A Win too Far? ....
Storm Over Arnhem lived up to the member's voting confidence
when the vote-restored Century entry attracted17 hardy souls
to remain in that groiup on its own merits. A Tuesday evening
mulligan round was added which was well received and the effort
to both shorten the tournament length and be flexible with the
semi-final/final time also may have helped. With so much competition
for a gamer's time at the WBC, one must work to keep the older
games alive.
The swiss-elim format
of last year in which the four best records after three rounds
would advance to the semi-final round was used again, but with
some significant changes. This year one point was given for a
win and drawn games gave each player 1/2 point. In the event
of more than four players with equal totals, then strength of
schedule using AREA ratings would determine who would advance.
Also a winner of a mulligan round game could skip any one of
the three 4-hour qualifying rounds on Friday.
We had a very strong field with past champions Steve Koleszar,
David Wong (who happily was back from Kosovo) and John Ellsworth
in attendance as well as the 2000 reigning champion Ed Kraska.
Not to mention Phil Barcafer of BKN fame and Henry Jones and
Ron Fedin transferred west from the TPS front. The mulligan round
was uneventful except for the upset victory by Henry Jones against
Ed Kraska in a very long 6-hour (thank goodness no time limit
on that round) game which
earned both players the moniker of "speedy" for the
rest of the week. The heavy action commenced on Friday morning
with a full schedule of games. After the dust cleared late Friday
we had Ron Fedin vs Phil Barcafer, and Steve Koleszar vs Tom
Drueding in the semi-finals. Those two games were played on Saturday
with Phil and Tom emerging victorious to set the stage for the
final showdown which both players agreed to play on Sunday morning
at 9:00 AM.
This would be Tom's
third appearance in the finals and he was hungry to finally take
that last step to secure SOA wood. Tom is an aggressive player
and in keeping with that he bid -3 for the German side. He opened
by making a northeast attack and Phil fed in a whole platoon
in an effort to thwart the10th Recon artillery fire. Each of
the platoon elements was killed off, but that left the10th Recon
exposed and another British platoon shooting with the integrity
bonus eliminated the 10th Recon before it could get off a single
artillery shot. Then a shot by the British artillery hit for
10 cp's! Casualties were heavy on both sides with 11 German and
nine British units gone in the first turn. More intense fighting
followed during turns 2 and 3, with the Germans pushing hard
in areas 22 & 24, and the British rolling some hot dice.
There was some especially hard fighting in areas 6 and 16. By
the end of the third turn, the Bohltz Pz's were destroyed as
well as the other two SS artillery units. German artillery was
now almost nonexistent. Casualties stood at 21 German and 17
British units. The Germans had 8 vp's in hand. By turn 4, the
Germans had set up two large kill groups, but the British were
able to pull back and force the German to chance advancing again
into the path of those hot dice. This cost the Germans six more
units eliminated to a British loss of 1 unit. Turn 5 was somewhat
uneventful with the British dice cooling off and the Germans
picking up one vp to give them nine. However, turn 6 would prove
to be the back-breaker as the British hit on every roll and eliminated
13 German units to a loss of only five British units. VP's stood
at 11 for the Germans. Unit losses for the Germans was now at
43. Tom started turn 7 with few units remaining and after failing
to hit with an attack group, resigned the game. Congratulations
to Phil Barcafer, who having captured BKN wood last year, moves
to the streets of Arnhem and garners wood there too; and for
Tom Drueding, who finishes second for the third time, thus extending
his quest.
Some random thoughts: The British won 63% of the games played
even though there was a decided preference for the Germans. There
were only eight plus bids during the entire tournament. Interestingly,
Phil Barcafer made four of those. There were two rules questions
that arose during the tournament: (1) Regarding the hidden AT
gun rule and how it should interact with the occupation limits
rules; (2) The retreat priority rules which in some cases can
have armor units making a "forward," retreat. I plan
to clarify both of these at the 2002 convention with house rules
and will post these on ConSimWorld and here on the Storm Over
Arnhem Preview page prior to the convention.
Lastly, I want to recognize David Wong for his constant smile,
his ever friendly manner, his support of SOA (he brought t-shirts
emblazoned with an SOA logo for everyone) and his sportsmanship.
After winning his first game on Friday he had to withdraw because
of a prior commitment and he would not be returning. However,
he had a change in plans and did return for the third round on
Friday, which he also won. His 2-1 record, due to his strength
of schedule, qualified him to advance to the semi-final round,
but he refused to do so because he had withdrawn earlier. Having
won SOA previously, he would prefer not to deprive someone else
of the opportunity. Very few people would act in this manner.
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