Or not!

So I went to Adepticon with some decent hope of doing well.  As they say, cold reality slapped me in the face!

First, the tournament was great.  The folks at Game Korps and Battlefront did a great job.  Special recognition needs to go to Dean Rapp.  He spent a lot of effort, patience and time with all of us.  It is a thankless job being a Tournament Organizer (just ask Joe!) and he does a GREAT job.  So thanks Dean!

That being said, I really performed poorly.  He is a quick rundown of my poor play:

Game 1: Encounter

Greg was my opponent and he was a really nice player.  I could play him many, many times and enjoy myself.  He played Italians and had to roll for their motivation and skill.  Interesting.  I have not come up against Italians.

The mission was Encounter.  To sum up the game, we ran out of time.  I killed 1 platoon of his and lost none.  But the real turning point of the game was when I engaged his artillery with my Stewies.  I decided to use my machine guns (poor choice) and rake over the artillery pieces.  What I should have done was use main guns, then machine guns.  Well, I got enough hits to wipe the platoon and he did not pass gun saves.  Greg started to remove the arty pieces from the board.  Now remember the posts on game play in a tournament vs. a friendly game.  I remembered my last tourney where Paul poitned out the assault from cover rule.  Well, I immediately reminded Greg that I needed a firepower to kill because of the gun shield.  I went on to fail every single one.  His platoon lived and in the next turn, proceeded to destroy 3 of my 4 Stewies.  I did pass the platoon morale check and had to pull back.  My point on this one is that if I let Greg take the platoon off, I win.  No question about it.  But I did the right thing and ended up with a draw and using Fair Fight mission rules, I scored 2 and Greg scored 1.


Game 2: Fighting Withdrawal

I played Dave, who brought German Grenadiers.  He defended.  The map had a river running through, which we rolled to determine it could not be forded.  There was a single bridge.  The only armor he had was 2 Stug Gs.  I bull rushed up one side and isolated the Stugs.  I contested one objective on Turn 2 and a second on turn 3.  Looking good.  By this time, the Stugs made it over and the Shermans got into a fight.  A couple of turns later and the Stugs are gone, but so is a Sherman.  In Turn 5, I make a beeline to the 3rd objective which was uncovered.  I came up 1 inch short.  Turn 6, Dave removes one objective I am on.  Next turn, he removes the now owned by me objective.  The last objective that I am contesting has to deal with dug in, gone to ground, in terrain (woods).  I just couldn't get him out.

Game 3: Cauldron

I played Raif from D6 Generation fame.  Nice guy.  He was American infantry.  I just couldn't kill him quick enough.  Time ran out on the game.  In the last turn, I needed to kill one more stand to force a platoon morale check.  If he failed that test, I win the game because CiC was long gone by then.  I did not.  So I lost 5-2, when I was one roll away from winning 6-1.

So that is the abbreviated report.

Here is what I learned:

1) I am too darn slow.  Greg and Raif are also fairly new to the game, so they also were a little slow.  This would haunt me all tourney.  In game 3, one more turn and I win.  In game 1, one more turn and I at least kill another platoon to score 3.  Those points were due to my slow play.

2) I needed to be aggressive and smarter.  In game 2, if I move at the double to the open objective, I win.  Not because I can contest at the double, but rather it forces the issue on him pulling the objective before I get there.  In game 1, if I were more aggressive, I think I can win, if not kill a few more platoons.

3) Think faster.  Because one way of playing the armored rifles has worked, I did the same thing each game.  In game 1, I should have fielded Shermans and Stewies and left the rifles in reserve.  There was no way Greg was coming to me in Encounter.  Rifles could have come on and rushed forward after dealing with the SP AT guns he had (he had one bog for 3 turns).  Different forces and the game changes.

So faster play, more aggressive play and quicker thinking produces a different result.  Oh well.


Later that evening, I had a great game with Joe on the Luttendorf Bridge table that Game Korps has.  Joe was wonderful and stayed late to play with me as I was the only person to sign up.  Again, Dean Rapp was a sport too!  So I owe Joe something nice for sticking around.

All in all, it was a good time.  I learned a lot about me and the game!