Yankees
Take Greenville!
Well,
sorta…Wrong war and all of the finalists
were actually from below the Mason-Dixon
line, but at least none of those Greenville
guys wiped our noses in it this time. On
Fri., Oct. 13, 2006, 32 decidedly Napoleonic
types marched into the Amerisuites in beautiful
Greenville, S.C., with vicarious
muskets in hand and toting backsacks full
of properly colored dice. They all came to play GMT’s classic The
Napoleonic Wars. And play they
did!! The lobby echoed to the volleys of
cascading dice for the next three days.
The action started shortly after noon
on Friday with seven tables engaged—trying
hard not to be distracted by the large
period flags draped around the battlefield
or the well-stocked hospitality room
that doubled as respite for the casualties—of
which there many. Our southern hosts
really knew how to throw a party. As
the afternoon wore on, more folks wandered
in and found themselves a game. About
half were from the Greenville area and
the rest made the trek from all over,
but not as far as Australia, the home
of last year’s winner Dr. Mark Hodgkinson.
However, we were fortunate to have both
the designer (Mark McLaughlin) and the
developer (Don Greenwood) in attendance
again this year. The format was all three-player
contests; France vs. Britain vs. Austria-Russia.
The French ruled the field, winning 46%,
to the Austro-Russians, 37%. British
wins were hard to come by, the Brits
taking just 17%. It was the British,
however, who won the game that counted.
With 58 games played, including the Final on Sunday, this year saw more games
played than ever before. There were an additional
nine games during and after the Final that still counted towards Best Country
awards. Players averaged almost six games each for those who stayed for the
entire weekend. Many played far more—depending on how many five-turn slugfests
they were involved in. Some of
our travelers enjoyed five-player games until about 10 p.m. on Sunday night—well after
the final standings were set—because they weren't departing until the
next day.
The format was designed to encourage
more games, and it seemed to work. To make the Final Sunday morning, a player’s
best game with each power was counted. Only five players were able to win
at least once with each. The rules said no official games could
start after midnight Saturday, so at 11:58 A.J. Sudy, his father
Kevin, and Francis Czawlytko beat the clock to see if A.J.’s
Brits could win. If they did, A.J. and not his dad would have
had the last seat at the big game. A.J. fell short at 4 AM, as
did so many fine players that weekend, but the spirit was willing.
In spite of a win with each nation, Henry Russell and local favorite
Bruce Young fell short of the title match on tie-breakers.
Speaking of the Final, it came down to three great players. Rich Shipley
was the #1 seed and took the French, as befitting the driver of Armee Group
Nord. Ken Gutermuth had the second pick and became the Austro-Russians. Kevin
Sudy was left with the Brits, who had not performed up to expectations thus
far during the weekend. It appeared that would remain true as the lobster
backs were promptly greeted by Spithead and Guerre de Course to start the
decisive game. The French fleets did well enough to keep Britain from using
Admiralty, but the Austria-Russians made some gains and the French nearly
destroyed themselves on an unwise attack. Ken had the roll opportunity
for the win on the first turn but could not buy a 6. Rich was able to beat
back the Austrian hordes, but the Brits recovered. With the use of Admiralty,
Kevin managed the last card play, which—as luck would have it—was
Europe Exhausted. Using those six CPs, the British marched from Rome to Marseilles
and grabbed enough keys for the roll to end the second turn. There would
not be any more chances, as Kevin picked the right time to roll a 6. Our
most heartfelt congratulations to the winner of Waterloo IV, Kevin Sudy.
For those of you keeping score, Ken came
in second and Rich’s French rounded out the
field. All three got plaques, with Kevin, of
course, getting the real wood. In other wood
related activities, Henry Russell picked up a plaque for the
Best French average with a wholloping 17-point game; Ken Gutermuth
had the Best British average with 9 VPs; and Fred Schachter had
the best average of the Austro-Russian players, with 6.33 VPs.
Rounding out the laurelists was Bruce Young in 4th, Henry Russell
in 5th and Scott Pfeiffer in 6th. Special thanks go to Mike (Coach)
Hazel for the cool period flags; Ben Shanks for the database
program used for scoring; Ken Richards, our tireless scorekeeper;
Scott Pfeiffer, our all around idea guy who persuaded WBC to
have Waterloo in Greenville; and finally, the most popular person
at the con, our gopher Micki, who spent her time getting the
food, drinks, transportation, and whatever supplies anybody needed.
It has been observed that there seems to be a home-field disadvantage
for Waterloo. The guys from Greenville have had much success with Waterloo
in Baltimore. However playing on their home turf with half the field
they couldn’t grab a seat at the final table or a plaque of any kind.
So, in an effort to even the playing field we’ll see what we can do
about alternating home sites for Waterloo in the future. Certainly,
all those Yankees claim to be up for a return trip of southern hospitality
in 2008.
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Champion
Kevin Sudy, VA
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2nd & Best
Britain
Ken Gutermuth, TX
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Best Austria
Fred Schacter, NC
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Best French
Henry Russell, PA
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3rd
Rich Shipley, MD
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4th
Bruce Young, SC
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5th
Henry Russell, PA
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6th
Scott Pfeiffer, SC
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Designer Mark McLaughlin’s Reminiscences of A WEEKEND IN SOUTH
CAROLINA
The
last time this many Yankees went south to Carolina
they burned half the state. This time the guys
who came down from Pennsylvania and Maryland (and in my case at least,
Connecticut) were better behaved—and better received. The
Greenville Mafia showed us that southern hospitality is more than a
cliche—it is a fact. We were welcomed
as brothers—at least, until the dice started
to roll.
Although I designed The Napoleonic Wars,
the three-player version is the version I
have played least—I can honestly say that
I played that version more times in this one
weekend than in the four years since the game
hit the shelves—and I only played six of the three-player contests
at the convention, while I know of some who played eight or nine (and
maybe more) times. My
last game of the con was the five player version
(my favorite). It
was also my best game, with me leading the
French to the gates of Moscow and victory.
In terms of play, it appeared that the
French won about half of the three-player
games—and that is good. The French should win
about half of the games, regardless of the
format. That is how
the game is designed (and why it is called
the NAPOLEONIC wars, not ’a bunch of guys carving
up Europe’).
The Austro-Russian alliance did predictably
well. Being able to go back to back (unless
pre-empted) is one of the strong suits of that
alliance, but with one player controlling the
cards for the pair, the ability to manipulate
the diplomatic track is a real killer. In almost all of my games the
Austro-Russians were able to grab Turkey, Prussia and, in some cases,
one of the Scandanavian powers. I do not
think anyone exceeded that hat trick by getting
both northern minors, or Spain—but then again,
I did not see every game.
I was surprised to see that the English
did not fare anywhere near as well as the
Holy Alliance (Austria and Russia). If anything,
I thought the French would be so busy fighting
the eastern monolith that they would have little
to stave off the English key-scooping raids. There
were even a few invasions of England, including
some that were victorious. (John
Emery’s son Kevin’s invasion and conquest of
Scott Pfeiffer’s England was a thing of beauty.)
There were a lot of little and great northern
wars in the games I played and watched—and
not just the usual Got Mitt Uns marching over
the mountains to take a Danish key. There were land and
sea invasions of both minors, often by each
other. I saw Danish
and Russian and British armies all attack Stockholm
(yes, even British, when the Swedes had been
bought out to neutral by Austria). I
saw Danish and Swedish armies in northern Russia,
along with the usual mix of Prussians and even
a few Spaniards. The
Turks were almost always involved in the games—and
almost always seemed to be sent home to quell the Serbs.
As with all Waterloo conventions—and
just about every other gathering of Napleonic
War players—there was a wonderful lack of
argument. Sure,
we all forget a rule or see something we have
not seen happen before, but all such questions
were resolved peacefully and, from what I
could tell, to the satisfaction of all involved. In
addition to Napoleonic Wars, a few of the
guys were able to play some of Kutuzov—which
GMT wants us to send to their artist, Mark
Simonitch, after Christmas. Hopefully
it will be out next summer, or at least in
time for the next march to Waterloo… |