House Conclusion & Battle Hymn

Battle Hymn was a ton of fun. Sorry to everyone that I was a bit distracted and didn't stay much after 2:00. We had a roller coaster ride on Saturday-

Lydia and I put an offer on a house on Friday that was fairly aggressive. We were in love with the house though. Come Saturday around 10:00 during the first game of El Alamein (or, rather, generic ahistorical desert location :P ) our agent called us and said FOUR offers were put on the house in the same day! And unless we modified our offer, we'd likely lose it. Being stubborn, I resigned myself to losing the house and we chose not to up our offer.

That paid off though, as we got a call later that evening and somehow OURS was the best offer! We went at 8:30 this morning to sign all the paper work! It's still contingent on their bank approving it, but it sounds like that is fairly likely- they'd rather have it dealt with than let it go into foreclosure.

As for Battle Hymn, it was a blast to push some lead around with some new gamers. It was great to meet Joe, and I was so flustered with the house thing it took me a few minutes to realize he was JMezz. I forgot how much fun you can have with just tanks in FOW- it's an entirely different game. It moves quickly, and is easy to catch on.

Joe caught on quickly, I think he'll become a great player and opponent. Despite our cunning tactics, he and I drove the British to their death in two different battles. After that Tom and I switched place, and this time Tom lost as the British!

British medium armor just seems to be ill-matched against comparable German armor, even though the points were balanced.

Following are some excellent pictures Joe took. (Joe, hope you don't mind I deboed!)

You can find his blog here: JMezz's blog



more after the break.


Crusaders cautiously advance up a road.


Grants prepare to saturate the area with fire from a perch atop a rocky hill.


The Germans open fire.


British right flank.


Grants


The Grants did far more than any other type of british tank this battle.


The Grants provide covering fire.


The Grants get into a desperate knife fight.


Lots of letters home were written this day.

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Life, Love, Houses, and of course, War.

Been a while since I've updated. Been super busy- between work and school full time and looking for a house, I can barely take time to breathe! Consequently not a lot of painting has gone on.

My parents came up for my Birthday over the weekend and my Dad and I got in a little Flames of War. I hate to admit that it was the first game in a long time where I found playing a bit of a chore. I normally love playing my Dad and he wasn't the reason at all, but the combination of mission (Free for all vs tanks when you're infantry is never fun), a headache, and bad luck made my interest level drop. I am normally very good at keeping in good spirits even when things are going south, and I felt a little silly for losing interest, though Flames of War and the dice Gods are wont to surprise you and in one fateful turn the game totally swung my way. We didn't get to finish, and it could've still been a hard fight, and I look forward to a rematch where I can pay better attention and focus on having a good time with the old man.

Later we tried a game of Victory at Sea with a US New Mexico class Battleship escorted by a Brooklyn class cruiser against a Japanese Kongo class Battlecruiser escorted by a Myoko. The game was surprisingly VERY fun, I think we both had a blast and I look forward to playing it more. In the end the Myoko was sunk, and all 3 of the other ships limped home. Both fleet commanders had a lot of letters to write home, and some time to think about it in dry dock.

The rest of the weekend was good. I had to scramble to catch up with some homework but it's always worth spending time with the family. I miss Tito- we need to hang soon!

We looked at a real junker of a house over the weekend. Tomorrow we're looking at another one, and I feel really good about it.

This week I have to write a paper on "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse, study for a killer physics test, write a genetic algorithm for Artificial Intelligence, study for a Database Design Test, and try to squeeze some sleep in there somewhere :)

On top of that Jaime (my boss) is going to be out from work for a while due to new baby. Its hard to believe that A) I now consider Jaime one of my best friends. Before I knew him I thought he was a jackass. I couldn't have been more wrong (much like my initial impression of the Strokes- wrote them off as a boring one hit wonder band, but they rule!). He's one of the nicest dudes out there! Weird to think he'll have a kid in a handful of days. Growin' up man.

Anyways, I'll leave you with a handful of pictures from me and my Dad's game. I stopped taking pics about halfway through.

The Grenadier platoon in the center wood (in the last picture) all received iron Crosses. They single handedly wiped out 3 armored platoons (Carriers, Stuarts, Shermans) after weathering torrents of MG fire and artillery called in from that damned L4 Grasshopper.

As always, way more pics after the break!


Initial table setup.


The German battle lines.









Marders. The little AT guns that could.


Panzerwerfer


The Panzerwerfers open up


British M10s cautiously advance through a wood escorted by the 2iC...


and the blasted Grasshopper. (his 8 gun battery is off board :( )



British tanks on the move



"Fire for Effect!"



Overwatch



British tanks reposition



The panzerwerfers were overpriced fireworks this battle. That burning sherman is from a stug, not a rocket.



Said Stug.



This is the last picture I took. The grenadiers in the center wood charged headlong into the british lines. The Marders tried to outflank but 2 got blown up and they pulled back. The M10s retreated to the road on the right and knocked out a stug from extremely long range in concealment.

the grenadiers in the center succesfully beat back a Sherman platoon and a Stuart platoon in the same assault in one turn without losing a single stand. They never got below half despite 2 rounds of Murders, assaults, and countless MG dice slung their way.

Moral of the story- German grenadiers in woods are evil.

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Some recent Germans

Just a few pics of recent German armor I've painted. More after the break.

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Williamsburg Muster report pt 1

Had a great time running the Flames of War tournament at Williamsburg Muster over the weekend. Lydia photographed the event, but she's been super busy and hasn't had time to transfer them to her PC. Here are a handful of pictures taken by Indy Kochte. As always, there are more after the break


Lydia was the "Press"


My Dad in an intense battle with Joe Brecher's Panzer lehr Armored Panzergrenadiers.



Dad's artillery staff team


Dad's tanks advance through a wood


Dad's tanks capture an objective


Lydia Polonofsky- action photographer!


Takin' a load off


Dallas engaged in furious combat


The pub crew- Dallas, me, Lydia, Shan, Allison, Tom, Chuck, Dan. Indy is photographing

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Blurry Panthers

On Sunday Eric and I took some Germans against Luke and Brian's Americans at Luke's place.

Building on the excellent format at Fall in, we ran 2 companies per side at 2000 points.

Eric ran 78th Sturm Division with:
HQ + mortars
2 Platoons (1 full, 1 weak)
2 HMGs
2 HMG Bunkers
3 sections of wire
3 Panzerwerfers with extra crew

I ran 2nd SS Panzers with:
HQ (1x Panzer IV H)
3x Panzer IV H
3x Panthers

Luke and Brian expected me to run Panthers and so got clever and took no tanks. They both ran 2nd Armored Division armored rifles.

Luke had:

HQ
2 full strength rifle platoons
Priest Battery
L4 AOP

Brian had:

HQ
2 full strength rifle platoons
full strength engineers
full strength armored mortars







The battle had some severely nail biting moments, and bad luck on both sides (at one point I bogged 2/3 panthers trying to break into the American lines, and another time Luke rolled 5 ones when assaulting said panthers), but in the end the sturmkompanie broke the American attacks on the right flank, while the Panthers fought their way through the bocage and bazookas on the left into the juicy middle of the American forces, seizing the objective. When I am not feeling so lazy I will post more of Luke's pictures. Thanks again for the game everyone!

And now on a more personal note, a word of advice.

IF YOU PLAN TO GET MARRIED DO EVERYONE A FAVOR AND ELOPE.

That is all.

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Shooting range

On Friday me, Lydia, and Dallas went to a shooting range.

I shot a Beretta 92FS, Dallas shot a glock 19, and Lydia shot a .22. Then we rented an M1 freakin' Thompson. That was sweet.




In heels no less.

Here's a link to my photo bucket to see the rest: http://s153.photobucket.com/albums/s217/flamesofwar_sjm/Guns/

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Front page of the Ft Lee Traveller!

My Stuarts and deuce and a halfs are featured on the front page of the Fort Lee Traveller. Here's the link: http://www.fortleetraveller.com/e-edition/?haspdf=1

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Rangers lead the way!

Here's a nice write up about the Sicily game put on by Ron. Thankfully, the writer corrected my mistake in the interview- I referred to the "Mt. Etna" board as "Monte Cassino", which is in Italy and not Sicily (but I'll be damned if it didn't look just like it!)

Anyhow, here's the link:
http://www.fortleetraveller.com/articles/2009/01/22/news/top_stories/top04.txt

Coming soon: Panther A Platoon pictures, F4F Wildcat Pictures, and pictures from the Sicily game.

Full Article copied & pasted for posterity after the cut.


War Games

By Mike Strasser, Managing Editor

A war broke out at the U.S. Army Women’s Museum Saturday – sans explosions, firefights and bombardments. Instead strategy, experience and the roll of dice were the arsenal used to claim victory.

Flames of War is a World War II tabletop game where two opponents, armed with miniature armies, move, shoot and fight in any one of several scenarios such as “free-for-all” or “hold the line.”

This year’s tournament – the fourth organized by Ron Bingham, museum technician – recreated the Battle of Sicily in 1943. Experiencing war history from the point-of-view of a frontline commander is an aspect of competition not lost on any player.

“I like to refer to us all as ‘history geeks’ because we all have an affection for military history,” said Phil Gibbons, after the first round of competition. “When you have people like that, you tend to see a lot of attention to detail. A lot of us strive for historical accuracy. That’s why you see the exact representation of specific units.”

Gibbons, a retired Marine Corps master sergeant, is known by Flames of War colleagues as “Gunny Phil.” Winning and losing aside, he said the tournament is more about enjoying the camaraderie that comes from playing the game.

“My wife loves it when I go to a tournament, believe it or not, because she said I always come home in a great mood,” said Gibbons. “It’s good mental therapy to get out of the daily grind and come out here and peek into history. We can’t experience what those guys experienced by any means, but we can explore it and understand it better. Bottom line, it’s a lot of fun.”

Steve MacLauchlan said he wasn’t interested in history until he began playing Flames of War four years ago. The Richmond native used his collection of rangers to take the hill in Mount Etna for a victory.

“Before this, I knew nothing about these engagements,” said MacLauchlan. “The immense amount of troops that fought, the casualties ... it’s hard to imagine.”

Visitors to the museum were able to watch the competition, and ask questions about the game itself. Shan Palmotier gave the McGowan family a tutorial on Flames of War and the history behind the Battle of Sicily.

Pat McGowan, who brought her daughter and two sons to the tournament, was impressed with the details in the miniature soldiers and vehicles. Her youngest son, Andrew, liked the playing field, filled with trees, roadways and battle positions.

“I loved the way they’ve incorporated the actual time period to the game,” said Pat. “The details, I think, are what makes this game more real.”

Along with two families on a home school field trip, Soldiers from a basic noncommissioned officer course also stopped by to see the action.

“As a museum staff member, I believe the high point for the day was when the two home school families arrived to learn about WWII,” said Bingham. “This shows that these type of museum events do reach out to the public and that there are many exciting ways to teach and even participate in history.”

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Home from the Sicily game

Ron did an awesome job running that tournament, and I had a blast. Rangers are fun to play, and both of my opponents were awesome. Game one saw my Rangers attacking a hill and monastary (Which I mistakenly assumed was Monte Cassino- which isn't in Sicily at all- I'm an idiot) in Hold the Line vs Ken Berry's Fallschirmjaeger (german paratroopers). The combination of heavy terrain and Ranger's ability to double move through it saw me on the objective pretty quickly, and Ken just didn't have enough stuff to throw back at me.

Game two was against Gray Collins, who I plan to make an effort to play with more often, and was a brutal grind. My rangers squared off against his Italin Fucilieri across a 95% open board in Free For All. Neither of us ever really had a shot at capturing objectives, but Gray manned up and went for it anyway. By the time I repulsed his attack, I didn't have enough to go charging across the field and threaten his. I won the battle by virtue of killing more stuff (per Ron's scenario rules), but the battle was truly a draw. Gray was a pleasure to play against, and I think we had a pretty great battle.

Ken wound up winning best Axis General, and his son Joseph wound up winning Best Allied. Thanks to my tenacious Rangers I won the Infantry Assault Badge (Ron actually gave me a cool pin with a rifle on it as well as a certificate and a Pip Roberts blister- which just might motivate me to finish my British Grants) Overall the Allies won the day.

Thanks to my opponents, all the friendly faces, and especially Ron for a very enjoyable day of gaming.



And now- me and Lydia's Cylon Cake detail and comparison:

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Off to the 4th Annual FOW Day at Ft. Lee

I am about to leave for Ft. Lee where Ron "Bing" Bingam is hosting the 4th annual FOW Day at the Ft. Lee Army Women's Museum. The theme is the invasion of Sicily. For some reason I decided to run Ranger's. I think the Rangers are a cool list, but competetively their trained status and tiny platoons make them vulnerable to high casualty rates. Anyhow, it should be fun. Rangers Lead the Way!

Last night was the Season premier of BSG- I dug it.



Me and Lydia made a BSG cake. We rule.

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