Operation Sting 2015- AAR

Operation Sting 2015 took place last weekend, and I am slow to get around to covering it. I'm sure if you're interested in the event you've already read others reports, but for the record here is my take.

The 7th year for the event under two different game systems and I'm glad to say I have made it to 6 of them. This is my second under its World War II moniker using Warlord games Bolt Action system. As much as I love Adepticon this is simply my favorite event, from the organization, tables, Armies, the people, the good fun. its tough to beat. If you are a Bolt Action fan you definitely want to give this tournament a go. With a sold out 24 players, a waiting list and folks visiting from as far away as North Dakota, I think Brent will be looking to expand to 30 players next year.


As for my own personal performance I walked away with nothing to show for my gaming efforts than a smile on my face for having a good time. Now I knowingly went into this year with the deck stacked against me playing with only 7 order dice, I told myself my fearsome Panther tank could pick up some of the dice slack but in a game where infantry rules and scenarios were infantry based, my tank was mainly a dual MMG platform for 355 points and that was just d-u-m-b. 

The first day I got pasted so hard,  think being in a foxhole at Bastonge and being shelled by 88's like in the classic Band of Brothers episode..it was figuratively like that for my army. Highlights (??) from my 3 games Saturday were two matches against Soviets where I had more that 10 pins on my single squads concurrently at numerous points during the game, my Panther was immobilized by Soviet bomb dogs  and in game 3 a Soviet Artillery strike took out my Panther top of the second turn and there was an IS2 on the board and I'm outnumbered 3 to 1 in man power. Both these games where total routs for my Germans ending in total brutal defeat.

Games 2 and 4 were unfortunately against my German comrades, as pairings can only be matched axis versus allies for so long when there is a big skew in the representation between Axis and Allied players, Both these games where against two of my favorite gents to play , both whom I played last year with my Brits and defeated. Turn about is fair play and despite my Panther taking out Mark's Panzer IV after like 4 rounds of shooting at , he played his slightly better number advantage well to where in the  "take the field" scenario where you need to capture the best of 5  objectives I didnt have enough models to remotely try to deny him total victory. In game 4 against Seamus he had me on the ropes running the whole game, while I did manage to squeak out the secret mission. my squads, one 
of which was pinned to hell couldnt activate after the Airstrike turn 2 and my other just taking most of his fire, ended in a game where it was only a draw because I was lucky enough to kill his team with my captured objective before it fled the board and he then failed the roll on turn 7 to capture his own objective.  Games 2 and 4 where fun games, Games 1 and 3 were exercises in futility were everything that could have went wrong did.

Game 5 was against my old pal Jeremy who once again bested me in a judges tie on best appearance with the tie breaker being the vote of our fellow players for the second year in a row. I guess my consolation prize was game 5 where literally everything went my way to an almost comical end were I had almost tabled him in a game of "Maximum Attrition", losing only a transport and my HQ. He took the game in stride like the good sport that he is.

I want to make note as well there were easily a half dozen + excellent and bad ass armies there as well, the props to my own I received with that caliber a field are very satisfying, award or not. I'm already fully in high gear for the expansion of my force and a properly sized order dice Army for Adepticon in the spring. I did manage to take a decent amount of photos and havent really gone thru them all and I know alot are redundant but check out my photo gallery in the left side bar for Operation Sting 2015 to get some eye candy on all the tables armies and games from the weekend.