paths of glory   

Updated 11/17/2011

Guns of August Pre-Con

2011 WBC Report    

 2012 Status: pending 2012 GM commitment

Peter Gurneau, WI

2011 Champion

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Event History
1999    Donald Stone     36
2000    Peter Reese     52
2001    David Dockter     34
2002    Peter Reese     49
2003    Rob Hassard     40
2004    Nick Anner     39
2005    Tom Drueding     34
2006    Dave Dockter     48
2007    Stefan Mecay     35
2008    Riku Riekkinen     42
2009    Stefan Mecay     50
2010    Stefan Mecay     35
2011    Peter Gurneau     27

WAM Event History
2003    David Dockter     32
2004     Rob Hassard     11
2005    Marvin Birnbaum     16
2006     Tom Drueding     17
2007    Chris Byrd     17
2008    Tom Drueding     20
2009    Tom Drueding     12
2010     Tom Drueding     16

PBeM Event History
2001    Stefan Mecay     40
2005    Stephen Valkyser     68
2006    Tom Drueding     64
2009    Stefan Mecay     89
2011    Stefan Mecay     64
 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Tom Drueding      MA     11    428
  2.  Stefan Mecay      TX     11    352
  3.  David Dockter     MN     11    328
  4.  Peter Reese       VA     11    258
  5.  Chris Byrd        CT     10    208
  6.  Rob Hassard       NJ     09    181
  7.  Marvin Birnbaum   NY     09    174
  8.  Nick Anner        NY     11    162
  9.  Jim Falling       MI     07    117
 10.  Stephan Valkyser  de     05     96
 11.  Riku Riekkinen    fn     09     78
 12.  Peter Gurneau     WI     11     66
 13.  Tom Gregorio      PA     11     60
 14.  Charlie Hickok    PA     10     39
 15.  Michael Dauer     TX     10     36
 16.  John Brown        VA     04     36
 17.  Nick Frydas       it     11     30
 18.  Bob Heinzmann     FL     05     30
 19.  James Pei         TX     04     30
 20.  Ken Gutermuth     TX     09     28
 21.  Steve Brooks      FL     08     25
 22.  Mauro Faina       it     11     24
 23.  Andy Friedmann    MA     10     24
 24.  Rick Byrens       CA     07     24
 25.  Josh Alexander    MI     04     24
 26.  Steve Worrel      NC     03     18
 27.  Michael Mitchell  GA     07     16
 28.  Ed McGran         WA     05     16
 29.  Kevin Sudy        VA     11     12
 30.  Mauro Gasbarroni  it     09     12
 31.  Mel Casselberry   PA     07     12
 32.  Pat Mirk          FL     05     12
 33.  John Emery        SC     00     12
 34.  Michael Johnson   MA     01     10
 35.  Don Stone         NC     99     10
 36.  Jay Meyers        CA     10      9
 37.  Tim Hall          UT     10      9
 38.  Andrew Maly       MD     00      9
 39.  Tim Miller        GA     07      8
 40.  Johnny Hasay      PA     10      6
 41.  Steve Parrish     VA     08      6
 42.  Lance Roberts     AK     06      6
 43.  Holger Janssen    de     05      6
 44.  Pete Rohn         IL     04      6
 45.  Hank Burkhalter   TN     02      6
 46.  Nick Firer        WI     00      6
 47.  Don Johnson       VA     99      6
 48.  Ric Manns         IN     01      5
 49.  Seth Gunar        NJ     08      4
 50.  Scott Moll        VA     07      4
 51.  Dennis Culhane    PA     99      4
 52.  Bill Pettus       NJ     09      3
 53.  Steve Huskey      KS     00      3
 54.  Joe DiCamillo     PA     99      3
 55.  Doug Austin       VA     06      3
 56.  Rob Winslow       NY     99      2
 57.  Paul Horvath      CA     00      1
 58.  Paul Abrahamse    MI     99      1

2011 Laurelists                                               Repeating Laurelists:

David Dockter, MN
2nd

Nick Frydas, uk
3rd

Pete Reese, VA
4th

Kevin Sudy, VA
5th

Tom Gregorio, PA
6th

Past Winners

Peter Reese, VA
2000, 2002

Dave Dockter, MN
2001, 2006

Rob Hassard, NJ
2003

Nick Anner, NY
2004

Thomas Drueding, MA
2005

Stefan MeCay, TX
2007, 2009-10

Riku Riekkinen, Finland
2008

Peter Gurneau, WI
2011
   

Todd Treadway and Geoff Allbutt try their hand at the Great War.

My hero Barrington Beavis and Steve Koleszar.

 Nick Benedict and Chris Byrd

Kevin Sudy and Johnny Hasay 

The Closing Guns?

The annual PoG-a-thon kicked off mid-day Sunday with 27 players, down eight from last year's heretofore record low and a 46% decline from 2009 in what was otherwise a banner year for WBC attendance. We are not sure what the exact cause of this decline is but the most likely reason appears to be the increased number of Pre-Cons compared to prior years. It is also possible that POG is just beginning to show its age in its 13th year at WBC.

Next year, we plan to start earlier, most likely Sunday morning (allowing us to finish the preliminary rounds by mid-day Monday) and possibly tweak the historical scenario (giving us all a new challenge) we have been playing the last few years: check the PoG consimworld discussion board during the year to contribute ideas and playtesting experience. A few of the possible (stress POSSIBLE) tweaks include using the optional additional card deck (that came with the players guide) and moving a few victory cities (one from Russia to France and shifting one in Turkey to Jerusalem). Regardless of these evolutionary teething problems, the PoG tribe had a great time as always.

As usual, all PoGers were guaranteed three preliminary games. One of the highlights was defending champ Stefan Mecay being upset by new semi-finalist, Kevin Sudy. Another was the number of new entrants in the field. A side effect of the reduced field was the elimination of the infamous PoG roll-off to complete the Elite Eight, since we had just the required number of 2-1 records. The two semi-final games matched Peter Gurneau vs giant killer Sudy and a pair of two-time champs, Pete Reese and David Dockter.

Peter won the bid roll in the Final and bid 0 for the AP against David's AP bid of 1. The early game witnessed an aggressive series of AP attacks in the West and an early Italian entry, putting Peter's CP on the defensive and leading to a modified Defend-the-Rhine strategy. The early mid game (Turns 5-10) witnessed an aggressive Allied Balkans strategy (combo of Italians, Greeks, Romanians, French, Brits and Serbs) that eventually required a couple of reinforced German armies to subdue. On Turn 11, disaster struck the Allied cause.

The AP, using Allenby had started a spring offensive out of Egypt. As summer arrived on Turn 10, the Allied player left Allenby screened by only a corps and ordered AP HQ to address the issue on the sixth impulse. HQ got distracted, the season changed to fall and the CP took a 50/50 shot at sending Allenby to the showers. The CP succeeded and eventually took the three VPs in Egypt. The AP then responded with a series of hammer blows on the western front, but, the CP line held.

On Turn 16, the great German offensive began in the east. Despite a series of Russian entrenchments, the Tsar took command on Turn 17 and fell on Turn 18, with the revolution and the treaty following soon after that. The three Egyptian VPs turned out to be the victory margin difference, resulting in another POG champion as Peter won his first WBC shield.

Peter Gurneau upsets two-time champ David Dockter.

Michael Ussery and Nels Thompson


Paths of Glory 2011 PBeM Tournament Results

The fifth BPA POG PBeM tournament has ended with with Stefan Mecay's successful defense of his title as he trimphed for the third time to pair with his three WBC titles. 64 players composed the field with 147 games played over five rounds. Nick Anner was the last man standing between Stefan and his title defense. In the beginning, Nick was aggressive in the west, threatening an early breakthrough of the Rhein defense, but the timely play of entrench in Frankfurt was able to stabilize things. Nick had used Blockade as ops to allow the aggressive pursuit, but was able to redraw it on T2 and finished with a surprise blockade, so both sides got to LW on T3.

On T3-4, the CP got all needed WS cards and was able to get to TW on the start of T5. Italy was buried and didn't arrive until T6. The MEF appeared next to Gallipoli and was blocked with a few corps and Yudenitch arrived to put max pressure on the Turks. The CP pushed into Belgrade hammering on the Serbs but not quite finishing them off. Stefan was able to set-up for a push into Egypt with an early TK army, but was delayed by summer on T6. The allies got to TW on the start of T7. The CP was able to kill IT 3rd in Maggiore, but the last card play for the allies on T6 was IT 5th.

T7 saw Nick with a poor hand, but he was able to race IT 5th down to help the Serbs, and he had broken through Muncaks to sneak one RUS army into Belgrade to bolster the Balkans. T7-T9 or so saw great trench rolling with Nick 3 for 3 with the Russians, including a key trench on the first try in Kovno to save an early GER breakthrough in the north, plus a couple of Italian trenches in Sofia and Belgrade. Only GER 11th (who was able to get between Salonika and Constantinople before Sofia fell to a combined IT/Serb push) plus 4-5 BU/GER corps were cut off but holding strong in the east part of Bulgaria with 3-4 BU c's in the NE itself helping to stabilize things there. Several AH armies, a couple of GER armies, and several German corps were sent down to try to break the stalemate. Several big rolls for the CP helped evaporate the Italians plus the rogue RUS army and several BR/FR/IT corps, and slowly push down towards Salonika. 2 RUS armies appeared on the Romanian border and the FR ORT was looming. However, the consistently good dice for the CP helped dissolve the threat and convinced the AP to save Romania and FR ORT for use as RP's.

T12-14 saw a cleanup of the Balkans and a rebuilding of Italians/setting up of both sides for the impending Russian attack. A few light probes into the Grodno area were held in check by a transfer of a few Russian armies from the south, including the pair that had been patiently waiting on the Romanian border. Then T15-16 saw the big push. Again consistently good dice for the CP let them do lots of damage and eventually burst into Grodno at the end of T16. Romania entered on T15 or 16 and was quickly overrun by remnants from the Balkan push, but burned off precious CP ops. On T17 the Tsar took command and Zimmerman Telegram was launched. Lots of French hammered away in Italy and a general mass attrition was done by the AP in the west, forcing CP responses in SR's/ops when they really wanted to push on Russia. Both sides' dead piles grew a lot. Allenby tried a push in Beersheba on 6a+1 to 6a, but was denied on a 2-6 roll. (He would later redeem himself with a 6-1 combo later on T19, but being flipped was unable to push much in Turkey). Also Yudenitch tried one shot when Kemal was pulled and an attack on 4a-5c was just barely flipped on a 3-3 roll.

On T18, the Tsar fell and On T19 Bolshevik Revolution and Treat of B-L came off with 6 RUS VP's. CP had also gotten off High Seas Flt., Lloyd George (drawn on the only time in the last 8-9 turns there was a BR MO), and captured Basra for a 12 VP total. AP tried to counter with an Italian push; good die rolls let them get to Salonika but couldn't push much farther, while the CP SR'd GER armies from the east and lots of corps from the NE to stabilize all lines. Germans tried a late push in the west, mostly denied by some great AP rolls, but too late to help and Nick surrendered when it became impossible to get the last two VP's needed for the win.

Other laurelists were Mauro Faina, David Dockter, Tom Drueding and Nick Frydas in that order.

 GM      Peter Reese  [6th Year]   NA  
   preese4@cox,net   (NA)

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