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Signing up for the Great War. |
Pail Sampson and Phil Yaure |
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Geoff Allbutt and Andrew Cummins from
the UK. |
Gareth Williams (Morocco) vs Taylor
Golding (Canada) |
Destiny in one Dice Roll ...
Another year, another POG tourney. This year we formally
had 28 players, one more than last year (and perhaps another
as I had one player play a round but did not have the card for
him). Apparently I contracted with the same people Homeland Security
uses for my sign-in minions. The game commenced with a plea by
the GM requesting if anyone has his game map (loaned to someone
last year) please return it. This did not happen, but I got one
for $2 at the auction so it worked out. Also the GM had to give
all a mea culpa for his failure to register the AREA ratings
from 2011 (since corrected, but at the wages BPA pays what can
you expect?). We who play in the POG tournament would
also like to thank the powers that be in the BPA for our tournament
room. Had we been in the dungeon, aka Lampeter, I am sure attendance
in the second and subsequent rounds would have dropped to zero.
The games went very smoothly this year, although, unlike prior
years, almost all of them went the distance. The highlight, as
always, was the roll-off where the five players with 2-1 records
rolled dice to see who got to advance to fill the last three
remaining playoff slots. For the first time, one of the roll-off
players won the tournament (although that should not have been
a surprise as that player was past champ and semi-famous Riku
Riekkinen. Riku had been sandbagged by John Sutcliffe in a first
round narrow victory by the Brit. And as Rick Byrens said in
his Richard III quote from Bosworth Field "if I could have
rolled higher Riku, I could have been in your place". Byrens
was one of the two disappointed 2-1s who tossed too low a number
to continue. Talk about your paper-thin margins in the longest
event of WBC!
The Final featured defending champion Peter Gurneau vs. Mr.
Second Chance himself, Riku. Peter won the bid at 0 for the CP.
Riku accepted. CP started hammering in the west. War status was
not played. French forts were evacuated. The CP kept pressure
in the west, and was able to double trench Amiens, single trench
Chateau Thierry and Melun. Paris was attacked multiple times,
with both sides wearing thin in the west. The Russians massed
and attacked Berlin four times before Berlin was successfully
entrenched by the CP. Riku was cursing the gods because he rolled
a "1" on the first five attacks v. Berlin. East, Near
East and Balkans were quiet as events on the Western front took
priority. Italy entered, and northern Italy was overrun by the
Austro-Hungarians. Italians held at Rome. Russian attacks weakened
the CP to the point where there were only three CP armies in
the West, and one German Army was eliminated by intense attacks
in the west. AP had only three armies between the French and
British in the west as well, and for a time, there was an Austrian
corp as far as Le Mans. AP held, and soon the Russian attacks
succeeded with the Austrians retreating from Galacia. The Russians
kept attacking, and forced a position where the CP would be out
of supply on Turn 10, both sides still at limited war. The CP
then conceded about three hours into the game and the Finns had
another scalp for their team ... all thanks to a single dice
roll.
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A couple BKN sharks prove to
be guppies in the POG pond. |
The finalists |
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paths of glory 
Peter Reese [7th Year]
NA 
(NA)