Briscon 2021 Report - Flames of War

Briscon 2021 Report – Flames of War With Garry Wait ith COVID 19 well under control Downunder (Australia and New Zealand) we were able to run an event finally, after having to cancel many events in 2020.  With this in mind, I was honoured and excited to organise the very first ever two day Version 4 Flames of War event in Queensland during 17-18 April this year. I say organise because I was very fortunate to have Duane McAndrew assist as the Tournament Umpire on the day and he was excellent in overseeing things for a very smooth event.

There have been many locally run shop based one day events which are setup more as a fun outing rather than as a serious gaming event. This was a unique opportunity to get gamers together for the first time ever in our home state for two days of challenging yet sociable gaming. In the end we had guys visiting from as far afield as the Gold Coast and the event was characterised by lots of laughter and enthusiasm.

Points were 120 for the main force plus up to five points ONLY to be spent on command cards. This was done to allow players some flexibility and encourage variety from the command card system. No one had any complaints about the size of games that I heard. To ensure games got completed in time, there was a stipulation that each army MUST contain one tank formation and for this we allowed a Tank destroyer formation or Forward Detachment so long as it had tank teams in the HQ.

To assist with countbacks I allowed for counting numbers of formations broken although this didn’t matter too much in practice, it was fun and encouraged aggressive play. As we had a disparate group of guys, some with very little experience of playing, who didn’t know each other we simplified things and had missions rolled randomly at start of each round, except for the surprise in mission 2

Missions as follows, first round was 2 hours 45 minutes, each round after that was 2.5 hours : Round 1 - Counter Attack Round 2 - Escape Round 3 - Breakthrough Round 4 - Encounter Round 5 - Dustup Prizes for the Flames of War included a full box set of the American starter force Combat Command.

Congratulations to Rob Murray with his US Armoured Rifle Company and US Tank Destroyer Company as the most successful list on the day.	Second place went to Andy Buchanan with his Hetzer and Armoured Panzergrenadier force with Duane providing the trophy here:

Second place went to Andy Buchanan with his Hetzer and Armoured Panzergrenadier force with Duane providing the trophy here:	Third Place went to Glenn Hudson with his US Armoured and US Tank Destroyer Force:

Best and Fairest (our highest regarded award) went to Matt Yakimoff based on player votes AND he also scored the highest votes for Best Painted Army for his German Panzer and Pangergrenadier army:

One innovation we tried was some sharing of tables between Team Yankee and Flames of War. Everyone enjoyed playing five different tables each round. We mostly avoided anachronistic scenery but one photo for the one game on an “out of period table” we thought was very fun:

Final Results

Player Name Army List Axis or Allied Formations Broken Points Robert Murray US TD + US Armored Rifles Allied 2 31 Andy Buchanan Hetzer Coy + Armoured Panzergrenadiers Axis 1 26 Glenn Hudson US Armoured  + US TD Allied 3 23 Matt Yakimoff German Panzer / German Panzergrenadier Axis 2 22 Victor Prygunov US Tank Company Allied 0 21 Scott Jackson US Rangers + US Armoured coy Allied 1 12 Fred Lavery German Panzer / German Grenadier Axis 0 12 Craig Buckley Soviet Forward Detachment Allied 1 11 Duane McAndrew Brit DD Sherman Squadron Allied 0 Played one round+Bye 9   Owen Heather  German Panzerkompanie Axis 0 Played one round+Bye 9

We had excellent support from our sponsors Dice of War, Warrior’s Lodge, Aetherworks and Battlefront, which saw every competitor walk away with something. We also were thrilled to have a raffle for other donated prizes where the net proceeds of $ 830 was donated to Soldier On charity to help returned servicemen and women in need of the Australian Defence Force. Here’s to hoping this is the start of a new era in Flames of War in Queensland. Below are some varied photos to show you the exciting range of miniatures and terrain on display for the weekend.