This was the year that the other shoe dropped in the Breakout Normandy Tournament. The L2 version of the game has been available for a couple of years but the shark pool that is the player tournament group have previously by and large stuck to the tried and tested Avalon Hill rules set. It might have been helped by the substantially larger turnout this year (up to 26 players thanks to a demo and B rating) but L2 was the variant of choice, not by a small margin, but convincingly so (nine AH to 17 L2 games). Having crossed this rules set Rubicon, with no one objecting to playing L2, next years event will be purely L2. Of course a player with the AH set can still use it with L2 rules so this shouldn't dissuade anyone from playing - and the L2 game is every bit as exciting and tense as the original version as we've seen in this tournament.

The bidding this year fell back from the peaks of previous events with most people opting to play out of the box - 0 in the L2, 35 in AH. The exceptions being attempts to force Allied or German technicians out of their comfort zones. Ignoring the Mulligan round which had a lot of training games, the overall split of results was 11 German wins to six Allied. Perhaps even in the L2 game the Allies need some bidding love to achieve their fair share of results.

No Breakout event would be complete without a discussion of the curious events that took place on the route to victory (or defeat). Games with no weather changes as against multiple weather changes each day. The three-impulse 8th which often seals an Allied player's fate versus the ten-impulse 8th which allowed me to overcome my four-impulse 7th against Steve Koleszar. Cold dice doomed my further progress against Marvin in the second round while sealing his fate against Don Greenwood in the third. While we all rail against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune the dice throw at us, it is this variability that keeps us coming back to the game for the strange situations and challenges that inevitably arise.

The field of players this year was strong, with seven former WBC champions in contention. Mike Kaye's route to the top was not easy, facing defending champion Kevin Hammond in a nail-biting semifinal where he needed a +3 roll as the Allies (with advantage) to clear Caen in the closing impulses of the game. Recognising that this was going to be his best shot for the game, he characteristically went for it and secured his place in the Final with a fortuitous roll.

In the L2 Final, the bidding reached 30 for the Allies, demonstrating Nels Thompson's reluctance to face Mike Kaye's Allies. An early decision point came with Nels rerolling an attack to clear Bretteville on the 6th rather than hold it against the potential loss of the magic bridge. This, combined with a decision to fight for St Mere rather than reallocating into Omaha put the Allies on the backfoot. Stir in weather changes on the first three days with unrelenting German counterattacks into Isigny and you have a real bare-knuckle game. Caen was the key with Nels initally successfully enveloping the strongly held city, taking Troan, Bourguebus, Verson and Evercy. But Mike struck back, reclaiming Verson and reestablishing access that guaranteed the city would not fall. This gave the veteran contender his first BKN title after decades in the trenches while denying Nels an unprecedented fifth BKN championship.

Kevin Wojtaszczyk and Michael Kaye anticipate a good dice roll.	Bob Basa faces two-time champ Jim Eliason in the opening round.

 Play By Email 2014

Andrew Cummins, relieved of his GM hat and responsibiliies during the email wars, has won the 8th BPA PBeM tournament over a field of 30 in 29 hotly contested games. In doing so, he has become only the second player to win the BKN triple crown with titles at WBC, the PBeM crown and the now defunct D-Day mini-con.

The Final took on a decidedly international and historical flavor with UK's Andrew commanding the Allies against German Peter Brunken's Wehrmacht. Despite nearly losing Juno Beach on D-Day, Andrew was able to clear Omaha and contest St Mere Eglise on the 6th. This led to the fall of Carentan on the 8th, usually a fatal blow to German hopes. Andrew finished them off by isolating Foret on the 10th—all but ensuring his last required VP.

In contrast to the most recent WBC, this event—which started in 2012—used the original AH version as the default, leaving use of the L2 version to those who mutually opted for its use. The other laurelists were the 2013 WBC champ, Mike Kaye, in third followed by veterans Scott Fenn, Henry Jones and defending champ Mark Gutfreund.