Operation Sting 2017

So Operation Sting 2017 happened this past weekend.  I was originally planning a new army with a kick ass display board, but I never found the motivation to do so.  I switched back to my old army pretty much last minute and painted like 5 miniatures and a car to augment my list (see my previous post, that's pretty much all I did).  In all honesty, this was the least amount of work I've ever put into prepping for a tournament.  At first, I kind of felt bad about it, but then I was like "Meh..... I'm lazy".  My expectations for how well I'd do was pretty low.  In fact, I went into my first game with the expectation I was going to get last place (which comes with a prize btw), so I set the bar pretty low.  Lets take a look at my army....

The theme of this tournament was 1943, so I decided to go with Operation Citadel (Battle of Kursk) list.  My options were extremely limited so I decided on 4 smaller units of regular troops (one LMG, 3 Assault Rifles, 3-4 rifles per unit), a pioneer unit with a flame thrower, sniper team, medium mortar team, flame thrower team, MMG team, rifle team, kubelwagen, Sdz half-track, and Panzer 4.  I tried to max out on order dice while keeping the units small but effective.  I maxed out at 14 order dice out of a possible max of 15.  That's a lot of order dice for me as I usually only take 11 to 12.  My regular units had 14-15 shots per unit per turn at full strength which can devastate a un-expecting opponent.  The Panzer 4 in my opinion is the best tank for the cost in the German army.  Great firepower, decent defense, and cheap point cost for what you're getting.  I think it beats out all other tanks available to the German army.  The two flame throwers gave my opponents something to think about as they could easily destroy any unit of infantry.  I like the bringing a small veteran pioneer unit w/flame thrower as it can really cause chaos on boards where firing arcs are a problem.  I like to make a point of keeping my single flame thrower team and the Kubelwagen in reserve, ready to strike when a tasty target got too close.  All in all, I had a pretty decent army going in.

I didn't take a ton of pictures, but here are some of the armies I took pictures of.  This is not all of them as some pictures I had didn't turn out that well.

This army took top painting.  Definitely deserving of the award

And here are some of the tables we played on.....

Now I didn't get pictures of all the tables or all the armies.  Shit happens.  This is just a smattering of some of what was there.  So how did I do?  Did I go down in a burning wreck like I previously predicted?

Well......

So yeah..... that happened.  Don't ask me how it happened, but it did.  Apparently Operation Sting 2017 was not good day for the Axis as I ended up taking top Axis General.  The top 6 spots went to allied players while I squeaked ahead of the rest of the Axis pack by apparently taking 7th place.  I went 2-2-1 for my 5 games.  About a 50% average.  The two games I lost were both against the top general overall and the top allied general.  I was out-played, out-matched, and my dice abandoned me for both of those games.  However, even in defeat I managed to get max points by making sure my secret objectives were achieved.  I think that's what put me ahead for the Axis as I was able to secure 10 points even in defeat while achieving max points (25) in victory. 

My army performed pretty well overall.  I'd change a few things like taking out the rifle team (garbage) and maybe adding a medic.  I had a lot of trouble with other tanks as I had to commit my Panzer 4 to a tank battle instead of mowing units down and just causing general carnage to my opponents army.  I think adding some heavy artillery would counter this problem.  Air strikes were still a problem, so maybe some more flak would help to counter it.  Building an army for tournament play in general is difficult in the sense that you don't know what you're going to be playing against, so you have to build a one-size-fits-all kind of army.  It's pretty much like that in any game you play tournaments for.

So all in all, Operation Sting 2017 was a lot of fun.  Lots of highs, a few lows, and an unexpected trophy.