Showcase Comics is a gem of a store. Located near that City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, Kurt Reese and his band of nere' do wells have been hosting tournaments at the shop for a good long while now.
This time around Kurt cooked up a 1900 point extra extra late war tournament comprising only Desperate Measures, Nachtjager and Remagen along with their digital companions.
This is a tricky little meta to find a list I like. At first I felt like some Reluctant Vet Chaffees would be the way to go but I felt the lure of the Jagdtiger so decided to man up, enjoy the war, and run some Panzerbrigade Westfalen.
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| Mmmm... Tasty Tasty Jagdtiger |
6 ambushing Pak 40's, even if over 16" really makes for a nasty surprise. That, along with two strong, and one meaty, unit of infantry, some smoke, some light armor for digging/killing recce, and the big nasty Jagdtigers had me feeling like I was set up for success.
Along comes round 1, and I got to play against my boy Kevin Hatch running Confident Vet US armor with a Super Pershing (which made quite an appearance at the tournament). I was defending against his steel in Fighting Withdrawal.
It was a rough one for Kevin, he pushed all his armor at one objective (like you do) and the combination of PaK 40's in ambush and Tank Hunter teams stopped his assault cold. I won, 6-1 in a poopy match up for Kevin's list, especially in that scenario.
Sadly, the game lasted about 20 minutes after set up. I totally respect Noah for getting aggressive and assaulting early, but in the long run, it meant a quick end to the round. Now I was at 2 wins with 12 points. Felt pretty good.
Things started off bad for me and went quickly to extra worse. So many breakthrough guns and so much heavy arty along with superior mobility meant I was quickly on the back foot. My one big mistake was deploying my Jagdtigers rather than holding them in reserve. Had I been able to flank with them I would have forced Ron to run some tanks back over to his side of the table to protect his objectives and his precious 155s.
Additionally, he expertly protected his tank platoons from my trap teams by advancing them slowly with the foot recce acting as bubble wrap against my mini-ambushes.
I stuck in there as long as I could (a solid 9 turns or so) and even sniped his Super Pershing, but I could never get the momentum and he over ran an objective after gutting nearly all my platoons, including the PZ IIIs with a single salvo from the 155s.
A hard day indeed for Westfalen boys with a 5-2 loss.
In the end I got myself 4th place. Which I'm actually pretty happy with given that this was the first time I ran the company. Funnily, both Ron and I being at the top table meant that by killing his 1 Super Pershing I knocked him out of first securing that honor for my boy Ben Gobel. Well, if I can't be the king I'm happy being king maker! Top 4 ended up like this:
1. Ben Gobel, Brit non-arty park Infantry with Churchills.
2. Ron Wismer, Confident Vet American Tanks with a 105 Sherman Horde
3. Alan Edel, with a King Tiger flavored version of Westfalen
4. Yours Truly with a PZ III, 6 PaK ambushing version of the same.
Fun fact! The new Showcase Comics is apparently located in a township called "Nether Providence." I just can't help chuckling at that name. See you all at a tournament soon!
