchard gunning down stands where they could but mostly lifting gone to ground to allow my other assets to pick apart his forces. There wasn't any cover on his side of the board and he was forced to advance into the orchard with his troops, which was the central aiming point for my Panzerwerfers. The doublewide template made short work of the brave Canadians, but there was little else he could have done, digging in would have kept him strung out and separated to be picked off and advancing was nearly just as poor an option.

 The opening shots of the armour saw my Panthers ripping open two Churhills and sending the last back to gather up more armour as it fled from the table. The next few turns were a cat and mouse game of using the central orchard as cover for his remaining churchills as my panthers tried to gain a bead on them.

After a few turns of jockying for position I called my halftracks forward and mounted up, pushing for the flank objective, by this point there was little left that could oppose my force, and when the two Churchills finally came out to play their shots missed. 6-1 for me. Though I think Hugh and I will have to now play a more historical pitched battle at Dieppe and that should be a lot closer.

Inbetween games I took some fun pics of the action going on.

 TIGER!

 SOVIETS!

My second game saw me facing off with Levi, a quick witted and hilarious member of the Regina clan that came out for the event. He was packing a Soviet Tankovy company with T-34s, Grants, heavy mortars and some other assorted fun. The mission was Dust up and I started with my Panthers, Panzerwerfers and 8rads on the table, facing off against his large T-34 pl and his heavy mortars.

 He went first moving forward and taking losses as he went. The 2+ to his was doing well by me and with some high ground to sit on he decided to move sideways to cover rather than give me the bums rush.

 Four shots and four kills in the first turn saw T-34 hulls burning. Up in the corner there you can see my 8Rads, they for a few turns had been moving at high speed behind the hills. Between their recce move, the desert terrain and some good luck on stormtrooper rolls they found themselves on the objective with nobody to contest! The quick and devious win was another 6-1. Again, this is my first time really using German recce. I don't think I'm going back to not... Ever.... Seriously... They are a blast.

Some more pics of the action on other tables.

 One pic... Yup. Thats all I took from the last game... It was that heated and fun and just crazy.

I played another friend Jim, he was rocking a super cool Rota list that saw mechanized Soviets getting all up in my business quickly...

I made a ton of mistakes in this game and fell for a few traps. First off I picked the side of terrain my opponent wanted, not because I thought it would be good for me, but just because he wanted it. That turned out to just hammer me with a full board edge of forests that literally cut off my reinforcements and made them take forever to get to me.

The second was trying to be all fancy with the Panthers. Yeah... I'm not the finesse guy... And this game showed it. To make a long story short, the real fight turned out to be for a little patch of woods, where everyone came to die. Tanks, troops, transports, they all went in and nothing really came out.

A hard fought battle that ended 5-2 with my pl in the woods falling to the repeated assaults. Lucky for me my backups finally arrived with a pl of troops and the panthers smartened up, crossed a river and eventually became useful.

Below you can see what became known as the bloody woods. For multiple reasons... 

In the end I tied with Lance Mathew for victory points and edged him out narrowly for the overall win with some sportsmanship scoring (Nobody saw that one coming).

It was a fun day with a lot of great armies and possibly more importantly built some interest in the game locally with a lot of people really wanting to know more and try it out. Hopefully this will help to kick start the game locally.

Until next time.