2023 Retrospective

2023 has been another relatively quiet year for me hobby-wise. I started the year with five goals

Have a good clear out of the random junk in the hobby cupboard.

This I achieved. I had a really good tidy-up in October, bought some new storage solutions, and offloaded some old bits and pieces.

The remaining objectives weren't met: I didn't play any non-FOW games, and didn't make any progress on my ALDG projects.

I played in three FOW tournaments during the year.

ValleyCon was 111pts Late War held in April. I painted a new army for it: a Soviet Rifle Regiment from Berlin: Soviet.

Rifle Regiment - Berlin: Soviet

Regiment HQ

Rifle Company (mid strength with panzerfaust and 1 x Maxim)

Storm Group (full strength with panzerfaust, Maxim and flamethrower)

82mm Mortar Company (6 x 82mm mortar)

120mm Mortar Company (3 x 120mm mortar)

Heavy Tank Killer Company (4 x 76mm gun)

Armoured Car Platoon (3 x BA-64, with 2 x PTRD)

M4 Sherman (76mm) Tank Company (5 x M4 Sherman (76mm)) 

IS-2 (Late) Guards Heavy Tank Company (4 x IS-2)

Unditiching Logs command card (IS-2)

Total Cost: 111 pts

The list was great. It was my first time playing Soviets in FOW since 1st Edition, and while you can argue that Careful troops aren't exactly the classic Soviet experience in FOW, it was still a nice change from Western lists. I won three games, drew two games, and finished tied for 4th place.

The second tournament was Panzerschreck, held in July. This year it was 140pt Late War doubles. I partnered with Bede again, running lists from Berlin: German. My half of the list was four 10.5cm FlaK39 railway cars, and a formation of Fallschirmjager from Fortress Europe. We tied for third out of 18, but lost the dice-off so finished in fourth place again.

The final event was Remember December. This was 60pts Mid War, book points, no Top Armour 2, and only one Support unit. I ran a British Rifle Company:

Rifle Company - North Africa

Company HQ

Rifle Platoon (full strenth)

Rifle Platoon (minimum strenth) 

Rifle Platoon (minimum strenth)

Mortar Platoon (4 x 3-inch mortars)

Anti-tank Platoon (3 x 6-pounders)

Universal Carrier Patrol (3 x Universal Carriers)

Universal Carrier Patrol (3 x Universal Carriers)

Valentine III Death or Glory Troop (3 x Valentine III)

Captured Tank command card (Rifle Company)

Cavalry Commander command card (Valentines)

Total Cost: 60 pts

I started pretty well with two wins, but fell apart in the final game. The Rifle Company played well- I definitely needed all of the infantry, but the Valentines weren't quite as tough as I'd hoped they'd be. The Captured Tank card was a bit of fun: I managed to capture an AB41 in Game 1 and a Stuart in Game 3.

I've continued writing for No Dice No Glory, but my output slowed during the year due to work pressures:

• An overview of Berlin: Soviet
• An article on my Canadian Rifles list from ValleyCon 2022
• A review of the Battlefront Sexton/Ram kit
• A piece on assembling the Battlefront 10.5cm railway car

For 2024, I'm going to keep over a couple of the goals from 2023.

1. I want to paint my ECW Royalists for ADLG-R.
2. I want to play two rulesets that aren't FOW.

FOW has a couple of new things coming out this year, with "Late War Leviathans" adding prototype and 1946 tanks to the game, followed by "Clash of Steel" as an alt-history spinoff. The models look cool, but I'm not sure how much interest there will be locally. 

Tournament-wise, ValleyCon is likely to be Mid War FOW this year, so I'll be looking to put together a new army for that. I can't play at Panzerschreck this year, but hopefully I can make an appearance at Call To Arms in August instead.