Another Challenger Heard From
Fortress Europa played the invasion scenario for the
tournament. 15 players played 22 games during the Grognard
Pre-con and the regular free form time. While bidding was
available, most pre-single elimination games did not use bidding.
During the entire set of games, Germans invaded eight times
in the 19th Army District, eight times in the 7th Army District,
three times in the Netherlands, twice in the 1st, and once in
the15th. The 7th is the historical area and has been a
popular choice every year. Southern France and the 19th
had a large increase in invasions over last year. The Germans
still held the decisive edge in winning 15 of the 22 games. Each
District leaned significantly to the Germans, except the 7th,
which split its games four per side.
During the free form action, several games came down to last
rolls. Dick Jarvinen invaded the 1st District against Alan
Hayes. Reaching the July III turn, Dick had two attacks
at 1-1 odds to gain the last needed city, but failed on both.
Melvin Casselberry lost a paradrop opportunity when the
weather went overcast on the last turn and, with it, a small
chance at gaining a victory versus Jim Eliason. Robert
Frisby fought into Bordeaux and Asterdam on his last turn to
claim a rare 19th District Allied victory versus Doug Porterfield.
At the end of free form play, Bradford Frisby earned the top
seed for the single elimination portion.
In one semi-final, Jim Eliason played Robert Frisby. Robert
bid one air unit to play the Germans and Jim accepted. Jim
invaded the 7th Army District and was able to capture Brest with
a 5-1 on the second turn but got the storm on Turn 3, the earliest
possible. Turn 4, facing a strong line, Jim made a paradrop
behind the line and several TAC on ground support and a carpet
bombing attack wiped out two strong surrounded stacks and took
Nantes. A lucky 3-1 DE took St. Nazaire the following turn.
Turn 6 was overcast and saw inconclusive fighting for Rennes.
On Turn 7 a 5-1 on Lorient succeeded and a 4-1 on St. Malo
failed. Jim held Rennes with three 8-4s and, as this was impregnable,
Jim held the necessary cities to win.
In the other semi-final, Bradford Frisby bid two air unit
reductions to play the Germans and Chris Godfrey accepted. Chris
invaded in the 19th District (southern France) near Cannes. Moving
west, Chris took Marseilles. In early July, Chris took
Bordeaux with his second paratrooper drop. Having stymied
the Allied advance in southern France, Bradford was able to rally
troops to regain Bordeaux and protect Toulouse. So the
Allieds could not secure victory and Bradford won the game.
In the Final, Jim accepted the Allies and Bradford Frisby's
bid of one (less 1one air unit in July) for the Germans. Jim
invaded the 19th District between Montpellier and Perpignan.
Jim lost several divisions and his only onboard HQ to German
counterattacks. But the weather held and Jim was able to take
Marseilles during July I. On July II Jim dropped three paratroop
divisions adjacent to a vacant Nantes, (though two of them rolled
a 6 and flipped on the drop) and captured the city. Jim also
had a couple of divisions only two hexes from Toulouse and captured
Toulon, Nice, and Cannes. Bradford succeeded with a 2-1 attack
and pushed Jim back from Toulouse, basically ruling out a Marseilles/Toulouse
win. Even so, going into the last turn Jim had a better than
50% chance to win. A paradrop on Genoa had a decent chance to
capture the city, allowing Jim to win by capturing all the cities
in the 19th. But both regiments died on the drop (two rolls of
a 6), without even getting a chance to assault. A raid of five
RGR/CDO had a decent shot to take Amsterdam but failed. Jim airlifted
in a full strength paratroop division into Nantes to bolster
its defenses. On the last turn Brad rolled a 6 on a 1-2 to recapture
Nantes and win the game and his fourth WBC Fortress Europa
championship.
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