I am Denzo the Harpist!

In my last post I wrote a little about this month's Flames of War tournament here in Norcal, held at Gamescape North in San Rafael. 1250 points Mid War and in an Urban setting with 4'x4' playing areas packed with buildings. I took a list out of North Africa, 8th Army Rifles from the early Italy campaign:

HQ
2 Platoons of Rifle/MG + Light Mortar & Piat
1 Platoon of 4 Heavy Machine Guns
1 Platoon of 4 3" Mortars
1 Platoon of 6pdr Portee trucks
1 Platoon of Commandos
1 Platoon of 2 Bofors AA guns
1 Platoon of Univeral Carriers

It's a well  rounded list, though made more for facing infantry, rather than tanks. Luckily I didn't see more than 6 tanks between all 3 of my games.

18 players turned up on a disgustingly hot day, bringing an overwhelming majority of infantry lists. The competition was pretty tough and people went all out trying to come up with some whacky lists (And others not so whacky - am looking at all you oodles of Grenadier Players... *yawn*). In the end, the event was won by Brad Feliz and his nuts Soviet Tank list (One of only two Tank lists submitted that day.), second place awarded to my mate Joe Harney who played... Grenadiers. *yawn again* :P

Once again, I was super lucky to be awarded Best Presentation. Originally it was a tied result for this award, as both Devin Moore and myself had equal votes from the tourney attendees.This lead to us having to have a "Rock-Paper-Scissors Best of Three-Off" to sort it all out. My keen strategy of paper versus rock won the day though and I took home the award! Along with my playing record of 1 win (Against Densmol), 1 draw (Against Richard Gagliasso) and 1 loss (Against brand new player Pablo Miron), not a bad result at all for the day.

Here's a selection of pics from the day - please excuse the lighting, Gamescape seems to have lighting more suited to a romantic dinner than wargaming if you ask me.

Dave Partak's Soviets

Can't remember who's Yanks these were but they were really well done.

Rich Gagliasso's German Grenadiers painted up by CGR painting service. Very nicely done too.

Brad's Soviet tanks that ran rampant. KV2's! O_o

Russ Moore's beautifully painted and based Italians.

Dave Ripperda's Grenadiers with 4 Brumbars! (I got to practice against this list pre-tourney - very nasty.) Love those flame thrower effects.

Mason Partak (Our youngest player at 11 or 12 I think) ran his Dad's Brit Commandos.

Devin's Soviets really were some pretty tanks!

Crap picture of Joe's Grenadiers. These look great when not all blurred up...

Mike's Romanian masses. Please note the TWELVE FULLY PAINTED ARTILLERY PIECES!!! Crazy bastitch...

One of only two pics that I managed to take of my actual games during the day. This was against my good mate Densmol's SS-PanzerGrenadiers. I eventually won 4-3, but he really deserved the game as I was scrambling about in the end.

My poor 6-pounder Portees went for the early turn 2 alpha strike on Densmol's Panzer III's.... and paid dearly for my shite dice rolls.

A prize was also given for the best looking table. Really, Brad won, but as he also won Best General, he passed and let the 2nd place table take the honours (Dave Partak's super full Stalingrad effort.). Still though, Brad put a LOT of effort into his buildings and even wrote a history piece to base it on.

Snow is evil and makes poor vehicles run s-l-o-w...

Some hard work went into these buildings. The snow effects were impressive just by themselves.

Lastly, I got a little hobby work done too. After reading Mad Padre's swift review of the Italerie 1/72 bridge he had purchased for his 20mm project, I went and bought one for my own gaming table. This model is a lovely sculpt of only 6 pieces and went together like a dream. I really wasn't all that worried about making it look super special seeing as it's no diorama piece so just primed black, based in a P3 Cryx light grey-type colour on the cobbles and Spacewolf Grey on the larger flagstones, then went to town with my collection of washes - Devlan Mud, old GW green (Who's name I can't remember), Griffon Sepia, P3 Armour wash and SecretWeaponMiniatures dark black wash (Again can't remember the name.). The end result is fine by me for gaming, just needs a thorough coating of first Gloss Varnish (To protect the paintjob.) and then one or two of Matt, so it won't look all goofy and shiny.

Here's some last minute before bedtime pics from last night:

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*Again, props for any who can get the post-title's quote*