I was able to attend the awesome 2023 Adepticon Doubles Primer event held at Adventure Games in Oshkosh on 03/04/23. The event was run by Chad Murry, our Wisconsin Wargaming Brigade resident tournament organizer guru. The event used missions from Adepticon events past and proved to be a nice difference from the rulebook missions we usually play. To my knowledge all the missions are written by Chicago Dice so all credit to them!

Six total teams attended allowing for everyone to play three games. Abe was kind enough to stand in for Evan and play his Adepticon list. It was the first time I had run the Blitzkrieg Germans in anger and I found out I had gotten what I wished for when I said I wanted a historical and fluffy list. I took a few photos, but mostly I was concentrating on playing the games as I was feeling a touch rusty. Good thing I had my trusty rules knowledgable Abe with me!

Game One was against Rob, playing his stunning French,and Josh, commanding his early war Soviets. We played a mission called Spearhead where we needed to get our forces into the enemy’s angled deployment zone to score victory points.

Between the players we decided to play the table as all rubble which was hard cover but able to be seen through, so not dense terrain. This was a bit hard to wrap my mind around as I always see tall ruins as line of sight blockers. Abe and I extended our forces out first and we were flanked and spanked by a French tank skillfully deployed in the ruins and a Soviet truck full of AT grenade wielding tough fighting Siberians. You’d think I would have been weary of the truck as I love my truck mounted Soviet SMG troops. The French and Soviet force pushed hard and played lots of Recce peek-a-boo with us. Turn 6 saw Abe and I desperately attempting to fight for a draw with my mortar team swinging their mortar tube at the Rob’s mounted HQ unit. Apparently the horses were too quick and predictably they wiffed there by securing a 3-0 win for the Frenchies and Reds.

Game Two was against Matt, using his trusty Hungarians, and his brother Jerrod, directing a German instructing contingent. We played a mission called Supply Drop. One objective would appear in the center of the table on turn four. Once the objective was placed players rolled 3D6+9” and a directional dice to place the remaining two objectives opposite of each other.

Early in the game Abe and I pushed our armored cars up our right flank to harry the big bad Hungarian Mace thrower. Abe’s 8 rad was knocked out by a panzerfaust up the tailpipe as we pushed infantry up both flanks. We were able to keep the German teaching cadre locked down in front of the church. My Panzerjager I spent several turns happily shelling them and keeping the pressure and pins mounting. A squad of Hungarian Cavalry was caught in the open near the factory and mowed down by accurate German rifle and machine gun fire. The Hungarians got vengeance and chewed the offending squad up when the Germans unwisely ran out of the building. Mortars blasted buildings on both sides. I couldn’t kill the German sniper team in the bell tower despite dropping mortar rounds in their lap several times. In the end two German squads, minus the machine gunners that were killed by said sniper team, were able to jump into the center garden and hold onto the objective. With both teams holding one of the secondary objectives each Abe and I were able to sneak off with a win two objectives to one.

Game Three was as close to a grudge match as possible at the event. Abe and I took on the Dynamic Duo Anthony and Drew, calling themselves the “Double A Team.” At this point we knew each others lists intimately and had chatted about them many times so there were no surprises. Anthony brought an armored platoon of two Panzer IIIEs, one Panzer I, one Panzer I command tank, a Panzer I Bison, and a bicycle mounted infantry squad. Drew brought the manpower with lots of Heer infantry, a medium mortar, an AT rifle team, and a half track.

We played a mission called Fuel Shortage. It made for interesting tactical decisions about how long you hold on to risky objectives for.

We decided to play the table a bit different from Game One. We decided to treat the ruins as dense terrain that provided a hard cover bonus to units within it. This meant that they would block line of sight. This changed the dynamic of the table quite a bit. Both sides moved up and claimed their three closest objectives. A punching match developed and broken men and material were scattered through the crumbling industrial complex. Anthony’s “Dakka Box” Panzer I and Bison raked my infantry and my armored car. Drew pushed hard on our left objective and was able to dislodged most of the defenders prompting us to blow the objective. The Panzer IIIs dueled from inside their rubble hides. Abe and I decided a late game Hail Mary outflank was required. Unfortunately for us Drew’s infantry and Anthony’s armor were able to repulse us despite the heroic efforts of our men. Anthony and Drew held the most objectives and our early detonation of the left objective meant they the Double A-team took the day.

In the end Abe and I pulled off one win and two losses. The teams were also secondarily scored on units lost. Losses would be considered in the event of a tie for a standing. Abe and I were sacrificing units left and right so it wasn’t a surprise we took sixth place… of six teams. But that didn’t matter much to Abe and I as we had a good time meeting new people and rolling dice. The Blitzkrieg Germans were clearly not optimized for efficiency and were light on anti tank assets. Hopefully Evan’s rookie luck will offset our lack of heavy equipment when we play at Adepticon.