John Vasilakos and JR Tracy hit the books before starting play.	John Keating checks the terrain while his opponent gets the scenario.

The inaugural WBC World at War: Eisenbach Gap tournament garnered 20 participants playing each of the games from Lock N Load's World at War series, including Eisenbach Gap; Blood & Bridges; and Death of the First Panzer.  The format was single elimination with a Mulligan skirmish preceding the first elimination round.  Player's could chose their own scenarios to play, but a list was also available for each round with suggestions from each game in the series.

In the Mulligan round on Thursday we had 12 participants with games including the scenarios First Moves and Maelstrom from Eisenbach Gap; First Contact from Blood & Bridges; and Blindsided from Death of the First Panzer.  The Soviets took it on the chin this round as all games ended with NATO victories including one rout where JR Tracy earned 12 tournament points based on net losses.

The official Round 1 got underway on Saturday playing for keeps with another five matches of First Moves, Blindsided and Rolling Hot.  The Soviets did manage two wins in this round, with the US and German players holding the line in the remainder. Of note was a Soviet win holding on in Rolling Hot after a particularly grueling game between Mike Nagel and Bill Watkins. There were no blowouts this time as all scores were relatively low for the winners advancing into the second round.

Round 2 had the Soviet players sweeping both matches of Wittman's Ghost, and splitting two matches of Rolling Hot.   The final four of John Keating, JR Tracy, Mark Pollele and Ted Drozd then proceeded to the semi-finals. 

John Keating and JR Tracy faced off in Hold the Line from Blood & Bridges.  JR led the Soviet 74th Guards Tank against John's British infantry with helicopter support.  After taking considerable losses, JR's T-80s were able to smash their way into Anhausen and capture the town for the win.

The other semi saw Mark Pollele take command of the German panzers and grenadiers against Ted Drozd's Soviet motor rifle troops in Counter Punch  from  Death of the First Panzer. This match had Mark's Germans march their way across the map to capture the Soviet occupied towns.   The Soviets took a beating - losing the HQ of each formation along the way and suffering paralysis as a result. While at times it looked like a lost cause, Ted held firm throughout.  In the end though, Mark's cautious approach cost him when time ran out for taking his objectives.

Thus the Final pitted JR Tracy against Ted Drozd. They chose Opening the Spigot from the Battles within Battles scenarios pack.   By random determination, JR took command of the 62nd Motor Rifle with Ted leading the 1/613 Panzer.  In this scenario the Soviets equipped with T-64 tanks have to take control of the town of Bendorf and clear the ridge line to the west of NATO troops.  Against this force, NATO has a company of M48 tanks and one British platoon equipped with Milan ATGMs.   Both players started with an aggressive stance.  Ted's Germans set up forward in support of the infantry in Bendorf while JR charged ahead with the first two activations of the game.  Taking some lumps from opportunity fire, the Soviets eliminated the British infantry.  Ted then counterattacked with his panzers by assaulting the forward Soviet units.  Both sides traded back and forth assaults taking heavy casualties.  By Turn 3 it was all over with only one German platoon left standing.  Ted Drozd came out on top in the closely contested battle.