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Scott Pfeiffer. Rob Beyma and
Scott Moll (left to right) in Round 1 action. |
Dave Gantt, Scott Moll, and
Ralph Gleaton (left to right) in Semi-Final play. |
Lane Hess, Ed Rothenheber and
Dave Gantt (left to right) fight it out in Round 1. |
a pox on multi-player ...
Full campaign games were the norm in every round with a six-hour
time limit on the first round, which I'm glad to say wasn't needed
as all games finished on the victory roll within the time limit.
I hate adjudicating Nappy games and so far I've only had to do
it once in four years. The field remains relatively small but
extremely qualified. A spectator for the first round made the
comment that he thought hje had happened on the shark tank at
the National Acquarium. Lots of CDW talent on display. A question
that comes up every year is the format. Although called the 2
p-player Napoleonic Wars event we will use 3-player games
as required to complete the tournament within three rounds. The
Napoleonic 5-player game also plays 4-player games if necessary
but neither event overlaps the other in the number of players
per game. Most importantly, the two-player and three-player games
share the important characteristic of being less prone to player
diplomacy since camp flip flops do not occur as is the case in
the 5-player version.
 16 players began
the contest Tuesday evening many returning from previous years
plus a number of new faces. The standard of play was universally
high with everyone reporting hard fought campaigns and nail biting
finishes. A strong contingent from the Greenville Mafia was here
to get a little practice at their favorite game and promote the
Napoleonic Wars Waterloo event they will host in Greenville this
month. Good players all, we split them up for the first round
to avoid it seeming too much like a regular gaming session for
our friends from the south. Fat lot of good it did. The later
rounds looked like a Mafia meeting.
The first round broke down into four 3-player games and two
2-player games. Assuming I had done the math correctly that would
give us two 3-player semi-finals and a 2-player Final and be
complete in three rounds as per the program. The honors in the
first round were pretty evenly split with every side winning
a least one of the games. Every match was hotly contested and
included several with French invasions of Russia. In my playing
circle Russian Winter rolls are uncommon and here we had two
games with 1812 style campaigns - way cool. This is the best
reason to play at WBC ... to see other styles of play and get
away from your regular protagonists' stratagems.
After the caissons had trundled off, we were left with six
players and a heavy dose of "You alls" - four players
of the six hailing from the gaming capitol of the south. So Wednesday
morning the six set up camp at two tables and the fate of Europe
was determined. all over again. The first game to finish was
won by past champion Scott Moll showing the Greenville boys that
his past victories were no fluke. The other contest was longer
with Bruce Young prevailing as the French despite the best efforts
of John Emery and Ken Gutermuth who harried Bruce with all manor
of ploys but he hung on and finally rolled a victory. So the
Final was to be 2004 Champion Scott Moll and Greenville hopeful
Bruce Young who had previously not taken any NW2 laurels.
The Final showed the other extreme of Nappy with Bruce playing
the French. Bruce was apparently using the draw good cards strategy
and with a hand of card stealers proceeded to beat on Scott.
The end of 1805 gave the dice roll to Bruce and he needed a 6
to win. Scott I'm sure was considering the very many ways he
would be able to stag a comeback on Turn 2 if only Bruce didn't
get that 6. However Bruce had a secret weapon. His strategy was
to draw good cards AND roll good dice - so a "6" and
the Napoleonic Wars 2-player crown for 2006 had been decided
quickly, if not painlessly. Better luck next year Scott.
Thanks to all you who played, a great bunch of Nappy players
with whom I look forward to crossing swords again next year.
 2005 PBeM Tournament
After 34 games and
64 players, the ACTS tourney of 3-player Nappy is now complete.
In the last game the France of Steve Pleva continued her sweep
of all the semifinal games into the Final by beating the Coalition
(Pete Reese as Britain and Tasos Tsoufis as Austria/Russia. The
final score after Turn 4 was: France +6 = Dublin + Lisbon + Naples
+ Salzburg + Venice + SPAIN + TURKEY - Budapest; Britain -2 =
SWEDEN - Dublin - Lisbon - Naples; Austria/Russia 0 = +KEY +
Budapest - Salzburg - Venice".
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Roy Gibson [2nd Year]
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