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Ted Drozd (left)
battles 12-time champ Steve Packwood. The only BPA black belt
holder, Packwood's titles are both a testament to his skill and
the nostalgic hold of the game on the membership's voters which
will need to rescue it again in 2011. |
So is Bob Hamel more
proud of being able to still wear that Avaloncon T-shirt or getting
the drop on Steve Packwood with his Gangsters squirt gun?
And is Packwood going to have apoplexy if his antique mapboard
gets wet? |
Packwood Denied Again ...
In 2010 there were only 11 entrants for 1776, down
nearly a third from 2009, with an even larger 40% decrease in
games played as the venerable moldy oldie slipped again from
the Century ranks. As usual, the game took the form of the first
nine turns of the Campaign Game, with players bidding to be the
British. Three players contracted for 16 Strategic Towns at the
end of the ninth turn with one actually making that bid. All
other games had the British player trying for 15, half of them
successfully.
In the Pat Mirk-Robert Frisby semi-final, Pat bid 15. In the
second quarter, Pat mostly abandoned the South and the South-Center
to concentrate on killing a big American army in New England.
He managed to destroy that army, but doing so left him out of
position to grab many Strategic Towns in the South during the
third (and last) quarter, so he failed to get his 15 towns.
The black-belted Steve Packwood with a record 12 titles to
his credit met the title-less (in 1776 anyway) Robert
Frisby in the Final. Robert was on strange turf, having changed
gears from Panzergruppe Guderian which he had won five
times and which failed to make the cut in 2010 to 1776.
Robert took the Americans vs a bid of 15. This time, the American
fleet in February blocked a British transport fleet in Norfork.
In March, the British landed Reinforcements A at Head of Elk
with a second transport while two British Battle Fleets hit the
American fleet. The yank fleet escaped and proceeded to blockade
Head of Elk. In April, the British finally destroyed the pesky
American fleet, but that meant that three of the four British
fleets were at head of Elk, well away from where they wanted
to be. The British May Reinforcements bateaued toward St. Johns.
The June Reinforcements came on at Phily and one Transport and
one Battle Fleet each took a load south.
In the north, the main American army kept within range of
Boston, keeping the British from venturing out. In July, Robert
put single CAs around Albany and in the path to Ft Stanwix. In
August Steve dropped a load on the Americans inside Ft Ticonderoga.
Robert responded by entrenching the units by Albany and Ft Sanwix,
and moving the main American army eight movement points from
Ticonderoga.
On the last turn, after the British and American Forced Marches,
Steve occupied 18 Strategic Towns, with Robert attacking six
of them. He needed to win four of the six battles; one at 2 to
1(-1), one at 1 to 2, and the rest at 3 to 2(-1). Robert did
win his four battles and with them his first 1776 championship
- marking the first time in 20 years that Steve Packwood had
been denied the title in back-to-back years.
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Patrick Mirk takes Boston against
Robert Frisby in semi-final action. |
Robert Frisby takes on the 12-time
champ in the Final and wins! |
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