In this round, the British won two substantial and five marginal victories. The only American victory was marginal when Dave Stiffler defeated David Gates. With a sample size of ninety-one tournament games, the British win this scenario 60% of the time while Americans win 37%. This year it would seem the King’s forces upended the statistical averages. Given the odd number of players, we saw our first bye of the tournament. In descending order of past champions present, the bye was refused first by Father Todd and then by Dave Stiffler. Mark Miklos accepted it.

Round 2 was the Next Day Scenario at Saratoga featuring American ammunition depletion. Fifteen players came to play, and so this time Father Todd accepted the bye. In the contests that followed, three British players, Bruce Cota, Bruno Sinigaglio, and Curtiss Fyock each won substantially. The other four matches were adjudicated and resulted in draws. In all but one of those adjudications, the draw results did not affect the overall tournament rankings up to that point. The only person whose ranking was impacted was AGM Don Hanle who fell from 8th to 11th place after the Heat was tabulated. Notwithstanding the impact on his own ranking, Don voted along with the GM and the other AGM in favor of the adjudication. This was a selfless act and one worthy of a true gentleman.

Round 3 was the Short Campaign Scenario from Brandywine Creek. Eleven players answered the call, and Dave Stiffler accepted his bye. Once again, British players dominated with three substantial and one marginal victory while only Duncan McGill’s Americans managed a marginal victory against Chris Mlynarczyk. The British win this scenario 75% of the time and so their 80% pace this year was just north of par.

Round 4 was the Eutaw Springs Historical Scenario. Seventeen players showed up, and Bruno Sinigaglio accepted the bye. While the campaign game of Eutaw Springs is superbly balanced, the historical scenario is a bit less so with the British having a historical 2:1 advantage in victories while 17% of the matches end in a draw. This year we saw three draws but only one British victory in which GMT’s own Andy Lewis defeated Jim Tracy marginally. The remaining four games were all American substantial victories, turning the cat in the pan.

Round 5 was Germantown. A bit of player fatigue had settled in by Thursday morning as only six stalwart individuals came to play. The scenario proved to be balanced as Don Hanle and Tim Miller fought to a draw while Mark Miklos’ Americans defeated David Gates marginally and Father Todd’s British defeated Curtiss Fyock substantially. For comparison, the historical data over fifty-eight tournament games of Germantown has the Americans winning 52% of the time and the British 38% of the time. Ten percent of the time Germantown ends in a draw.

Fans of the BoAR series, and of Germantown in particular, will know that in this game there is the chance that, under certain circumstances, an American friendly fire incident may occur and if it does, it may lead to a spreading panic in the American army that often has dire consequences for the American player. In the three games played in this Heat, the brigade commanded by General Adam Stephen, part of Nathaniel Greene’s column of reinforcements, did not trigger panic. In fact, in only the Hanle-Miller match was a friendly fire check even taken and it did not result in panic. In the other two games, General Stephen’s wanderings were harmless and away from the American front line.

Round 6 saw a bit of a rebound in player-participation with ten players eager to play the final Heat in the tournament, Lee’s Advance at Monmouth Courthouse. British players were unsuccessful this year despite a historical average in this scenario of victory 35% of the time. Instead, two Americans won marginally while three matches ended in draws.

Quarterfinal

After six Rounds, the top-eight players advancing to the Single Elimination Quarterfinal were Father Todd with twelve tournament points, Mark Miklos with nine tournament points and eighty six army morale points, Bruce Cota with nine tournament points and sixty six army morale points, Don Hanle with eight tournament points and ninety army morale points, Dave Stiffler with eight tournament points and seventy army morale points, Duncan McGill with eight tournament points and sixty two army morale points, Jim Tracy with six tournament points and eighty one army morale points and Bruno Sinigaglio with six tournament points and twenty nine army morale points. As you can see, except for Father Todd running away with the ranking in first place, all other qualifiers were close. Only three tournament points separated them and where those were tied, cumulative army morale points served as the tie breaker.

Regrettably, neither Duncan nor Bruno could continue in the Quarterfinal round due to other commitments. It became necessary to pull two alternates up to fill-in. The first of these was Tim Miller, who with five tournament points was the number nine seed and the first alternate. Tim willingly stepped up. After that it was a bit more challenging because the players who placed tenth through twentieth had either already left WBC by Friday, had other obligations at the Con, or were players who only joined us for a single Heat with no intentions to play on. Thankfully, Marty Musella, the twenty-first seed was available and willing to play. You will soon read about the irony in this decision.

And so, our final pairings for Howe’s Grand Assault at White Plains in the Quarterfinal were Father Todd vs. Marty Musella, Mark Miklos vs. Tim Miller, Bruce Cota vs. Jim Tracy, and Don Hanle vs. Dave Stiffler.

Regrettably, two players were found to be in violation of Ruse de Guerre protocol during play. To their credit, each of them voluntarily came forth to point it out. In the Miklos-Miller match, Tim Miller honorably revealed that while his die roll required him to identify five Ruse de Guerre hexes, he had only identified four. One hex number was written down twice on the Ruse de Guerre template and thus a fifth hex was never specified.

In the Cota-Tracy match, Bruce Cota honorably admitted that when Jim’s British had crossed over three breastwork hexsides and paid the +1-movement point cost to do so, he had failed to call them out as Ruse de Guerre hexes. Doing so would have revealed those hexes as clear terrain, facilitating Jim’s movement across them and enabling those British units to move farther in the turn. Bruce, like Tim at the other table, forfeited their matches and while disappointed, neither complained since the rule was not only reviewed but also emphasized during the pregame review. Thus, Mark and Jim moved on to the Semifinal and awaited the results in the other two Quarterfinal matches.

Eight hours were allowed for this scenario. The Todd-Musella match went approximately seven and a half hours, ending in an upset marginal win by Marty Musella’s Americans over top-seeded Father Todd. At the other table, the final combat dice were rolling as time was called. Here, Dave Stiffler’s British won marginally thanks to effective artillery fire and an unsuccessful American close combat in the final half turn of the game. Until then, Don’s Americans were holding on to a narrow victory.

Semifinal

The Semifinal was now set with Dave Stiffler taking on Marty Musella and Mark Miklos vying against Jim Tracy. Having just played for eight hours, Dave and Marty now faced a three-hour round with less than a one-hour break in between while Mark and Jim were slightly more refreshed given that their Quarterfinal matches ended early.

The war against the Iroquois in western New York was the setting for the historical scenario from the Battle of Newtown. In the recently released Tri-Pack II, the Indian player has a new Player Aid Card that organizes all the special Indian capabilities on an easy-to-use matrix. No longer does the player need to commit these to memory or hunt for them in the rule book. It makes playing the asymmetrical Indian player easier then before.

In the matchups Dave won an Indian marginal victory over Marty, while Mark Miklos won the only decisive victory in this year’s tournament with an Indian victory over Jim Tracy. In thirty-seven tournament games of the Newtown campaign game there have been nineteen American and eighteen Indian victories. In the historical scenario, which has been played seven times in tournaments to date, the Indian players have won all seven times marginally. This year’s results tracked according to the statistical norm.

Remember me saying in above that Marty’s elevation from alternate to Quarterfinalist would prove to be ironic? Marty’s victory against Father Todd in the quarterfinal and his marginal loss in the Semifinal was good enough to earn him a third-place finish in this year’s BoAR tournament, along with a WBC plaque, a GMT merchandise coupon, and his choice from the extra prizes provided by the GM for this year’s tournament. Congratulations Marty!

Final

With pun intended, the die was now cast for Dave Stiffler to meet Mark Miklos in this year’s Final at the Battle of Pensacola. It would not be the first time these two past champions would face one another in a BoAR final, in the past.

Each finalist preferred to play the Spanish and so a secret bid of Army Morale was conducted. Dave bid two while Mark bid three and with that, the Army Morale Track was lowered three points for the Spanish and the players settled in for their match. The game opened with British fire from the Red Cliff’s Fort failing to hit any of the Spanish fleet as it rounded the headland into Pensacola Bay. Spanish army morale was immediately increased by one.

Dave’s British played a masterful delaying game in which he took advantage of four consecutive turns of harsh weather (storms on turns 5 & 6 and rain on turns 7 & 8.) This, coupled with the threat of an Indian raid in the Spanish rear and a strong sortie from the British forts, served to harass, intimidate, and delay the Spanish approach and the construction of the vital Corduroy road that is necessary to supply Spanish siege artillery.

The British raiders eventually struck at Spanish stockade #2 on the beach at Sutton’s Lagoon. All of Spain’s quality units were forward while only a handful of militia and mediocre Regular troops were stationed to guard the stockade. Among these, the Spanish-Allied Choctaw Indians who sport a minus two unit morale. On the upside, the Choctaw were the only unit classed as light infantry that Spain had left in the rear and as such, the only unit that could exert a zone of control into the Palmetto scrub which is the dominant terrain on the Pensacola battlefield. British raiding Indians on the other hand, while also classed as light infantry, have superior morale and were supported by their war chief Franchimastabe. These raiders were bolstered by the crack, rifle-armed King’s Florida Rangers, and a company of British Light infantry as well.

The raiders struck at the Spanish Choctaw, eliminating them and with them, any ability of Spanish units in the rear to pin down or surround the raiders. This action occurred a mere four hundred years from the stockade. The Spanish responded by forming a cordon around it.

Dave considered a renewed attack on his next turn but as his men were no longer “raiders” and had now lost the element of surprise, together with the extra DRM in combat, he pulled them back. These units never again threatened the stockade which came within a hair’s breadth of being captured and burned. Nevertheless, the former raiding party stayed on the board and hovered just out of reach across the north edge of the map representing a perpetual threat that the Spanish could not ignore for the rest of the game.

Red Cliffs Fort fire was more effective when the turn-seven Spanish reinforcements entered the game. A hit was scored against the 4-SP Spanish brigade artillery, reducing it to 2-SP and delaying its arrival for three game turns. Army Morale and VP adjustments were made and played continued. Afterward, the gunners at Red Cliffs Fort successfully passed a morale check that enabled them to leave the inset map. They eventually entered play as a reinforcing unit for the British on the main map.

The tempo of the game changed when the Spanish were able to encircle the British sortie at the edge of the Palmetto grove in hex 3023. By his own admission Dave had overlooked that the Spanish forces gathering there contained two light units, the Spanish Light Infantry, and the rifle-armed Luisiana [sic] Rangers. In the ensuing combat, the British lost their Howitzer, the British Marines, and another infantry unit, all for failure to retreat. Those VPs and the harvest of Spanish army morale points gave Dave pause, but he passed his personal morale check and played on. Notwithstanding its eventual outcome, Dave’s sortie was tactically sound because it contained the Howitzer which was taking two shots of harassing fire per turn at my Spanish units, once during “Offensive Howitzer Fire,” and again during “Defensive Artillery Fire.”

I also made an oversight by carelessly neglecting to gather a Momentum Chit due to me for the capture of the Marines with their plus-two unit morale. I noticed it two or three turns later and mentioned it to Dave. C’est la guerre. Indeed, neither of us had any Momentum chits during the entire game, which is certainly rare in BoAR play.

Once the sortie was cleared the Spanish were able to drive upon Queen Anne’s Redoubt, the northern-most of the three British forts. Following a methodical approach the Spanish declared Coup de Main. When Coup de Main is declared, the game, along with the prevailing weather which was clear at that time, transfers from the strategic game turn track to the tactical game turn track. This is a required step before the Spanish can attack the British works. By declaring Coup de Main prior to turn sixteen I was able to harvest three more Random Event cards as a bonus for declaring an early assault while denying any more cards to the British. As it turns out, however, card play had minimal impact on the game. Dave had no cards he could play while I played only a couple.

It should be noted that none of my siege artillery scored any hits during bombardment and thus none of the British works were breached when Coup de Main was declared. This caused an immediate drop of Spanish army morale by two points. I wanted to reconsider, but as I had moved the turn track and weather markers from the strategic track to the Coup de Main track, Dave’s position was that I could not rescind my decision. This opinion was supported by Don Hanle who, as the designer of Pensacola and a tournament AGM, was serving as the GM for the Final.

Once Coup de Main was underway a Spanish mortar shot was successful in causing a breach to one of the earthworks flanking Queen Anne’s and with that the redoubt fell to an overwhelming Spanish attack. Capturing all three British works is the key to decisive victory for Spain so it was now one down, two to go.

Coincidental to the attack on Queen Anne’s, and ever wary of those lurking former raiders who were always around my flank waiting for an opportunity to pick off a straggler or take advantage of an opening, I decided to occupy and burn the Indian village. This necessitated an immediate morale check for each Indian unit on the map. If they failed it, they would desert the British and leave the game. Despite the exertions and incantations of Franchimastabe, two Indian units abandoned their British allies. While not eliminating the threat, this outcome made the Spanish feel more relaxed about the magnitude of a potential Indian attack.

My next target was the Prince of Wales Redoubt where another fortunate mortar shot caused a breach. The British lines were constricting into an ever narrower front as they withdrew south along Gage Hill. This line now provided direct support of the Prince of Wales Redoubt on its eastern flank. My attack would have to be made carefully to avoid British direct artillery fire where possible, as well as fire from the 10-SP artillery unit in Fort George. It was hard-fought, but in the end the Spanish prevailed and a second objective was taken, and with it another VP and another army morale penalty for the British.

Coincidental with these attacks in the north, late arriving Spanish reinforcements, now free from the obligation to defend their stockade, successfully captured the British well adjacent to Fort George after storming the earthworks there. Loss of the well lowered British morale. Meanwhile, the Luisiana [sic] Dragoons made a dash for the Governor’s Plantation and burned it, dropping British morale yet again. By this point in the game, Spanish morale was high while British morale was solidly in the Fatigued zone and dropping.

The final act in the game was an encirclement of British forces just outside of Fort George. The fort itself was at maximum stacking and these British units, while providing a forward defense of the fort, had no room to maneuver. The resultant attack caused the loss of the British Loyalists, and their Loyalist leader and British Army Morale fell to six, one point above Wavering. With no room to maneuver, with their army commander also out of the game, and with another three and a half game turns remaining, Dave assessed the situation, offered me his hand, and conceded the game. It was an honorable surrender.

Dave mounted one of the best British defenses of Pensacola that I can remember seeing. During the mid-game he had me feeling as if I would never gain any traction. Congratulations to Dave Stiffler for a well-played tournament, a competitive Final, and a well-deserved second place finish.

Tournament Recap

As always, I am grateful to everyone who helped make this year’s tournament a success. Dave Stiffler and Don Hanle did journeymen’s duty as my AGMs. Don subbed in on short notice when Rob McCracken ended up not coming to WBC due to family obligations. Thanks also to the new players who joined us for the Demo and then came to play. Among them, David Gates played in three Rounds and earned a prize for being the new player who scored the highest in the tournament. Dave selected his prize from among those provided by the GM.

I invite all friends of the Battles of the American Revolution series to put a placeholder down for 2026, the 250th anniversary of American Independence. We will have special offerings at all next year’s tournaments to mark the occasion. At WBC we will have our own, dedicated room where we will be able to decorate, play music, listen to a lecture, play a team Rev War game for fun, enjoy celebratory refreshments, and have special giveaways and prizes. Mark your calendars today!

And a most-fitting final thanks to Ken Gutermuth at BPA/WBC for enabling us to celebrate in these special ways next year.