Young Wins Battle Of The Mafia To Capture 5th Title!

This was the second year as a “B” class event with a demo. The demo drew 6 people with Tood Treadway and James Pope deciding to participate in Thursday’s event. Also joining us for the first time was Dillon Horton, son of Jay Horton. We also celebrated the return of Kevin Emery and long-time player Jim Vroom making his first appearance in a couple of years.

The continuing popularity of the Demo means that Up Front will return as a class B event next year.

Unfortunately, despite this our attendance this year dropped to 18, making it the smallest Up Front event yet. Most keenly felt were the absences of former champions Edward and William Kendrick. Ed is recovering from a Wound Result received as the result of an Overrun Attack by a Greek Automobile (and is doing quite well), and my understanding is that William got involved in a Scrum with the British Women’s Rugby Team, but I could be mistaken about that due to a “British to American” translation.

The morning rounds passed with no real surprises. Four people went into the afternoon at 2-0 and 8 more at 1-1. There were 4 people that dropped out, leaving us with 14.

With the withdrawals in the morning and early afternoon, it became apparent after round three that everyone with a 3-2 record (or better) was going to qualify for the Quarterfinal. Without the need to invoke the tie-breakers, everyone knew what they needed to do to advance. But knowing what you need to do, and being able to do it in that pool of players, are frequently two very different things.

After 4 rounds, former champion Richard Irving was a perfect 4-0, and due to having an odd number of people remaining for round 5, got the bye to go into the Quarterfinal as the #1 seed. Andrew Maly, Bruce Young, Jeremy Billones, and Ralph Gleaton were 3-1 and so had also already qualified.

Going into round 5, there were 4 people on the bubble with 2 wins – Jeff Spaner, John Emery, Kevin Emery, and Ray Stakenas. Kevin defeated Ray and Jeff defeated John.

Very surprisingly, defending champion John Emery was 2-0 in the morning, but went 0-3 against Andrew Maly, Ralph Gleaton, and Jeff Spaner to be eliminated.

This left us with 7 people at 3-2 or better to make the Quarterfinal, Richard, Andrew, Jeremy, Jeff, Bruce, Ralph, and Kevin. Since Richard received his bye in round 5, Andrew was granted the bye in the Quarterfinal.

In the three first-round games, Kevin’s attacking Germans defeated Richard’s defending Americans in scenario F, despite having the gun on his armored car malfunction. Jeff’s defending Germans had very little luck against Bruce’s attacking Russians in scenario E. Jeff did manage to get a Commander Killed result against Bruce’s halftrack but couldn’t overcome two streams, a malfunctioned machine gun, and an amazing-to-watch string of incredibly bad combat results. In the third game, Ralph’s Germans defeated Jeremy’s Russians in scenario B despite losing his machine gun in the process.

In one Semifinal, Bruce faced Kevin in scenario F, with Bruce having the attacking Germans and Kevin defending with the Russians. Early on it looked like Kevin was getting the better of Bruce, as Bruce needed to work his way through 3 streams and a marsh to advance. Kevin was also able to immobilize Bruce’s armored car with his anti-tank rifle. But the tide turned when Kevin’s machine gun malfunctioned and found multiple wire cards in his position. Bruce took advantage of the situation to move his forces forward to get the win.

In the other Semifinal, Ralph faced Andrew also in scenario F with Ralph as the German attacker and Andrew getting to defend with the Americans. Ralph found himself starting with his “fire” group in marsh, needing more than half of the first deck to work themselves free. Meanwhile, Andrew was advancing an assault team under heavy German fire, losing 2 men in the process. He did manage to get that group close enough for the bazooka to be within firing range of the German armored car. Fortunately for him, his first shot with the bazooka hit and killed it. But it wasn’t enough – the Germans were too resilient and Ralph was able to pull out the win.

This set up a Final between Bruce and Ralph. This was Bruce’s first Final since 2017, and Ralph’s first since 2011. The scenario selected was scenario C. Bruce was the Germans defending the Pillbox while Ralph was attacking with the Russians.

Bruce’s long-range firepower was the deciding factor, as he was able to keep the large Russian fire group pinned down. Bruce then got help from the Russians as the Russian Commissar killed three of his own men in his attempt to motivate them to get them up and moving again. Bruce was also able to do enough individual transfers to reorganize his squad from three groups to two with 7 men in the German fire group and only 1 man holding the pillbox. This created a sufficiently large fire group for the Germans such that the Russians ended up unable to put together a serious assault on the pillbox. Ralph tried valiantly to put a last minute charge together but just never seemed to get the right cards at the right time.

Congratulations to Bruce for earning his 5th Up Front title!