Barrage Con!

Well hello there Throck's and Throckette's! This weekend Crazed Loon, me and a buddy of ours headed up to beautiful Harve De Grace Maryland for Barrage Con 16 to participate in the 1575 LW Tournament held by the fine gentlemen from I-95 gamers.

It's about a two hour drive up I-95 from Throck HQ and it was, I must say, well worth it. First of all, most importantly, and I can't stress this enough.

There is No Museum in Harve De Grace Maryland.

They Just want you to think there is. 

I'm telling you, they're cagey. They really want you to not think there is a museum, and there isn't, despite their attempts to convince you that it's there, do not believe their lies. It's not a decoy, it's simply not real.

Although, the Blues Brothers have taken up residence... I always wondered where they went after the movies...

A little worse for wear, but still keeping it real. 

But you're not here for the travelogue are you! You want to hear about all the war gamey goodness and see a ton of pictures of games in action. Well, I aim to please, so let's get down to the nitty gritty. First off, here's the list I took:

Loon and I were joined at the tourney by the excellent Messer's Scott of Itty Bitty Soldiers Fame, his friend Matt and 12 other intrepid souls from around the region. All the tables we're chock full of LOS blocking terrain, difficult terrain hills and other obstacles that posed some serious tactical challenges. 

Round 1 I drew Rifle Company from Devils Charge (2 ID of course) on a map that was all forests except for a few small alleys of open grass, and some roads that lead to a small town smack in the middle of the map. 

No, I said I wanted ALL of the trees.

The mission was Surrounded, so he was forced to deploy in a central strip while I got 8 inches (NATCH) on either short edge of the map. It was certainly a challenging map for both of us. He was pretty much forced to put his long toms in the middle of town where my 88's could shoot right down the road at them. (although looking now, he could have put them below the red house). The game revolved around my grens, unmounted, sneaking their way through the trees, pinning his defending two platoons and assaulting into the city from the west and holding the objective (mostly obscured here). It was a rough mission because of LOS issues all around. I won it 6-1.

Round two I faced Strelk, alot of strelk. They had many many stand on a board full of hills and trees. Luckily, it also had a ton of roads allowing me to speed around his slower foot sloggers. It was a mobile mission (that I can't remember the name of) with one objective in his table quarter, one adjacent, and my deployment diagonally across from the open objective. The objectives go hot turn one and I knew I had to get there fast and hold. The way the trees were set up it meant he couldn't get all of his guys or guns at me all at once so if I could get there and dig in, I thought I had a chance to bubble wrap and wait him out. 

So, many Russians. Luckily, I've got MG's and they solve problems. 

As you can see above I got there and set up at the objective. Because of this, he felt the need to assault with his large platoon. In doing so he face the unpinned fire from two full grenadier platoons and their half tracks. He took 30 hits... and failed I think 20 infantry saves. Ouch.

They're coming right for us!

MG-42, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems.

His boys ran after the failed assault and the smaller of the two platoons didn't fare so well on the top of my turn. That was pretty much game. I won it 6-1. 

Phew. Did I just win my first two rounds 6-1 each? I might actually have a chance at winning a tournament! But it all comes down to round 3. Originally, the next highest point getter after two rounds was my room mate and contributor here Crazed Loon, who I've played a million times (you've all seen some of those battles here). Luckily, one other person got enough points to tie Crazed and we didn't have to play each other. 

I ended up playing armored rifles. it's the first time I've faced them, and I've heard a ton about the army on the internet and how solid it is, so I was a bit nervous. Also, I forgot to take pics of that fight, sorry about that. It went down like this, it was a fair fight mission and we rolled Free For All. So two mech companies were going to go at it with two objective on either side of the board, for all the marbles. 

Ilse is Very Happy. 

He strung one Armored Rifle platoon between the two objectives I had set up and backed them with his preists (hanging out so they could at the start only see one of the objectives). The other Armored Rifle platoon and a foot slogging platoon were on the other flank where, across the board, he had placed his objectives. Close enough to by covered by my Pioneers (two of whom transformed into flame throwers), PaK 40's and 88's. I set up the rest of my moble infantry out of line of sight ready to roll at the far objective, which was in my estimation, lightly defended. 

I get the top of turn one and everything not in a transport digs in. On the other side of the board my troops roll up, storm trooper out of their transports and make ready for a turn two or three assault. Seeing the threat from my infantry he starts rolling his over to cover the objectives. But it's too late. After two turns of viscious hand to hand I take and solidly hold one of the objectives. And... Holy Crap. I won 6-1. 

I just won the tournament 3 and 0 with 18 victory points. My first tournament win ever and I have to say that felt pretty good. And what's better, Loon got second place! Throck of War blog for the win!

After 3 weeks of tournies in a row it's time for a rest until we head up to Huzzah Hobbies in Dulles in early October. And now, let's have a pic dump:

My winnings.