paths of glory [Updated October 2005]  

Guns of August Pre-Con

2005 WBC Report    

 2006 Status: pending 2006 GM commitment

Tom Drueding, MA

2005 Champion


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AREA Ratings

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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

WAM Event History
2003     David Dockter     32
2004     Rob Hassard     11
2005    Marvin Birnbaum     16

PBeM Event History
2000    Stefan Mecay     40
2004    Stephen Valkyser     68

 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  Tom Drueding       MA    05    178
  2.  Peter Reese        VA    05    150
  3.  Rob Hassard        NJ    04    145
  4.  Marvin Birnbaum    NY    05    132
  5.  Nick Anner         NY    05    108
  6.  David Dockter      MN    05    106
  7.  Jim Falling       MI     05     81
  8.  Stephan Valkyser Germany 04     60
  9.  John Brown        VA     04     36
 10.  Bob Heinzmann     FL     05     30
 11.  James Pei         TX     04     30
 12.  Stefan Mecay      TX     04     28
 13.  Josh Alexander    MI     04     24
 14.  Ed McGran         WA     05     18
 15.  Steve Worrel      NC     03     18
 16.  Pat Mirk          FL     05     12
 17.  Chris Byrd        CT     05     12
 18.  Don Stone         NC     99     10
 19.  Andrew Maly       MD     00      9
 20.  Steve Brooks      FL     03      8
 21.  Pete Rohn         IL     04      6
 22.  Hank Burkhalter   TN     02      6
 23.  Nick Firer        WI     00      6
 24.  Don Johnson       VA     99      6
 25.  Ric Manns         IN     01      5
 26.  Dennis Culhane    PA     99      4
 27.  Steve Huskey      KS     00      3
 28.  Joe DiCamillo     PA     99      3
 29.  Rob Winslow       NY     99      2
 30.  Paul Horvath      CA     00      1
 31.  Paul Abrahamse    MI     99      1
          

2005 Laurelists

Jim Falling, MI
2nd

Pete Reese, VA
3rd

David Dockter, MN
4th

Pat Mirk, FL
5th

Bob Heinzmann, FL
6th


Past Winners

Donald Stone, VA
1999

Peter Reese, VA
2000, 2002

Dave Dockter, MN
2001

Rob Hassard, NJ
2003

Nick Anner, NY
2004


The Opening Guns ...

34 Paths of Glory Generals battled for three Swiss preliminary rounds and the best eight advanced for the quarter finals and the remaining three rounds.

Tom Drueding won the overall tournament with five wins and one draw, beating the up-to-then undefeated GM, Jim Falling. Jim bid a whopping four VP (the average bid being "two") to play the Allies against Drueding's Central Powers. Jim based the higher bid on the fact that a draw counted as an Allied win in the Final. Tom had also played the CP powers in the 2004 WBC finals, albeit coming in second to Nick Anner in that contest.

Tom opened with the Guns of August event. (The GOA event was popular this tournament with 86% of the CP players leading with this card.) The CP took a defensive position in the West but were unprepared for an early Turn 4 entry of Italy. Although the CP did make a foray into Italy it was quickly stopped and the front settled down to the mountain line for the rest of the game.

The Serbian armies held out in the Skopje mountains until the middle game with the help of Italian reinforcements. Eventually, they fell when German armies were SR'ed into the Balkans. The Balkan front made a return with the Greek Entry and Salonika events. At one point in the fighting near Salonika, a total of nine different nationalities were in the area of a six space range.

Jim was exasperated when a sixth action surround attack on a German army and two corps at Monastir failed due to a 1/6 chance miss on the attack. This calculated gamble was at the expense of a BR reinforcement card, which slowed down the Allied attrition in France.

Yudenitch arrived early but never got momentum to become any factor in the game. A lot of time and energy was spent in the Near East fighting with Allenby's Army which was able to break the line but never got further than Jerusalem. The game was decided in the East where the CP eventually concentrated their efforts to get the revolution going. Although the Russian armies quickly evaporated, the CP was helped by good card draws to get the Fall of the Tsar and finally the Treaty of Brest Litovsk off on the last turn. The CP never played either Walter or H-L Take Command and was able to cycle these "5" Ops cards through the deck very often. This was Tom Drueding's fourth trip to a WBC Finals in five years but his first victory. Jim Falling had played and lost in the 2000 Final.

In the semifinal round between Jim Falling and Pete Reese, an aggressive and lucky Plan 17 attack by Jim's Allies was able to push Pete's Germans back towards the Rhine. This fit into Pete's withdrawal overall plan except for the need to play Place of Execution for war status against a French fort. Given that the Guns of August was not played as an event and that Jim was able to entrench quickly in Koblenz and Strasbourg, this meant that the CP would be mathematically unable to reach Total War status. Former champion Pete Reese offered a concession on Turn 9.

This year the tournament pitted the top half of the field ranked by AREA ratings versus the bottom half. Of the 17 opening games, 14 were won by the seeded players. The three other games proved that you can't always judge a player by his AREA cover.

The tournament format allowed draws and even the controversial Peace Terms rule during the prelim rounds. Of the 57 games played, Peace Terms were offered in only one game and were not accepted. There were six drawn games, which provided a better tournament point record than an outright loss for those players.

Bid average 2.06 VP to play the Allied side. The victories were divided 50% between CP and Allied sides, although the Allied side won at a greater percentage in the earlier rounds.


PBeM Results:

VALKYSER TRIUMPHANT IN POG: Stephan Valkyser of Germany defeated Virginian John Brown in the final of BPA's 2nd PBeM Paths of Glory tournament to claim top honors in the 68-player field. Defending champion Stefan Mecay of Texas finished third, ahead of James Pei (TX) 4th, Marvin Birnbaum (NY) 5th and Rob Hassard (NJ) 6th.

 GM      Jim Falling  [4th Year]   NA  
    Jimbofal@sbcglobal.net   (NA)

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