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Rick Byrens and Steve Brooks in a
Mulligan Round dress rehearsal. |
Andy Friedmann warms up against Chris
Byrd. |
Camel Territory ...
Pursuit of Glory made its debut at WBC having garnered
enough votes to be eligible. As a new event, and new game, the
decision was made early on to stick with something within the
system of the game that could be playable within a relatively
short amount of time - hence the Total War scenario, which begins
the game in 1916 with the action in full swing, would be played
for the first several heats while the "whole hog" of
the campaign game would be reserved for the last two rounds.
This format was meant not only to shorten the time necessary,
to avoid conflicting with vital players of the Paths of Glory
(its "parent" game) tournament, but also to test the
players' full knowledge of the game in both its incarnations.
Armed with a brief introduction and some spare sheets of information
for the errata that had been made specifically for WBC's tournament
and the latest rulings from designer Brad Stock, the tournament
started with 15-odd players and a mulligan round to test the
waters.
Predictably, with a new game and many players not yet having
the plethora of experience of the Paths of Glory sharks,
the opening bids were all over the place, but the majority stuck
with a "0" bid for whatever side the player winning
the bid-off die roll felt they would do the best as - or just
whichever side they wanted to play.
As expected, and no doubt thanks to the modifications made
to the basic, Total War scenario, the end results of the opening,
mulligan heat turned out to be fairly balanced, with the Allied
Powers/Central Powers wins being 4/3, respectively, with auto-victories
being seen on both sides of the coin, but also some armistices.
With a bit of "training" under the participants'
belts thanks to the mulligan round, the tournament then proceeded
to the more cutthroat, single-elimination rounds. When the last
barrage had lifted, the final tally of bids and victories tended
to indicate a preference for and slight edge towards the CP,
as was expected, but the bid, with the limited player base available,
did seem to counterbalance that.
Nonetheless, with the opening rounds completed, four participants
met in the semi-finals: Andy Friedmann, GM Jeromey Martin, Chris
Byrd and Steve Brooks.
The bids were much the same as the rest of the tournament
- Jeromey bidding 1 to play the CP in his round while the game
between Steve and Chris saw a 0 bid for the CP by Chris. The
game between Jeromey and Andy saw an eventual concession/auto-victory
for Jeromey when the Russian forces simply weren't able to hang
on, despite a 7th-turn Parvus to Berlin play--in part due to
a refusal to give up any ground on the CP/Turk's part in the
Caucasian theater. Chris and Steve's game, however, went to the
wire, with Chris eventually winning an armistice victory over
Steve's Allies.
The Final was staged similarly to Jeromey's previous game
with Andy, seeing Jeromey bid and win the CP for 1 VP. Though
the game started sluggishly for the Allies (seeing, particularly,
a Turn 3 Parvus play), they were able to start making early traction
in both Persia and Mesopotamia thanks to invasion forces being
sent to the latter as reinforcements. Though the Russians never
were able to garner enough VPs to push back the Revolution, they
were able to inflict a decent amount of losses on the Turkish
manpower pool, which proved to be the final straw. Though the
CP was ahead on VPs for much of the game, many factors began
to pile up in the Allies' favor. With Greece going to the Allies,
the Balkans became a further drain on Central Powers' manpower
as the Turks were forced to garrison Adrianople with vital corps
while, further south, the Mesopotamian and Egyptian fronts heated
up substantially. A non-stop, relentless grind of elite British
corps against the best the Turkish forces had to offer saw an
eventual snapping of the Turkish line in the former theater as
manpower simply ran out and the trickle of German replacements
couldn't keep up with the hemorrhaging.
By the time things were said and done, Baghdad had fallen,
Mosul was threatened, all of Persia was British and the Egyptian
Front saw the fall of all VPs to the Allied forces save for Jerusalem
and Damascus - the Arab revolters proving particularly useful
in bagging Mecca and Medina, as well as Maan, albeit with additional
Indian forces landing. The game did, however, go down to the
last turn, seeing a last-second breach of the Turkish-German
alliance to capture Baku as well as an abrupt landing by Kitchener's
Invasion at Smyrna, cementing another VP in Chris' favor. Thanks
to the bid and the aggressive offensives--and despite the CP
capture of the entirety of the Caucasus - the game ended in the
Allies' favor at 8 VPs - a narrow victory, but victory nonetheless,
and a well-deserved one on Chris Byrd's part.
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Rick Byrens pays the piper vs Jeromey
Martin. |
Chris Byrd and Jeromey Martin settle
the wood in the Final. |
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