Liberty blocks ...
Single Elimination, 18 entrants
Round 1: 9 games, British won 4, Americans 5.
Round 2: 4 games, British won 2, Americans 2.
Round 3: 2 games, British won both
Final: 1 game, British victory
This was the debut of this new game on the American Revolution.
Released at WBC, entrants could not pick up a copy until thirty
minutes before the first round began. Fortunately, most entrants
had lots of experience with block games.
The two early rounds slightly favored the Americans who managed
to gain their independence seven times in thirteen games. Two
winners in the early rounds had event schedule conflicts, which
allowed the losers in those games to advance. One of them, as
it turned out, parlayed that break into championship wood.
The final was fought by rebel Jack Morrell and Evan Seary,
thought to be the youngest general in the British Army. The early
war was mostly fought in the North. The British held Boston,
campaigned in New England, and gained control of the Hudson Valley
by seizing Fort Ticonderoga in 1777. This effort allowed the
Americans to hold New York and gain control of the South. The
British then mounted amphibious invasions of Philadelphia and
Charleston in 1778. The Americans recaptured Fort Ticonderoga
in 1779, then Montreal, but their attack on Quebec, led by Arnold,
was repulsed and eliminated due to winter attrition.
The fickle French did not enter the war until 1780, then failed
to do much of anything useful due to a combination of bad weather
and the fortunes of war (hot British dice). This doomed the rebels.
In 1780 the British severely repulsed a French/American attack
on Charleston, and then mounted their own southern campaign that
captured Wilmington and Savannah. The British ended 1780 with
29 points, one short of victory. This southern campaign continued
in 1781, a tense year that ended with the British holding 31
points and defeat for the Americans. General Seary received a
peerage; General Morrell received a king's pardon.
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