A pair of former champs trying to recapture old glory on get-away day relive their recent Up Front disappointments as Bill Edwards (left) and John Emery fail to advance.	The voice of Slapshot, Reverend Hunsinger, schools the youngest sailor in the field as Kevin Emery takes advantage of his Up Front lineage.

The usual Attack Sub suspects (I mean skippers) arrived for the traditional end-of-con event, as well as a few new players. Each year the event gains a few new faces, a testament to the longevity of this out-of-print title. The Swiss-elim format continued unchanged this year, with three rounds of Swiss play advancing eight to single elimination. 

In Round 1 the less-favored Argentines dominated in scenario D (Falklands), winning twelve games to the Brit's four. It appears people have been practicing using the diesel subs to best advantage, the favored side in that scenario may need to be reassigned. In Round 2 the Soviets again had a minor upset over the favored Americans in scenario B (Search and Destroy), winning nine to eight. And once again only Round 3 had the favored side as the victor, with the Brits winning nine matches of scenario A (Sub Duel) to the Soviet's four. This last scenario continues to be the key tiebreaker for advancing to single elimination.

Four 3-0 players advanced automatically to the single elim round, tie-breakers were used to advance four of 11 2-1 players (three players advanced with the A tiebreaker, and strength-of-schedule was used to advance one player with a B tiebreaker - who went on to win the event).  Newcomers Geoff Allbutt and Alex Gesing both went unbeaten in the preliminaries, a great start to their first Attack Sub tourney.

Players had free choice of six scenarios in single elimination, but only three were played. Scenario A (Sub Duel) was played twice, both Brit wins (continuing their dominance from the prelim rounds); scenario D (Falklands) was played once, another Argentine win; and scenario E (Rebel Without a Cause) was played four times, all four games being won by the Soviet surface fleet sinking the renegade Typhoon.

Former two-time champion Dan Hoffman defeated both Geoff Allbutt and Chris Janiec using his favorite scenario (E) to advance to the Final, while long-lost former laurelist Kaarin Engelmann (who said she normally sleeps in through Attack Sub on Sunday but roused herself this year) defeated Andrew Cummings and Alex Gesing to earn a match against Dan. 

Dan again selected E (Rebel) as the scenario and Kaarin picked the Soviet surface force, even though she admitted she barely remembered the special rules for surface ships and helicopters. The Renegade got off to a bad start breaking it's sensor with it's first two sonar attempts, but quickly came back to detect the Simferopol, fire, get a hit, but then only damage it. The surface force had its own detection problems and only gained a minimum No Attack contact on the Renegade by the beginning of the second deck. The Renegade attempted to launch missiles but failed, while the surface force with a hand full of Close/Open Range cards steadily closed the distance, first to second No Attack, then contact 1, fired and missed, then contact 2, fired again for a hit, but only damaged the Renegade.  The Renegade used Damage Control to repair itself, just in time as the surface force fired again but missed. The Renegade then took a shot but also missed. The surface force fired again, missed, then fired again for a hit ­ and the Renegade was sunk. 

Congratulations to Kaarin Engelmann, the first female Attack Sub champion in 18 years.

Defending champion Dave Sidelinger (left) finds fate not as kind this year versus David Buchholz, failing to advance to the Single Elimination portion.	Two-time champ Dan Hoffman fails in his quest to become the first third-time winner in the Final versus Kaarin Engelmann as GM Rob Mull watches in his farewell GM role.