2003 BPA Winter Activation Meeting (WAM)

2003 BPA Winter Activation Meeting (WAM)

January 31-February 2, 2003

Hunt Valley, MD

(report from Don Greenwood and others)

And a Fine Time It Was ...

That seemed to be the consensus of the 46 card-driven wargame devotees who descended on Hunt Valley Inn during the off-season in Baltimore's dreary winter weather. All involved seemed committed to repeating the experience next year with more lead time, more planning, more gamers, and perhaps a few less competing events. Many thanks to hosts David Dockter and Stuart Tucker who were the driving force behind the initial WAM and moved mountains to make it happen. I'd say they were the perfect hosts except they couldn't muster the good grace not to win their own events. But what the heck ... they deserved some compensation for getting us all together!

Dave, in particular, was tireless with his Consimworld cheerleading and website promotion of the event - topping it all off with free WAM T's for the multitude out of his own pocket. He also made sure such designer notables as Ted Racier and Mark Herman were on hand to rub elbows with their fans.

Already looking forward to next year ...

BTB or POG???

The combined Paths of Glory and Barbarossa to Berlin tournament was the top draw with 32 players taking part. Players could elect to play either game, but the old standbye POG was the default choice. Even so, the majority of games played were BTB as players scratched an itch with this new offering. Altogether, 43 games of the full Campaign version were played. There were a number of memorable matches including Heinzman vs Zuckerman at BtB. This game witnessed Heinzman (Axis) having his Total Krieg card pulled by the bomb plot, just after he had finally reached the conditions, 11 VP, to play it. Instead of resigning, he got mean and pulled an automatic victory on the Allies.

The finals of the combined tourney witnessed Marvin "scenario boy" Birnbaum playing the Central Powers vs David Dockter as the Allied Player in a game of PoG. Regardless of the outcome, both were guaranteed to move up in the BPA Caesar competition with 20 laurels at stake.

The game was a barnburner that came down to the last roll involving the beautiful Polish city of Lodz...

Marvin opened with Guns of August. The early game (thru turn 8) witnessed a real pounding in the West. Both players were as stubborn as mules - Birnbaum trying to break the forts, and Dockter refusing to leave them.

By the end of Turn 8, the trench line from Calais-Amiens-Paris-CT-Verdun was only held by three French armies and a ragtag group of beat up
Italian/British/French corps. How could the Allies hold? There were only three flipped German armies/Austrian army/and some pathetic CP corps left! The next few turns witnessed some serious rebuilding.

Turns 11 - 17... saw a lot more pounding in the west with fighting centered around Verdun/CT/Nancy. The Allies finally left Nancy and Verdun for good. The Balkans, Italy and the east were all relatively inactive. VPs at this point favored the CP.

In the east on Turn 18, the Great Russian offensive opened up with the Brusilov Offensive. Up to this point, Birnbaum held the initiative for about 90% of the game, but the Russians felt they had something to prove. The Russians quickly vaporized the Austrian mountain line. With Russians pouring through, Germans are airlifted (one at a time by bi-plane) from the west to cover, but can't stem the tide. End of Turn 19, Russians celebrate with a little debauchery and what not in beautiful Budapest. This was the turning point, since four eliminated Austrian armies could not be rebuilt.

Turn 20 began with a VP total of 11 (all in - bid/all blockade/etc). CP takes back Budapest and Drebecen. VP 13.

Phase 4, Russians try to take back Budapest. ONLY a 6 roll by the CP and a 1 by the AP will save Budapest for the CP. Guess what? That was the roll. A morale check is demanded of the AP player. The demoralized/whining AP player barely passes. VP at 13. Something must be retaken. But what?

Phase 5. AP tries an assult on Drebecen again. 1 Flipped/1 Full Russian army vs a full Austrian army. It works - barely. VP 12.

Phase 6. CP uses a trench buster to take BLD. VP 13. Last play of the game. AP tries a flank on Lodz. Only one unflipped Ru army & Ru corp plus two flipped armies vs German full army at Lodz. Flank works, AP fires on the 8 table. Four losses inflicted. German flips. A 6 wins the game for the CP on the return fire (3A table). No 6....and the Russian commander began to drink a lot of vodka!

Despite the loss, Marvin cements his hold on the BPA Caesar lead with 12 laurels for second place - increasing his lead over Peter Reese, who is present but does not score, from a scant five laurels to 17. Dockter's 20 laurels for first moves him up 14 places in the standings from 22nd to 8th. The weekend yields no other changes in the Top 25 Caesar standings.

Bob Heinzman claims third, while Steve Brooks finishes fourth in the combined POG/BtB tournament. Their game went down to the last turn, and Bob was able to just squeeze out a victory.

Entry List

1.. Michael Ussery
2.. Randall MacInnis
3.. Bryan Thompson
4.. John Hasay
5.. Jim Standard
6.. Charlie Hickok
7.. Tom Drueding
8.. Marvin Birnbaum
9.. John Emery
10.. Pete Reese
11.. Rob Hassard
12.. Jim Doughan
13.. Steve Brooks
14.. Bill Edwards
15.. Brad Bellomo
16.. Mathew Bacho
17.. Bob Jamelli
18.. Wetherall
19.. Volke Ruhlke
20.. Andrew Maly
21.. Doug Mercer
22.. David Dockter
23.. Kevin Zuckerman
24.. George Young
25.. Steve Austin
26.. Ted Raicer
27.. Bob Heinzman
28.. John Haas
29.. Kris Weinschenker
30.. Steve Metcalf
31.. Chris Richards
32.. Chris Greenfield

Total Games Played: 43 (PoG 19, BtB 24)

Total Hours: 7 x 2 x 43 = 602 Hours

Wilderness War

WAM on the whole was a mixed bag. Over 50 gamers participated at one point or another, which was more than anyone thought we would get, but my personal feeling is that we had too many tournaments going on at once. Stuart Tucker used the term “organized chaos” to describe the weekend, and that about sums it up for me. Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of fun; organized chaos isn’t necessarily a bad thing. PoG/BtB was quite a successful tournament. On the other hand, Wilderness War suffered from a poor time slot and the competition for player interest. Indeed, there were a few excellent WW players (Volko and John Haas come to mind) at the convention who did not play WW because they were doing well in other tournaments. Something may have to give next year, but there does not appear to be any doubt that there will be a WAM 2004.

WW actually had 20 participants, making it the second most popular game to PoG/BtB, but that is misleading because 11 of those only played one game (including a few first round winners). The original plan was for a 5 round Swiss, but it became clear early on that 5 rounds was unfeasible. Round 2 didn’t end until about 10:00 p.m. on Saturday, so I nixed a third round on that day, and on Sunday there were some late sleepers and a light turnout. Given that and the fact that there was only one undefeated player after the Sunday AM round, I decided to call it after only 3 rounds, which appeared to be acceptable to all.

There were 17 games played. The Brits won 9 and the French 8. Two players bid a VP to play the Brits with one winning and one losing. Nobody bid to play the French. In the 9 British wins, 5 were by Victory Points (1 Sudden Death) and 4 were through the capture of Ohio Forks/Niagara. 2 of the French victories were by Sudden Death. The top British Players were Tom Drueding, the Champion, and Michael Ussery with 2 wins each. The top French Player was me with 2 wins.

In what turned out to be the “Championship Game” Tom Drueding bid a VP to play the Brits against me. I squandered a successful E57 Courier Intercepted with a stupid set of moves by Montclam at the end of the turn which gained me no VPs. My inability to get the VPs up early probably cost me the game as there was never a threat of a French Sudden Death. In my first round victory as the French over Peter Reese, on the other hand, French VPs hovered in the 8-10 area for the entire game which put a damper on the ability of the Brits to take many risks.

Tom spent the first 3 turns building up. The decisive event of the game probably came in E58. Tom played the large Highlanders and plopped them and Amherst down at Halifax. Not willing to have Louisbourg fall so early, I decided to launch the Louisbourg Squadrons. This saved Louisbourg but unfortunately I failed my removal roll. Tom played Quiberon in L58 and things were looking bad for the boys in blue.

With the card windfall he anticipated in 59, Tom decided to go for Niagara (Ohio Forks had fallen in 58). There may be a trend towards British players trying this (as noted above, 4 British victories in the tournament came this way). Reese barely failed trying it against me in our first round game. I still prefer Ohio Forks/Montreal as the Brits, but what do I know? As the French I certainly fear Ohio Forks/Montreal a lot more since cutting the British supply line to Niagara is not that hard to do. That being said, Tom’s decision to go for Niagara cannot be questioned with Quiberon having been played.

Tom drove on Niagara with 3 armies: The main army under Wolfe, starting from Oswego, went for the fort; Amherst, who had relocated from Halifax to Albany when the Louisbourg Campaign had been thwarted, was assigned to protect Wolfe’s supplies; and a small army under Forbes threatened from Ohio Forks. There was another small British army in Connecticut under Johnson protecting the British back door. Montcalm and the only sizable force of French units, except for Drucour who was trapped in Louisbourg, had abandoned the Champlain Valley when Wolfe arrived at Oswego, setting up shop at Naioure Bay. There were also swarms of Coureurs and Indians available for supply disruption and speed bump duties.

Tom played a Campaign card to start the final push. First Wolfe started for Niagara, leaving a screen at Oswego, only to be delayed by my auxiliaries. The second part of his move was a disaster. Amherst was ordered to move in behind and secure Wolfe’s supplies at Oswego but was delayed by Foul Weather. Montcalm then crashed into the British screen at Oswego and Wolfe was cut off. Amherst was forced to attack Montcalm in the first major battle of the game to try to restore supplies to Wolfe, but was beaten back with heavy losses. French VPs were starting to finally mount!

Realizing that running supplies through Oswego was not going to work, and with time starting to run out, Tom decided to try to run supplies up from Ohio Forks. My auxiliaries at this point were starting to run out and I realized that there was no way to stop the supplies from this direction. Eventually, Wolfe was sitting on top of Niagara and the Presquile/French Creek stockades were ready to be built, which would have provided the supplies for the siege. I was down to 1 card, Tom had 4 and was going to get the last 3 card plays. In his desperation Montcalm got in the boats and swung around the north shore of the lake to hit Wolfe with just about all I had left (Wolfe had screened his rear so this was the only direction I could attack him from). With only about a 33% chance of success, Montcalm was victorious and Wolfe’s army was destroyed because it had no legal retreat. There was still hope!

Tom’s card windfall was decisive, however. Wolfe was able to get back to Amherst’s force, take command there and then reestablish a supply line to Niagara from Albany. In the Second Battle of Niagara Montcalm and his severely depleted army was finally defeated and he was forced to take refuge in the fort. With his last 2 cards Tom had 2 66% chances at sieging the fort and got it on his first try. It was a well deserved victory, as Tom played very well and made no mistakes that I can think of.

The most surreal moment of the tournament came in one of the other third round games between James Pei and Gary Phillips. James was undefeated and would have played Tom for the wood had he won. Gary was the Brits and had captured Ohio Forks/Niagara either towards the end of E59 or at the start of L59, but VPs were at French 7. Gary’s hold on Niagara looked tenuous but James was just sitting there with Montcalm in striking distance doing nothing. But it was James Pei, so I figured he had some trick up his sleeve. All of a sudden the last card was played and the game was over with nothing having happened. There was a strange silence and then James started filling out the score sheet, writing his own name in the winner’s space. He didn’t know that the Brits could win despite being down in VPs! He took it quite well after I explained it to him. I guess when you have won as often as he has, you can afford to laugh at yourself. The scary thing is that he won 2 games not knowing the victory conditions. I’d hate to have to play him when he knows what they are!

Here are the final standings: 1. Tom Drueding 2. Keith Wixson 3. Gary Philips 4. Michael Ussery 5. James Pei

WNW Entry List:
1. James Pei
2. Greg Schmittgens
3. Peter Reese
4. Keith Wixson
5. Bill Edwards
6. Bob Jamelli
7. Tom Drueding
8. Gary Phillips
9. Stuart Tucker
10. Chris Greenfield
11. Charles Hickok
12. Rich Shipley
13. Michael Ussery
14. Matt Bacho
15. Shawn Metcalf
16. Jason Matthews
17. Doug Mercer
18. John Wetherer
19. Marvin Birnbaum
20. George Young

WNW Winner's Claim form:
20 entries, who played 17 games averaging 4 hrs each (136 player-hours).

The Napoleonic Wars

Unfortunately, there were more people playing pickup, multi-player games of The Napoleonic Wars then played in the two-player tournament. Apparently, a lot of educating needs to be done on just what a great two-player (or three-player) contest this game is. But that didn't stop twelve players from logging 16 games in the tournament.

It proved to be the developer's weekend as Don Greenwood held sway with a 5-0 record and maintained bragging rights over his playtest crew. After years of being abused regularly by the likes of Ben Knight and Roy Gibson, Don enjoyed one of his rare lucky streaks and defeated all comers.

On Round 1 his Imperials defeated Ken Richards in a two-turn game as peace was declared with France in the lead.

Round 2 saw him maneuver the Coalition to victory over Roy Gibson in two turns with a combination of good cards and hot dice. When the Prussians joined the Coalition and Napoleon was routed in his attempt to take Berlin, victory was assurred.

Round 3 was the clash of the unbeatens as Greenwood faced off against nemesis Ben Knight. Ben had beaten him like a drum regularly ever since the Nappy project began so it was sweet revenge when a rare combination of poor Hands and cold dice laid Ben's French low in two turns. The timely play of Dos de Mayo to strip Spain from the Imperial camp and the arrival of the Turks in Napoli signalled the end of Ben's reign of terror.

But the highlight of the weekend was in Round 4 when he faced Roy Gibson again - this time as the French. Roy's Coalition was armed to the teeth and played a seemingly unending supply of 6 CP cards to amass a ponderous lead against the Imperial's miserly Hand. CP expenditures probably favored the Coalition 3:1. Only hot dice and Roy's conservative play with the game seemingly in the bag kept the tricolor flying. When the British, with an opportunity to take five keys on their final play came up empty, Greenwood saw a glimmer of hope. With visions of a three-way playoff looming on the morrow, Greenwood threw caution to the wind and assaulted with Napoleon to take Salzburg against overwhelming odds, cutting himself off in the process. The patron saint of fools rewarded him when Charles failed his intercept roll - leaving Nappy in control of Salzburg - and a single key advantage. With seemingly no French chance to win a prolonged game, both players spent a card to influence the Peace die roll, and Greenwood - in his best Satchel Page imitation windup - delivered the telling 6 die roll to the Dice Tower from hell. The elation of the resulting victory celebration was matched only by the utter despair of Roy as he watched his seemingly assured three-way tie for the lead go up in smoke on Turn 1.

With victory assurred on tie breakers, Don finished his unbeaten run with a French win over Charlie Hickok. For the second game in a row, the cards had abandoned him and it looked for awhile as though his unbeaten streak was in jeopordy. But Charlie soon discovered that fate is fickle - especially at sea - and his once dominant British navy was soundly thrashed while flushing out the remnants of the French fleet in Cadiz. The resulting debacle opened the way to invasion and French troops wintered in Wales.

Entry List

1.. Don Greenwood
2.. Ken Richards
3.. Ben Knight
4.. Keith Wixson
5.. Tom Vickery
6.. Roy Gibson
7.. Chris Greenfield
8.. Stuart Tucker
9.. Charlie Hickok
10.. Kris Weinschenker
11.. Steven Brooks
12.. Rich Shipley

Total Games Played: 16

Player Hours: 7?x2x16= 224?

Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage

Eleven players ravaged Italy during the course of 17 games in the Hannibal event. It proved to be a Weekend of Carthaginian Victory.

The weekend began with three major upsets of former WBC champions. The returning champion, Peter Reese, was defeated by Doug White; former champion and top-rated James Pei was defeated by GM Stuart Tucker; former champion Karsten Engelmann lost to Randall MacInnis. Both games were tight 10-8 province count victories for the Carthaginian. In Tucker's win, both Hannibal and Africanus found themselves hiding in walled cities after near misses with death. At one point in the game, Pei's Romans were down to three CUs after an aggressive invasion of Africa, only to be saved by a mid-game Messenger Intercepted and a flood of recruits. Tucker used a Turn 8 Truce to forestall the fall of Sicily, to secure a continuation of his Syracusan alliance, breaking it with a Sardinian Revolt, putting victory nearly out of reach for Pei. White's game witnessed the unusual occurrence of a Roman army force marching over the alps three times on the same card play (losing a massive amount of troops in the process). The necessity of this extreme measure was just one indicator of the poor quality of Reese's navy in that game. Engelmann's Carthaginian invasion of Italy was assisted on the first turn by the Messenger Intercepted, but when Hannibal lost two battles to Marcellus and Nero, resignation soon followed.

With the former champions generally fleeing to other events in search of wood, the HRC event settled into a fine round-robin type event in which six players stuck it out, playing virtually every possible remaining opponent once. Going into the final round, it was entirely possible for five players to end up tied with 3-2 records, forcing reliance upon the tournament point system to allocate the awards. However, at the end of the first night, it looked like White was going to run away with the event, as he was the only remaining undefeated player.

Jim Heenehan ensured that his hometown friend would be leading the event after the first day when Heenehan got himself out of his sick bed and played into the evening and inflicted a loss upon the only other undefeated player, Tucker. Heenehan's aggressive invasion of Africa and eventual sacking of Carthage was the right medicine for Tucker's island strategy.

On Sunday morning's round 4, the four leading players squared off, Tucker vs.White, and Mercer vs. Heenehan. Tucker outbid White for Carthage (2 PCs) and then played his usual naval waiting game. Alas, the fleet modifiers were slow to arrive, and White's invasion of Africa wasn't cleaned up until Turn 5. Then, Philip arrived (depriving Rome of a Major Campaign), soon followed by two years of Carthaginian Naval Victory. Fearing that the islands were going to leave him down on the count, White went for the jugular with a turn 7 landing at Carthage of 20 CUs for a quick siege. Unfortunately for Doug, it wasn't quick enough, as Tucker sent Hannibal back to Africa and drove the stack (which had achieved one siege point at a cost of 1 CU) into the sea in a 20-20 BC battle, costing Rome nine PCs. The Turn 8 arrival of the Syracusan alliance put White in a squeeze, but it was really the ninth Turn deal that sealed his fate (too few naval cards, and a Diplomacy to Tucker).

However, a Tucker championship needed help in the form of Doug Mercer defeating Jim Heenehan at the next table. Despite losing his Syracusan and Macedonian allies early in the game, Mercer as Carthage managed to counter Heenehan's Rome-to-Africa strategy, accepting resignation in the final turn. This left Tucker in the driver seat: if he managed to win his final game, he should win the tournament. However, his opponents yielded nothing to him. White won a 9-8 victory against Mercer to stay hot on Tucker's heels. Keith Wixson gladly took Rome against Tucker in the last game to clear the room at WAM. Four hours later, Tucker survived with a narrow victory. Wixson struck into Spain on Turn 1 and sacked Gades on Turn 2, only to be chased away by Hannibal with a siege train to recover the city before losing any reinforcements. Tucker used well-timed island revolts to stay ahead in the province count throughout the game. Wixson then began the "Grant at Petersburg" strategy of piling up CUs in Massilia in anticipation of Africanus' arrival. For three turns Hannibal used interception and battle avoidance to hold Marcellus and Africanus at bay, keeping northern Spain barely in the Carthaginian camp. The Turn 8 Messenger was gifted to Tucker when he also had three campaigns in his hand. This allowed him to whittle down the Roman threat in Spain while simultaneously transferring Mago back to Africa and then to Sicily with a sizeable army to support a Sicilian revolt. Turn 9 involved Mago trying to extend the Sicilian campaign as long as possible to distract the Roman war effort. When Gisco slipped into Lucania with the aid of Adriatic Pirates, and Wixson lacked the movement ability to get his slow Roman generals down south, he nearly resigned. However, he had one last trick up his sleeve, so Africanus sailed to Carthage with a small army. Tucker's Hasdrubal had to pray that his -4 naval move to Carthage would succeed or that Africanus' siege rolls would fail. Hasdrubal's jubilant arrival in Carthage dealt the death blow to Africanus, and delivered victory to Tucker. With both White and Tucker at 4-1 and with the same number of tournament points, Tucker won the Wood on the basis of his head-to-head victory against White in Round 4. Unlike last summer, Tucker's Carthaginian navy never abandoned him in his most dire moments, allowing him to hold onto his narrow province count victories in four games (10-8, 9-9, 10-8, 10-8).

Except for Engelmann's forays, Carthage was played conservatively at this convention, with Hannibal rarely being put at risk. His death was usually late in the game in efforts to forestall sieges of Syracuse. This placed the burden of attack on Rome, with a resulting higher death rate for Africanus. Messenger Intercepts, contrary to last summer, ran against the eventual winners, with Rome benefitting more than Carthage. However, in the 17 games of the tournament, Carthage won 13 times--11 due to PC advantage or ties, once due to suit for peace and once due to early resignation. Rome's four wins involved three early resignations and only one sack of Carthage, ironically of the event winner. Clearly, these veteran players have learned how to play to Carthage's strengths. Bidding for side ran 60% pro-Carthaginian, with an average bid amount for Carthage of 1.2 PCs. Pro-Romans had to outbid each other by 1.2 PCs as well. Clearly, the overbidding for Rome has finally ceased. The question is when will bidding for Carthage begin to hurt enough to balance the victory results. The end of the tournament brought queries from runner-up White of Tucker's willingness to bid for Carthage. In his triumphal moment, Tucker let slip that he would have bid four PCs to play Carthage against White (who was at the time of their meeting 3-0 as Carthage). At this tournament, Tucker paid an average of 1.0 PCs to play Carthage (and White paid less). Perhaps next summer people will be more willing to outbid Tucker and White for Carthage--or at least make the bid hurt.

Rankings after five swiss rounds (W-L record and side propensity) tourney pts., awards:
1. Tucker, Stuart (4-1, Carthage exclusively), 51 pts., Event Champion
2. White, Doug (4-1, 4xCW, 1xRL), 51 pts., Best Carthaginian
3. Heenehan, Jim (3-2, played both sides), 43 pts., Sportsmanship Nominee
4. Mercer, Doug (3-2, played both sides), 42 pts., Best Roman
5. MacInnis, Randall (1-3 + 1 Bye, Rome exclusively), 30 pts.
6. Wixson, Keith (1-3, 3xRL), 20 pts.
7. Ussery, Michael (1-0, as Rome), 10 pts.
8. Pei, James (0-1, as Rome, 4 pts.
9. Reese, Peter (0-1, as Rome), 4 pts.
10. Engelmann, Karsten (0-2, Carthage exclusively), 3 pts.
11. Phillips, Gary (0-1, as Carthage), 1 pt.

17 games played, 53 hours combined (106 player-hours)

For The People

Little is known about the For The People contest other than it was won by three-time WBC champ James Pei over George Young and a field of eight.

Thirty Years War

The Thirty Years War event was our only casualty with GM Mike Welker (and his entire family) coming down sick and having to depart early. Consequently, the planned event never got off the ground.