Thoughts of Williamsburg Muster 2011

Greetings troops,

On the previous posting I posted the pictures of the Williamsburg Muster.  I had a blast ... minus the allergies that attacked me.  Steve and I carpooled up and meet fellow WWPD'ers Dirty Jon and Luke.  20 players I believe made the trip so we had a great mix of troops to play against.

I played Steve in Game 1, Mad Dog Tom (another fellow gamer) in Game 2 and finished off against Otto in Game 3.  Since it has been a couple of days I can't remember specific forces but I will give a brief run down and what I learned from my losses (which was all three games lol)

For the tournament I brought an HQ (with 2 bazookas extra), 2 Rifle Platoons, 1 Weapons platoon (LMGs and 60mm Mortars), 81mm Mortar Platoon, Combat Engineer platoon (3 extra bazookas), 5 Shermans and a M-10 Platoon.

Steve and I were taking the field in Game 1.  There was bocage and buildings through out the board.  Steve was running Germans, which consisted of mechanized troops, Panzer IVs, Nebs, 2 Tigers and 3 Pumas.  I was running the Big Red 1 infantry.  Long story short ... Steve zipped up the middle with his transports and was able to swing behind my forces.  One platoon evaporated under a hail of machine gun fire.  My engineers were pinned and slowly chewed up by Tiger machine guns.  Reserves never showed and eventually I had nothing that could contest.  Steve's game 6-1.

• I learned that I shouldn't have left the Shermans off the table.  They would have been a great cover for the infantry.  I had brought out mortars thinking I was gonna smoke for troop movement but failed to grasp that my troops wouldn't need it it we got flanked first.  Which happened .... and I learned a great lesson 

My second game was against Mad Dog Tom and his mechanized German force.  Remembering what I had seen 1st round I did deploy the Shermans along with my Engineers and a Rifle platoon.  I can't remember the exact moves but Tom was able to bring his Panzer IVs along with his transports to bare against my Engineers, Rifle platoon.  I was able to score kills against the transports but the gunfire was too much to bare after time.  Tom's nebs were delivering great pinning fire as well.  Eventually I believe I fail a motivation check and saw the US leave the field.

• Again, transports blazing with machine guns caused havoc against my infantry.  The engineers did hold their own against the tide and took 3 transport teams with them.  I had placed the Shermans on the other side of the board to flank the nebs and a tank killing platoon he had.  Instead I was bailing out and bog checking at the same time I was "dancing" in and out of TD fire.  Tom shared some good info and tips (just as Steve had) and we got another game since the time allowed it.  Thanks Tom ! 

The last game was against Otto and his Soviets running tank killers and rocket trucks.  It was a long slug fest.  The Soviets TD had an AT of like 14 or 15 which popped open my Shermans and M-10s.  Both platoons lef the field after failed motivation tests.  Once my armor components were gone my infantry had no hopes but to contest objectives and dig in.I had a chance to take out his rocket teams early in the game but swung my armor elements to support the infantry. BIG MISTAKE.  Rockets and tank fire whittled infantry down to motivation checks which were failed.  I literally lost the game with one failed company morale check.  Otto was a great opponent ... good game.

• I should have taken out those rockets.  But I swung the armor elements to support the infantry which was moving to protect an objective that was not covered.  The mission had 3 objectives placed and I had deployed around a middle objective which then was removed.  So I had to act fast moving to protect.  It was the first time I played against Russians with that killing power.  The last time I faced Russians they were a lend lease Sherman company ...  hats off to Otto he stayed in there and it came down to the wire.

It was a great time.  I learned from every game I played and got in 4 solid games in one day.  How could that be bad ?!?! lol ...

Keep the paint flowing and the dice rolling .....

Joe ... aka Mezz