Operation Sting 2015

This past weekend was Operation Sting 2015 (if the picture directly above didn't give it away).  Basically, this is the tournament that used to be Bilbo's Birthday Bash that's now the fantastic Warlord Game's WWII small squad base skirmish game, Bolt Action.  While I'm sad that Lord of the Rings SBG scene is pretty much dead in my local area, I'm happy to see another game taking it's place that's equally fun.  Don't get me wrong, I love the universe of The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit and I still think it's a very fun game, but with GW hammering the final nails in the coffin for every system other than 40k, I'm happy to see other game company's filling the voids.  I think Warlord Game's has really hit a home run with this system.  Lots of choices, easy rule system to grasp, and lots of fun to play in both a home and tournament setting.

So Operation Sting 2015.  I pretty much spent the bulk of all my free time in September and October (thus far) prepping for this tournament.  I managed to finish up everything around 4am the day of, managing a few hours of sleep then off to the hotel for registration by 9am.  I wasn't sure what to expect from this event going into it.  I had a demo game under my belt, so I was a bit shakey on the rules, not really understanding how the H.E. and armor mechanics worked.  I had read over the rule book a few times but as with most games, you have to see it in action to fully grasp the concepts (at least for me anyways).

As I walked in, I recognized a lot of faces and after my first game, I basically had all the rules down.  It took my tank and puma getting blown up a few times to understand how they work.  All the opponents I played against were great guys and it was the first tournament where I had no issues with someone arguing rules or anything like that.  Maybe it was because I was naive to the rules going into it, but all my opponents helped me when I didn't understand something and happily asked any questions I had.  Granted, I walked away with a score of 1-4-0, but hey.... at least I won 1 game.

I do have to thank my friend Brent for running an awesome tournament (as always).  He always runs an awesome event and this one didn't disappoint.

So enough blabbering.... you probably want to see some pictures right?  Well, I took a few pictures.  First up are some of the awesome tables we got to play on.

There were 12 tables total, but I only managed (remembered) to take pictures of these table.  I have to say the sub table was just amazing.  I really like the feel of the entire table.  Reminds me of something out of Wolfenstein.  It's a shame I didn't get to play on it but it was amazing to just look at.

Up next are the armies I managed to get some pictures of.  I apologize for some of the blurry pictures.  I didn't have my HD setting set on my phone when I took them.

 

 

 

I wish I would've gotten a better picture of Chris's army.  The custom built H.E. was amazing

All of these above armies looked great.  I wish the pictures I took did them justice.  The next two armies are by my two favorite painters in our local scene.

The above army is by John over at plasticlegions.blogspot.com/ . His armies are always a visual treat to look at.  The display looks amazingly professional and you could really tell he spent a lot of time on this.  You never disappoint John, awesome job!

The above army took top honors and rightfully so.  Jeremy over at chefofwar.blogspot.com/ painted this army and display.  What can be said about the above?  It's an amazing piece and like I stated right off the bat, took top honors rightfully so.  I love the mix of British and Arabian soldiers and the camo on the vehicles looked awesome.  The background mural on the display was definitely a nice a touch as well.  I have a few ideas rolling around in my head on how to de-throne you next year.  Awesome job man.

So that's it for now.  You might be asking "Where the hell is your army Dave?".  Well, I plan on doing another blog post on that in the next few days along with a deeper analysis on how to improve the army composition as a whole, so stay tuned for this.  Take it easy and keep painting!