Yoper
08-24-2005, 06:53 PM
This is the AAR that I sent to the WBC convention director to be posted on the BPA website. Here is the link to the event preview that I wrote and eventually it is also where this AAR will be posted.
http://www.boardgamers.org/yearbook/a&apge.htm
This is the link to the BPA website:
http://www.boardgamers.org/
And now the AAR-
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Charles Who?
While player participation was less than in years past, there were still enough top players in attendance to make it extremely tough for Charles Michalek, a WBC first-timer, to climb to the top of the Axis & Allies heap.
After the dust had cleared on a long day of pool play, Charles emerged from the toughest of the four pools to join three prior champs, Kevin Keller, Patrick Mirk, and Philip Shea, in the single elimination play the next day.
Pool play had some interesting moments-
- Kevin Keller came close to losing his first round game to 10-year old Alex Gregorio.
- Ian Lange handed prior laurel winner Jeff King a quick loss with a highly improbable amphibious assault of Germany by the United Kingdom.
- Veteran player Joe Powell had a chance to move on to SE play but lost a tight head-to-head match against Charles Michalek in the third round.
- James D. Long was also in the running for advancement from the same pool until a loss in the third round knocked him out of contention.
- James H. Long (son of James D.) lost in the second round of pool play to Kevin Keller but still ended up 2-1, giving him the best record among the non-advancing players.
- Second-generation WBCers that played in the tournament were: Alex Gregorio, John Schoose, Kevin Broh-Kahn, Vincent Sinigaglio, Ian Lange, and Teddy Lange.
Promotional swag provided by Xeno Games, Table Tactics, and the GM was a raffled off during each round. Especially gratifying (to the GM) was the fact that Alex Gregorio played three rounds and was rewarded with a copy of Axis & Allies Revised in the last drawing. This happened much to the consternation of Patrick Mirk, who was the one “shark” not to receive a prize in any of the drawings and was the one who drew out Alex’s name for the last prize.
Single-Elimination Highlights-
In the first semi-final match between highly decorated Kevin Keller and seasoned veteran Patrick Mirk, Patrick receiving 3 IPCs for being the Axis. Early on Kevin invaded Norway with the United Kingdom and as a result left the Home Island lightly defended. That coupled with the German naval might being in a position to exploit the situation spelled an early end to the Allied cause. Patrick’s Germans invaded and conquered England. While the Western Allies temporarily displaced Germany from London, the Kriegsmarine was not squashed and England was once again taken over. At that time Kevin’s Allies conceded the game.
The second semi-final had two-time defending champ Philip Shea playing the new guy, Charles Michalek. In a grinding match that really worked the gray matter, Charles targeted the peripheral Japanese Victory Territories (VTs) (East Indies, Borneo, and the Philippine Islands) with the United Kingdom. Philip’s Germans took the Caucasus and were staging to take Moscow while the Japanese had reached all the way to Novosibirsk. The win went to Charles because of his holding 13 VTs versus 11 VTs for Philip as the game reached the time limit.
The finals then pitted Charles and Patrick. Patrick once again took the Axis, this time receiving 4 IPCs. In a theme that played itself out in four of the five victories that he accumulated, Charles proceeded to play with an eye on the VTs at the expense of IPCs.
In the second to last round, Patrick finished the Japanese turn with a VT lead of 15 to 9. But by the end of the last round, the game came down to the United States making two tight amphibious assaults the steal the game. The first attack, into Australia, was an armor and an infantry against one defending infantry. But the second was a lone transport being sent to Borneo with two infantry aboard to battle a lone Japanese fighter. Needing a hit in the first round against the fighter to have any real chance to succeed, Charles rolled a 1 and got the win.
In the four games that Charles won by tight scores, the Victory Territory count in each game was 13-11. But his average IPC deficit was more than 7 per game as the Allies and in his lone game as the Axis it was 3.
Tournament Stats-
A total of 23 games were played with an even split of 10 wins for each side in pool play and of the three games in SE play there were two wins for the Allies and one for Axis.
The bidding was quite even in its distribution between the Axis (7), Allies (8), and no bid/zero bid (8). The Axis getting a bid went 3-4 (W-L). The Allies getting a bid went 5-3. The no bid games went 5 wins for the Axis and 3 wins for the Allies.
Six of the games ended in one side conceding early. Three more games were stopped because the winner occupied 18 or more VTs. The other fourteen games were played out to time limit and the wins were evenly split between the Axis and the Allies. No game ended in a VT tie, as such there was no need to go to the IPC tiebreaker.
The average number of rounds for a non-concession game was a shade under six (5.88). With rounds being 4.5 hours long and the cutoff point for starting a new round being at the 4 hour mark, I think that this is an acceptable lower limit for speed of play. Hopefully, as player gain familiarity with the new version of the game, we may get more rounds in and see more games reach the threshold for a VT win. Then again, players may get better at hanging in and pushing the game to the time limit anyway.
For any other information about the event, email me at the address below.
Thanks to all who participated and I hope to see you next year!
************************************************** *******
http://www.boardgamers.org/yearbook/a&apge.htm
This is the link to the BPA website:
http://www.boardgamers.org/
And now the AAR-
************************************************** *******
Charles Who?
While player participation was less than in years past, there were still enough top players in attendance to make it extremely tough for Charles Michalek, a WBC first-timer, to climb to the top of the Axis & Allies heap.
After the dust had cleared on a long day of pool play, Charles emerged from the toughest of the four pools to join three prior champs, Kevin Keller, Patrick Mirk, and Philip Shea, in the single elimination play the next day.
Pool play had some interesting moments-
- Kevin Keller came close to losing his first round game to 10-year old Alex Gregorio.
- Ian Lange handed prior laurel winner Jeff King a quick loss with a highly improbable amphibious assault of Germany by the United Kingdom.
- Veteran player Joe Powell had a chance to move on to SE play but lost a tight head-to-head match against Charles Michalek in the third round.
- James D. Long was also in the running for advancement from the same pool until a loss in the third round knocked him out of contention.
- James H. Long (son of James D.) lost in the second round of pool play to Kevin Keller but still ended up 2-1, giving him the best record among the non-advancing players.
- Second-generation WBCers that played in the tournament were: Alex Gregorio, John Schoose, Kevin Broh-Kahn, Vincent Sinigaglio, Ian Lange, and Teddy Lange.
Promotional swag provided by Xeno Games, Table Tactics, and the GM was a raffled off during each round. Especially gratifying (to the GM) was the fact that Alex Gregorio played three rounds and was rewarded with a copy of Axis & Allies Revised in the last drawing. This happened much to the consternation of Patrick Mirk, who was the one “shark” not to receive a prize in any of the drawings and was the one who drew out Alex’s name for the last prize.
Single-Elimination Highlights-
In the first semi-final match between highly decorated Kevin Keller and seasoned veteran Patrick Mirk, Patrick receiving 3 IPCs for being the Axis. Early on Kevin invaded Norway with the United Kingdom and as a result left the Home Island lightly defended. That coupled with the German naval might being in a position to exploit the situation spelled an early end to the Allied cause. Patrick’s Germans invaded and conquered England. While the Western Allies temporarily displaced Germany from London, the Kriegsmarine was not squashed and England was once again taken over. At that time Kevin’s Allies conceded the game.
The second semi-final had two-time defending champ Philip Shea playing the new guy, Charles Michalek. In a grinding match that really worked the gray matter, Charles targeted the peripheral Japanese Victory Territories (VTs) (East Indies, Borneo, and the Philippine Islands) with the United Kingdom. Philip’s Germans took the Caucasus and were staging to take Moscow while the Japanese had reached all the way to Novosibirsk. The win went to Charles because of his holding 13 VTs versus 11 VTs for Philip as the game reached the time limit.
The finals then pitted Charles and Patrick. Patrick once again took the Axis, this time receiving 4 IPCs. In a theme that played itself out in four of the five victories that he accumulated, Charles proceeded to play with an eye on the VTs at the expense of IPCs.
In the second to last round, Patrick finished the Japanese turn with a VT lead of 15 to 9. But by the end of the last round, the game came down to the United States making two tight amphibious assaults the steal the game. The first attack, into Australia, was an armor and an infantry against one defending infantry. But the second was a lone transport being sent to Borneo with two infantry aboard to battle a lone Japanese fighter. Needing a hit in the first round against the fighter to have any real chance to succeed, Charles rolled a 1 and got the win.
In the four games that Charles won by tight scores, the Victory Territory count in each game was 13-11. But his average IPC deficit was more than 7 per game as the Allies and in his lone game as the Axis it was 3.
Tournament Stats-
A total of 23 games were played with an even split of 10 wins for each side in pool play and of the three games in SE play there were two wins for the Allies and one for Axis.
The bidding was quite even in its distribution between the Axis (7), Allies (8), and no bid/zero bid (8). The Axis getting a bid went 3-4 (W-L). The Allies getting a bid went 5-3. The no bid games went 5 wins for the Axis and 3 wins for the Allies.
Six of the games ended in one side conceding early. Three more games were stopped because the winner occupied 18 or more VTs. The other fourteen games were played out to time limit and the wins were evenly split between the Axis and the Allies. No game ended in a VT tie, as such there was no need to go to the IPC tiebreaker.
The average number of rounds for a non-concession game was a shade under six (5.88). With rounds being 4.5 hours long and the cutoff point for starting a new round being at the 4 hour mark, I think that this is an acceptable lower limit for speed of play. Hopefully, as player gain familiarity with the new version of the game, we may get more rounds in and see more games reach the threshold for a VT win. Then again, players may get better at hanging in and pushing the game to the time limit anyway.
For any other information about the event, email me at the address below.
Thanks to all who participated and I hope to see you next year!
************************************************** *******