I had only played against Dennis Campbell once, and had found him to be a really nice guy and a fun opponent, but I was worried. I was worried Dennis (Matt Varnish on his dice devil's blog) wouldn't be as on board with the kind of nonsense list I was hoping to run. But then he sent me his list...and he did not disappoint me. It was garbage. Beautiful garbage. every portee gun he had never run more than once or twice. A masterpiece in what I thought was uncompetitive list building. I decided to do him one better.
Below - Dennis Campbell's Portee masterpiece a veritable island of misfit toys
...and I brought the armored cars... as a motor infantry company. We both paid the extra points for trucks...because nothing says go for it like a movable deathbox with a 5+ save.
We expected to get smooshed. but we were going to have a blast doing it.
At this point I admit that the weekend was a blur, particularly after playing in both the doubles and singles on consecutive days with some late night board gaming thrown in. So these reports are a bit of a garble, but I took a lot of pictures, and will give as clear a run down as I recall! if my opponents see fit to correct the record, please don't hesitate to do so.
Game 1 - Against these awesome guys
The shirt is too good not to get a close up of
We advanced quickly and hoped to sieze an objective before help arrived for the Germans.
Recon moves and some sneakiness later and I was nearly on an objective and MGing infantry, which thanks to some terrible dice on the part of our opponents, had not yet dug in.
On the other flank, our attack slowed, and it looked like they had us. all the tigers came in, and we had no choice but to charge, and try and kill all their squishy support to force a company check and panic.
by the skin of our teeth we succeeded and somehow won the game. I'm still not quite sure how we pulled it off. It was a 4-3 or 5-2, I'm not sure which?
Game 2
No Retreat against Team "Last Minute" who did show up a minute or two late...but it seemed in character, so we didn't mind.
Their list was mostly armor, with a captured KV, some Panzer 3s and Panthers, as well as some support. but no artillery to speak of, and a plane...a horrible plane that came in to murder us over and over again.
our infantry proved hard to shift, and despite some very successful air attacks on our artillery, we managed to hold the objectives at great cost.
How those trucks work out?
we won 4-3 I believe on this one.
Game 3 - How had it happened? how had we won 2 games with this? It just goes to show I'm not nearly as good a player as I thought I was. Maybe I had played V3 wrong all along? and only now at the end did I understand? good is evil? up is down? armored cars are good?
We would fight these two terrifying gentlemen. just look at the anger on their faces....
We had to hold half in reserve.
They would come straight at us.
Somehow, my dice would not miss. with 6 shots to pin, I would get all 6. almost 8 times. as Romanians, they had no Quality of Quanitity rule, meaning they were constantly being pinned despite doing everything they could to set up their assaults.
At the end they finally pushed through, but I made enough morale checks to keep my men contesting and in the game. we won, 5-2 having only lost one platoon of unfortunate portee guns.
We had done the impossible. We had come with something we thought fun, but not competitive and somehow turned it into a second place finish in a team tournament.
Tom Mullane aka Captainecho on the forums, is a High School History teacher in Brewster NY and lives in Danbury CT, he plays at Hobbytown USA in New Milford CT with the Ordo-Ineptus club, come down for a game if you're in the neighborhood!
