Monthly Meeting - the AGM - Saturday 3 April 2004

after action report

This year's AGM was a well attended and successful event.  The annual team photo:

The annual curry buffet:

The minutes of the AGM.

The competitions:

WWII Microtank

Report from the winner's perspective:

1st Battle

The 1st battle was set in the Korean War and I was commanding 8 T-34 85s against Philip Ngo’s 4 T-26s and 4 M4A3E8s.  Ngo separated his tanks into 2 groups, T-26s coming from his right and Easy 8s coming from his left.  I deployed my tanks into 3 groups, 3 moving into the forest in the middle of the battlefield, 3 going right and 2 moving from my left.  After 3 turns, Ngo’s Easy 8s were in firing range of my middle and right flank; hence I concentrated my 6 T-34s’ firing power against those 4 Easy 8s.  My 2 T-34s on the left had bad luck and couldn’t move in the first 3 turns, so they received fire from 4 T-26s and were knocked out after 4 turns.  However, I killed all his 4 Easy 8s and so won my 1st battle.

2nd Battle

In the 2nd battle I used 3 King Tigers and 4 StuGIIIs separated into 2 groups to against James Cheung’s 8 T-34 85s.  My StuGs tried to move into the forest but were not successful and got stuck at the edge.  All of James’s tanks were coming from my right and tried to take the rear of my position.  When the first 4 T-34s deployed in the rear of my StuGs, it was my turn to move.  I placed 2 StuGs to make contact with both of his flanks.  Hence I killed those 4 T-34s in the coming 2 turns with only one StuG lost.  The King Tigers joined the last salvo to destroy the remaining T-34s.

Final Battle

Philip used 3 Panthers and 5 PzIVHs against my 8 T-34 85s.  I separated my tanks into 3 groups, 4 on the left trying to flank him; 2 in the middle forest and 2 on the right.  He sent only 2 PzIVs to my right which were killed by 4 T-34s.  Then he held all his remaining tanks on the edge of the forest in front of him.  My 4 T-34s on the left were trying to hurt his PzIVs at very long range, because I had the advantage at that range, but with little success.  On the contrary, 2 of my tanks were knocked out by his concentrated power of Panthers and PzIVs.  At the same time, my other 4 tanks moved to his flank where his PzIVs were exposed.  I fired in the flank of these PzIVs and so gained the field.

The final results: 

Congratulations to Cheung Kar Fai.

DBMM 100 Knockout

In all there were 10 players in the DBMM knockout competition using the below listed armies, which also shows the first round pairings which resulted from a random draw.

The Early Hungarians fell to the Lydians after a hard struggle but Peter and Nick were well matched.  The Sung Chinese triumphed over the Patrician Romans with the more experienced Herbert Wong gaining the victory.   The Normans beat the Qarakhanids although Andrzej who is quite new to the game did not have a lucky draw against the very experienced Lawrence Ho.   Neil Burnett with his newly acquired Later Carthaginians beat Eric Hall with his Later Sargonids again a closely matched pair and a touch fight ensued.   Finally Jeff Herbert’s Scythians beat Peter Hunt’s Arthurians.   Again a closely matched pair but Arthur proved less than brilliant and perished quite early from bow fire.

The second round saw:

The Sung Chinese again triumphed, this time over the Lydians during a hard fought game.   Nick doesn’t appear very often but he put on a good showing during the games.

Lawrence Ho played a very good game against Jeff Herbert who despite some ‘clever’ manoeuvres got himself caught hotfooted by the Norman knights.   Everything was going Lawrence’s way but Jeff dragged defeat from the jaws of victory by killing the Norman general.  Lawrence unfortunately threw a 1 on the next bound.

Three players left and the draw saw Neil with another bye.   Jeff and his Scythians faced up to Herbert and his Sung Chinese.   At first things went Jeff’s way, but any hope of victory soon slipped away as Herbert showed his mettle.  Both Generals met a gory end but it was Herbert who prevailed.

Herbert then met Neil in the final.  The game was played over a river crossing and around a village held by the Carthaginians.   The game ebbed and flowed with the Sung Chinese falling back beyond the river.  Neil who has quite a record for throwing ones surpassed himself with some excellent luck and eventually prevailed against the more seasoned Herbert.  Well done Neil who was justifiably heartened by his victory, Neil has only been playing DBM for just over a year or so.   Neil was also the only player to best Herbert’s flaming oxen, which was probably the element of the competition.    DBMM 100 provides for an excellent base for a competition.

Warmaster

This year’s Warmaster competition was a knock-out contest to let players have time to play in other competitions as well.  6 players joined in and each used 1,000 point armies as listed at below.  After the random draw the first round results were:

Alex Lam (Orcs & Goblins) vs. Philip Ngo (Chaos)
Christopher Chu (Empire) vs. James Cheung (Undead) 

Tom Tong (Lizardmen) & Lawrence Ho (Vampire) had byes in the first round.

Christopher Chu’s first battle was against James Cheung; due to their long time rivalry their knowledge of the other side's tactics was extraordinary.  When the battle begin, James started first and he planned to smash Chu ’s cannons with his Skull Chukka, it’s a pity that they all missed (he needed 4+ to destroy the cannon but rolled 1, 2 & 3).   Chu ’s Empire seized the chance to attack and occupy the most favourable position in the battlefield.

In turn 2, the Undead armies, much to Chu ’s surprise, were keen for battle, and their chariots rushed off to engage the enemy on the right flank, but the Pistoliers gave them a great blow while shooting, destroying two Undead Chariots, and succeeding in preventing this attack.  After much pushing and shoving, the Empire Knights destroyed three Undead chariot squadrons.

At the same time, on the left, the valiant Flagellants from Empire, having withstood so much, were finally destroyed at the threat of being entirely surrounded by Undead.  However, Chu had been very lucky to have one stand of Knights remaining after the Undead advance, and that allowed him to avoid losing enough units to break his Army.

James got a unit of cannon & crossbowmen later, he also decided to use his carrion caught the leak out unit but was unsuccessful.

At the start of turn 4, Chu decided to make a counter attack with Chaos Knights on his right.  They assaulted the Undead infantry around the hill.  In response, James tried to use the terrain advantage and plenty of support to repulse the fierce attack. Empire just destroyed a unit of archers.  However, while both armies had suffered many losses, no one held the upper hand and both were close to break point.

It was a most interesting battle and it was very close; at game’s end, Christopher won the battle with about 70 points.

In the other battle, Alex won and was promoted to the Quarter-finals, the schedule of Quarter- finals was as follows:

Alex Lam (Orcs & Goblins) vs. Lawrence Ho (Vampire)
Christopher Chu (Empire) vs. Tom Tong (Lizardmen)

Lawrence Ho’s Vampires eliminated Alex’s Orcs from advancing to the finals, and Chu’s Empire also advanced to the finals because the Lizardmen general Tom Tong abandoned the table following Chu’s shooting on turn 3.

The finals were held in an area close to the plain (just woodland in one corner); Lawrence had 4 units of Black Knights that seemed to have every advantage. Christopher deployed in a defensive position, concentrating his army on the baseline, hoping to draw back in order to give play to the strong shooting of his Empire troops at the distant enemy.

Lawrence moved his army forward carefully.  By turn 3, Chu found the situation far from his expectation, because his artillery fire had failed to offer much injury to the Vampire army, so he mobilized and assaulted with two units of Pistoliers on the flank.  It was a pity that the result was not significant, only two units of zombies were destroyed.  In response, Lawrence ’s Black Knights joined with his general to eliminate Chu ’s Pistoliers.

However Lawrence ’s general pursued and attacked the enemy and so came very close to Empire. Chu finding this a good opportunity to seize victory, immediately sent a unit of Knights in pursuit and succeed in killing Lawrence ’s general.   Lawrence lost by general slain while it was Chu who carried off this year’s Warmaster championship.

A round up of the results: 

Congratulations to Christopher Chu

Battle Cry

Following on from the success of last year's Battle Cry round-robin, 11 players met across the field of battle in a total of 19 engagements.  Some hard fought battles, many going down to the last die roll.  Frank got off to a good start early on with 3 consecutive wins but was overtaken by Eric following their tense face off.  Eric's final total was 5 wins in a row with no losses.  Frank ended with 3 wins and Lawrence Hung, Peter Hunt, Chris Lam, and Tony Matthews shared third place with 2 wins each.

Best Painted Miniatures

Not many entrants this year, however all were to an extremely  high standard.  A difficult decision for the judge, with the prize for the best painted historical item going to Herbert Wong (winner of last year's prize) for his expertly painted 7 Years War Prussians and the fantasy prize going to Wayne Knowles for his fine conversion.  Special mention must also be made of Herbert Wong's beautifully painted High Elves fantasy army.

Warhammer 40K

No competition was held at the AGM as the boys were all busy practising for the marathon Games Workshop gathering the following Easter weekend.  So just a few photos of what was fielded on the day.

Annual Auction

Lots of goodies were for sale: books, wargame magazines, vcd's, unpainted metal, painted armies and board games.   These attracted healthy interest and some competitive bidding although not all items met their reserve prices.

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