Conquested

Well I am back at home from a trip to Christchurch for Conquest. I would like to thank Tim from Comics Compulsion and Stephen Stout for running the Flames of War competition.

I took part in the Flames of War competition with my Late War New Zealand Rifle company. Overall I came 4^th equal only games I lost was to Craig and Chris the eventual 1^st and 2^nd placed players.

1^st game: Roadblock. I hate road block, I think its very biased towards the “attacker” who gets to defend the objectives on the road. The other player simply doesn’t get enough stuff to counter the amounts of reserve units the “attacker” gets. I player Adam with his Nisei and won 5-2.

2^nd game: No Retreat. After my victory in the first round I got to play Craig on his Cassino board. It was an excellent match up. I placed my objective on the right hand side and massed for force on the left hoping to force Craig to move his FJ platoon from the ruins so I can assault it a few teams at a time. It almost worked but due to night fighting  causing my staghounds to not see the Pak40 nest 8 inches away and my 2^nd rifle platoon staying pinned for 3 turns I didn’t have enough of my force left when I swept to the right to take the objective.

3^rd game: Witches Cauldron. Another Italy themed table, I was the defender vs Keiths Soviet Heavy assault guns. A combination of artillery, M10 fire and an infantry team assaulting a bailed out ISU122 saw Keith losing half his tanks. His ISU152 only killed 2 teams with their big guns while my infantry saw off his Urdany. Meanwhile my Shermans from reserve took out his scout platoon and killed his Battalion commander in an IS2. 5-2 to me.

4^th game: Not One Step back. I like to assume this was my company fighting through the ruins at casino but there was too many Soviet propaganda posters for that to be true. I played Josh with his horde of Panzer IV/L70’s. Its a city fight so his tanks were at a disadvantage with the rules for buildings and rubble slowing him down. My own armour was held back out of sight and I left the infantry to do their job. A M10 ambush took out 1 Panzer IV/L70 that allowed my rifle platoon to assault and destroy the platoon with their sticky bombs. Repeat with his next tank platoon and finally I survived to the last to take the room with the Objective with my lonely platoon commander.

5^th game: Breakthrough. I like breakthough and got to defend against Chris and his Guards infantry company. It was a close game with Poochie making all his Platoon Morale checks (with guards re-roll). I only killed the M10Cs to the last for another VP but it took too long and I had to commit a platoon of Shermans to help out my M10s when they were needed elsewhere. Good game, heaps of stuff died.

Overall I like the force and will take it to the Late War GT.

On arriving home I had this waiting for me: