Tanksgiving Wrap-Up

Well, the Tanksgiving Tournament has come and gone, and it was a great tournament put on at Guardian Games.  Attendance was good with 10 armies on the table, and the painting overall was really amazing as well!  On to the results!

By way of reference, I brought a 510 Schwere Panzer-Abteilung army from Remagen:

My first game was free for all against Darragh's 7th Armored from Blood, Guts and Glory. He's originally from Ireland and currently working in Germany, so he won the "who traveled the farthest" nod for the tournament, by several orders of magnitude! Given the terrain and the fact that I had to cover the long table edge, I was forced to slightly overload one side. Darragh brought Patton, so his spearhead move quickly adjusted to compensate. My Westfalen infantry platoon failed to dig in, and I thought I was pretty much doomed at that point, but they survived the American onslaught long enough to dig in and help hold the left corner objective. Unfortunately I never had a chance to get a real counter offensive going and spent the entire time trying to fend off the Americans. Game ended with a 3-2 double loss, though I had an amazing amount of fun. Darragh's a great player and I enjoyed playing against him.

Next I was up against another Mike in Pincer against his Desert Rats Armoured Squadron from Overlord. I was able to put my Westfalen platoon in good cover around one objective and my AA in position to keep his air support off of my big cats. He tried to work his way up one flank but I managed to catch him in the open with a lucky reserve roll and sandwich the bulk of his armour between my Westfalen panzer platoon and four King Tigers. Because of some bad bog rolls, his reluctant platoons quickly left the table and the company broke morale - 6-1 victory for the King Tigers.

In the final game I was fighting against my buddy Ryan in Counterattack. Ryan brought the 3rd Armored from Remagen. Ryan spent most of the first several turns trying to position his forces in such a way that he would be ready to take the objective while not opening up his forces to attack from the King Tigers.  My CiC played tag with his Stuart platoon which could threaten to roll up my infantry, AA guns, and artillery for most of the game. His four hellcats managed to take out the 2iC and one of the KT's from the 2X platoon, but were cut down by AA and Nebelwerfer fire.  My Westfalen tanks managed to get in some flank shots which opened up a couple of shots for the KT's. I almost had this one 5-2, but some poor rolls on my part left a single 76mm late sherman that was able to destroy a KT platoon resulting in a 4-3 win.

Ryan ended up winning Best Allied (and had the highest overall score) at 15.  I tied for best German (and 2nd overall) with 13.  If I'd kept that last KT, Ryan and I would have been tied atop the standings at 14 a piece.  I also tied my buddy Steve Z. for best painted.  Ryan and Steve both paint for CGR Painters, who do some great work!  Now I have a few months to go before the Early War tournament in February.