FoWSA 2012

My, my, my... How time flies! It has been quite a few months since my last post here. Actually, it has been a long time since I last did any miniature wargaming at all.

This long hiatus has been due to my new employment situation. I have recently moved from the ranks of the unemployed to the ranks of the gainfully employed. Hooray!

It has been a struggle for to make the transition from being unemployed to routine shift work. Forty-five hours per week are no longer mine as well as another 1.5 hours or more each day in fighting traffic. Nevertheless, I fully intend to keep up with my gaming and social life as they are an important part of my overall health and happiness. I plan to squeeze in as much gaming time as can be done reasonably. Hey, a man has to have hobbies right? I've found that a balance between work time and fun time is much more sustainable than living life solely for a career. Balance can be achieved! I will just have to be more disciplined with my schedule.

So, despite my limited time, I was able to participate in the FoWSA 2012, the annual Flames of War tournament hosted by Biff Coon. It was held back in September and this was my first Flames of War tournament. I had to borrow an army from Mark Reed. He was kind enough to let me use his excellent Soviet Morskaya Pekhota Batalon. This is essentially a battalion of highly trained Naval Infantry. Yes, you read that correctly, "Naval" Infantry. During the late years of the war, Russian sailors would be dual-trained in infantry combat. There were many situations in which a vital port or naval base would be attacked from land-based combat units. It was up to the Soviet navy to provide their own defenses as the Soviet army was otherwise tasked. The troops were Confident-Trained and they usually wore black fatigues over the striped undershirt. Later, as the troops gained experience and became more soldiers than sailors, they adopted standard Soviet army green fatigues.

It has been awhile since the tournament took place so rather than try to recap the events of the day, I'll just provide some nice photos I took at the event. I have posted an album on Picasa with more photos. For more info about the event, please see the website http://fowsa.blogspot.com.