ValleyCon 2017 Review

Another excellent ValleyCon is now over. A huge thanks to the Hutt Club committee for putting on the weekend, to Chris for umpiring the FOW comp, and to the guys that I played. My Greece-themed motor company won four games out of the seven, placing 7th out of 14, and was awarded the prize for Best Army. The games went as follows:

1. Encounter - vs German Pioneers - 5-2 win by objective.
2. Free For All - vs New Zealand infantry - 4-3 win by company break.
3. Fighting Withdrawal - defending vs Matildas - 4-3 win by turn count
4. Breakthrough - defending vs Finnish armour - 6-1 loss by objective.
5. Dust Up - vs French armour - 6-1 loss by company break.
6. Cauldron - attacking vs French armoured cars - 6-1 loss by clock.
7. No Retreat - defending vs Soviet armour - 4-3 win by clock.

This year felt different to last year, with many more medium/heavy tanks than I recall seeing in 2016. Trained tank lists did well, taking four of the top five places, with the highest-placing infantry list being German pioneers in fourth. I ran into a Finnish T34/T28/T26 list, a Soviet KV/T26 list, a Matilda squadron, Valentines supporting NZ Rifles, and French H35s/Panhards in two of the games that I played.

On the whole I was pretty happy with my list. I attacked and won two fair fights against infantry companies in rounds one and two, and it felt handy enough in those situations, but I struggled against the masses of tanks that I spent the rest of the event facing. The loss of either the 2pdrs or the A10s usually signalled the beginning of the end, and even with them in play I struggled to kill enough tanks with Armour 3+ to break any platoons.

The competition also reminded me that the Mobile Reserves rule in Breakthrough makes life difficult for mechanised defenders, and that as an infantry-based list facing tanks in Dust Up, no matter how well you play, there doesn't seem to be anything you can do to prevent your opponent from setting up a gun line and destroying half of your platoons as they are forced to come on from reserve. To me, that's an indication of a bad scenario - in the others there always seems to be a way that you could play it better and get a different result, but not in this one. I'm hoping that the "Battle Plans" concept from Team Yankee will be carried over into Version 4, as that at least gives you the ability to try and avoid a particular matchup through your choice of stance. That, and ensuring that there is plenty of good cover within 6" of all of the corners when setting up terrain.

My son Jaime played in the competition, taking a DAK Panzerkompanie of three Panzer IVs, three Panzer IIs, armoured cars and infantry, placing last with one win. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to have dampened his attitude towards the game. Now, if I can only get him into painting...

The Mid-War American tank company that I took to the Bring and Buy didn't sell, so I'm thinking I'll end up listing them on Trade Me. I bought a box of German armour, containing Panthers, Panzer IVs, Sturmtigers, Pumas, Lynx, Brummbars, an Elefant and a whole lot more. I thought this would be a fantastic addition to our collection, as it instantly gives us the ability to play a much wider variety of games than we have in the past. Funnily enough, it also contained a pair of Nashorns that I painted about 15 years ago.

So, on to plotting for next year, although there's no word yet on format. Having played 1000pt EW British lists for the last two years, I feel it's time for me to have a change, but whether that's taking a different nation or playing a different system, I haven't yet decided.

Completed Army for ValleyCon 2017

I have finally completed my army for the  Flames of War competition at ValleyCon 2017, which I have themed on 1st Armoured Brigade in Greece, April 1941.

Photos of the Commonwealth equipment in the Greek campaign show a real mix of colour schemes: single overall colours, Caunter, the two-tone green European camouflage of the period, and seemingly random disruptive patterns that look to have been sprayed on in a hurry.

There are a number of photos of abandoned 3rd RTR A10s, and good drawings in the Mike Starmer book on Caunter. The general pattern that they carry, with some variation between tanks, is a modified version of the official Caunter scheme, with silver grey replaced with the basic colour, and a single disruptive colour applied where the official scheme specifies slate. I originally tried light stone and slate, but the contrast between those two colours was far greater than was apparent in the photos, so I went with the silver grey instead.

The 15cwt trucks for the infantry have been painted in overall light stone to match the only photo I've found that is definitely a 1st Armoured Brigade 15cwt, backed up by the Rangers war diary which suggests that only their carriers and scout cars were given a disruptive pattern on arrival in Greece.

The Battlefront one-piece resin carriers are convenient and well detailed, but there were a few quality issues with the track mouldings, which I didn't dare try to rectify due to the brittleness of the material. The hull sides are also very thin and likely to break with handling. I also overlooked the fact that each pack only contain a single anti-tank rifle, not the one per vehicle that I needed, but it's too late to do anything about that now.

I found one photo that is presumed to be a Rangers carrier, but I wasn't able to recreate the hastily-resprayed look without making the model look like a mess. In the end, I have gone for a scheme inspired by the tanks. I'm not 100% happy with it, so I can't guarantee that they'll still look like this come the tournament.

Without a reference for the portees and guns of the Northumberland Hussars, I had to guess at a possible colour scheme. On the assumption that as frontline vehicles and thus would have had a disruptive pattern of some kind, I chose full Caunter.

With just under two weeks to go, the plan now is to do a couple of objective markers and a few more sangar entrenchment markers, and touch up some mid-war Americans for the Bring and Buy table, before moving onto Team Yankee.