Chicago Open 2007 AAR

AAR – Chicago Open – 2007

Ben Richardson, Mark DeVries and I drove over to Chicago to participate in the Chicago Open. The Open is run by tournament director David Goldman and this will be the second time I’ve made it over there. Mark talked me into going last year for the first time and I really enjoyed it. It is a much difference atmosphere then ASLOK because the format is much stricter instead of the open gaming that ASLOK is based on. There are time limits for each round and a specific set of scenarios that has to be selected from for each round. After each round everyone is re-seeded according to the results and then the next round begins. For the first round, seeding is done based on past tourney results and then the #1 plays #2, #3 plays #4 and so on. After the first round – everyone is re-seeded according to the results, and the new #1 plays the new #2 and so on. Everyone gets 10 points for a win, plus an additional point(s) for each opponent that a person you defeated has beaten. This way you might have several players whose records are 3 wins and 2 losses – but they will have different scores depending on how the successful the players they defeated are. As the weekend progress – your score may increase if your defeated opponents continue to win against others.

Friday April 13 – Round One & Two

After we check in I check the seeding for the first round. Last year I was seeded 64th out of 66 – I hadn’t been to Chicago before so I had no prior record. All the new players are seeded at the bottom. I ended up finishing 37th out of 66 with a 3-4 record. This year I’m seeded 44th out of 56 based on last year’s results.

My first round is against Corey Edwards from Wisconsin. We pick Orczy Square from the Schwerepunkt series. I’m the defending Russians trying to hold off his attacking Hungarians. Corey’s Hungarians need to clear three of five buildings of Good Order Russian MMC by the game end. I set up my defense to prevent him from coming down the center of the square where he has access to all five buildings. I also forget about the set-up restrictions and set-up my one AT gun illegally – so it never gets used in the scenario. Corey does a wide flanking end run which worries me because it catches me by surprise – and turns out to be a very effective attack. Fortunately I can recover and manage to prevent him from taking enough buildings. He takes two buildings fairly easily, but when my reinforcing T-34’s come in, they quickly take out several Zrinyi II’s (Hungarian Assault Guns) and prevent him from crossing the road into two of the other buildings. I win by holding him off in the center building. My win for me and fortunately Corey will go on to pick up several more wins on his own, adding points to my score, and getting him a final result of 19th with a 4-3 record. Fun game and Corey handles the loss well so it’s a good start for me. After the first round I’m 1 – 0 but forgot to check my seeding. I’m guessing I’m probably in the upper 20’s – maybe 28th or so.

Round two is against Todd Jones from Iowa. Like Corey, Todd is another very personable opponent and we have a great game. We pick Borodino Train Station from Journal 7. I play tested this for MMP but that was several years ago. I’ve won it as the Russians – but it has tended to favor the Germans over time. We dice for sides and I get the Russians and Todd gets the defending Germans. My first two turns go great. I make it across the road and take the Train Station losing only one ½ squad. However, Todd does a great defense and manages to escape the building with all of his troops (albeit broken), but more importantly, manages to get a blocking forces across the street which prevents me from putting on the coup-de-grace on the broken units. I overlook an opportunity to street fight his open top AC with an assault engineer squad and that will come back to haunt me. Meanwhile, Todd plays a great defense game assisted by two leader creations in CC (meaning I also lost those CC’s), a hero creations, and a string of a ½ dozen snake-eyes at key times. In the end I can’t punch the hole in his defense and achieve the second requirement of crossing the far road with 3 squads. Great game by Todd and a well earned win on his part. Todd goes on to earn a 4-3 record and place 18th, one place above Corey. I’m now 1-1 and end round two seeded at 22nd.

Saturday April 14 – Round Three, Four, and Five

Saturday morning finds me matched up against Bernie Howell from Texas. We pick Hamburg On The Lovat; a Dispatches from the Bunker scenario. Using the modified boards created by Jeff DeYoung (great job on those Jeff!). Dice give me the Germans defending against the attacking Russians. He gets a T-34/76 early model and a nasty flamethrowing OT-34. It’s an early 1942 scenario so no panzerfaust for me but I do get two fanatic tank hunting ½ squads that can start HIP. The first three turns Bernie crushes me. Methodically using the FT tank and very sound tactics, he blows through my first line of defense and almost cuts me off from getting by troops into the victory building; almost but not quite. By the end of turn 3 I’m thinking I can’t win this as the FT tank is devastating me and he’s lost almost no squads. But then starting on turn four things turn around for me. His T-34 immobilizes in an out of the way position due to a mech reliability failure taking him out of the attack. Then he gets ansy with the FT tank and tries to outflank me to get to the back of the building; right past one of my HIP tank hunting ½ squads I put there just in case he tried something like that. I miss the ATMM roll and he is moving, but the -1 for street fighting saves the day as my DR of 3 leaves a wrecked FT tank in the road. The biggest thorn in my side has just been pulled out. I luckily manage to get several units into the building. He finds out a turn too late that I have a fortified location in the only stairwell leading to the upper floors (he had rubbled the other one at pre-game set up) and by turn 5 realizes that he can’t possibly get to my upper floor units to take the building. I win by doing what I do best – not throwing in the towel early, and playing a strong fighting withdrawal. I finish round three 2-1 and, with 23 points find myself seeded 9th because Bernie had an earlier win and Corey ends up winning his next two games after losing to me. Bernie will go on to a 3-2 record with a 26th place finish.

SPLAT – this is the sound of me hitting the wall at this point. Strong opponents, fatigue, poor decisions, and dice that turn south on me help me slide downhill from this point on.

Round four is against Doug Bennett from Illinois. Doug wants to choose A104 “In Front Of The Storm”. Lots of people warn against it saying it’s too heavily balanced in favor of the Germans (the French have to cross a very exposed bridge so after some hesitation on my part, we agree that Doug will play the French and be given the French balance; exchanging a French 8-1 leader for a 9-2 leader. My hesitation is that I think that is a pretty extreme balance, but I weight the fact that he has to cross two hexes of open bridge terrain to win – no small feat in itself. Most of the game goes well for me and my game plan. Not great die rolls – but enough to do what I want to do. A mechanical reliability failure immobilizes 1 of his 3 AFV’s. Another one I Immobilize in CC. The third one has to now roll a task check every time he moves as he is radio-less. I slow him up the first few turns and withdraw my best troops across the bridge to the far side. A fortunate HOB roll gains me a hero – which I immediately pull back to the other side of the bridge. I leave a small blocking force of 4 squads and an ATR to delay him as long as possible. I know they are simply sacrificial lambs as they won’t be able to retreat across the bridge once they break – but with their 8 morale they should be able to hold him off.

Now I hit the wall….

He manages to get MC’s on everyone of my blocking force’s units. They all manage to fail their MC’s. In one turn my whole delaying force is gone. Should not have happened with 8 morale troops – but it does. I’m really not too worried though – I’m in great position with the hero & my own 9-2 leader with a 548 squad and MMG sitting behind a roadblock at the end of the bridge and that means he has to cross 3 open ground hexes with a minimum of a -4 DRM (-2 leader, -1 hero, -1 open ground). It could be as bad as -5 adding in the -1 for bridge and -1 for non-assault movement. He has only two turns left. I even ask him how in the world he thinks he can do this. I’m sure I’ve got this won.

Me and my big mouth….

First thing he does is take about 3-4 little 2 & 4FP +2 shots from various units across the canal. Nothing really happens so I’m thinking this is good because those units aren’t moving. Next he manages to roll his TC for the last tank – no problem, my AT gun has the first hex on to the bridge bore sited and LOS to the whole bridge. The tank rolls up and parks adjacent to the roadblock. My AT gun takes 1 shot – bounces the round, 2nd shot on ROF, bounces the shot, 3rd shot intensive firing; rolls a 12 and is eliminated.. He bounding first fires his CMG. He’s looking at 2fp +2 for roadblock. Rolling low he gets is PTC. No big deal – I think. Well, that is until I fail the ptc with my 9-2 and then my squad. Ratz – now I can’t lay a fire lane and I just lost the -2 modifier. Still, I’ve got the hero’s -1 and the bridge and open ground -1’s. Now he CX’s a French green squad down the road. OK, I take my shots as I get to lay residual. 1st hex my covering squad fires and lays 1 residual. I roll a 9 for NE. Now he goes to the first bridge hex – I fire my hero, pinned squad and mmg. 6pts with a -3 DRM Now he gets his 9-2 leader (the one he got from me courtesy of the balance) and two French squads – and arms them with Kevlar armor. Move out “Vite, vite!” shouts the French demi-god. These three units now proceed to waltz through three residuals. All at -2 or more. I manage to roll a 9, 10, 11. He passes any MC’s easily with his 9-2 leader and is now sitting under the tank adjacent to me. Hey, these guys should be dead – especially after the 2fp -3 shot in the second hex; the one I rolled a 10 on for NE. Anyway – it doesn’t get any better. He survive my final fire easily (I roll an 11), advanced into my hex and then proceeds to eliminate all my units with a “3” DR. I totally miss mine – rolling another 10 (I think). So there – he strolls through 3 negative residual shots and a final fire shot and then takes my guys out in CC. All against what should have been untouchable – a 9-2 ldr, hero, and 548 squad manning a MMG.

Unbelievable….

The game finishes only about 15 minutes from the start of the 5th round and I’m exhausted and still in shock. I’m now 2-2 and drop down to 20th place. Doug continues with his unbelievable fortune doing the same thing to my friend Ben and ends up 5-2 taking 6th place overall.

It doesn’t get any better

Round 5 matches me up with Tom Mueller from Wisconsin. We pick Lacking Coordination from Schwerepunkt. I’m the attacking Germans and Bob is defending buildings with Brits. I never seem to play these attacking scenarios well – and this one is no exception. Bob plays a great defense assisted by a razor thin Los check that reveals one of my 3 Tigers 19 hexes away and out of his covered arc through 2 orchard hindrances and a gap in two wood hexes. Spins, shoot APCR, rolls a 3 and hits. Scratch one Tiger. Later I slide a Tiger through a 1 hex wide gap and he nails that one on 1 MP in his LOS. Scratch Tiger 2. I’ve still got a plan. My 3rd Tiger is in position to take out enough CVP to win me the game (instead of taking buildings) – until he slides his spotting round over and directly converts to FFE: 1. First round critical hits the last Tiger. Well, after the last scenario I’m pretty numb to this. Earlier I gained a hero only to have him and another 548 squad get adjacent to a first fired 237 half squad who final fires with a 4 flat shot, rolls a 6 for a MC. My hero fails it and wounds – and then dies on the severity check of a 6. The squad of course rolls a 12 and ELR’s/Breaks/and reduces. They were supposed to take that building easily. This was pretty much how the whole scenario went. Game over. I’m 2-3 and drop a few more spots. Up to my room to catch some sleep. Tom will go 3-3 and end up in 25th place.

Sunday April 15 – Buddy Matches

Since round 7 goes pretty late and many of us travel quite a ways to get here – David Goldman uses buddy matches on Sunday. If you can’t stay all 7 rounds – two pairs of players partner up into two teams. One team plays the other and one person from each side plays the attacker and the other the defender using the same scenario. Your result counts for your buddy. So, if you win and your buddy wins – you get the points for both wins effectively giving you 7 rounds of playing – but the 7th round is your buddy. Ben and I are supposed to buddy up and play Mark DeVries and Gary Trezza – but because of the seeding, Mark and Gary can’t buddy up. So, Ben and Gary buddy up and Mark and I buddy up. Ben crushes Mark in less then an hour. Gary succeeds in every single attempt at everything – including 3 successful moving sD6 rolls in a row (rolled three 3’s in a row). I fail every single attempt at anything – MC, PTC, To Hit, Rally, anything under the sun that I need to roll for. I don’t even notice it – Gary notices it and, apologizing, points out that he’s never played a game like this before. He exits or kills enough VP in his first 3 player turns that he wins before my turn 3. I don’t even get my reinforcing T-34’s on the board – the game ends before then. Par for the course. I pick up two losses (mine and Mark’s) and then pack up for the drive home. Gary ends up 5-2 and in 8th place.

Last Thoughts

Well, clearly the competitive part was a disappointment. I ended up placing 37th – same as last year but with 1 less win. I was really hoping to at least get the 3 wins of last year and move up into the 20’s – but that didn’t happen. Regardless – I did have a great time getting to see a lot of ASL friends I only see at tourneys like this and got to play 6 other people I’ve never played before. It was a great time regardless of the results and I’m sure I’ll be back next year to avenge this year. I can also take some consolation that my two winds were against players who finished 26th and 19th and my losses were against players who finished 6th, 19th, and 25th. So all the games were at played in the upper ½ of the standings. The previous year I had a lot of games played at with the lower ½ of the standings – that’s why I could place higher this year even though I had one less win. The two games I won were worth more points in the end.

How much does chance affect the game? Well, in the alternate world – when Doug ran the bridge, even average dice rolls (7 or less) would have broken him if not even outright KIA’ing the French supermen. I win the scenario easily and pick up 14 pts for Doug. Ben and I do pair up and I pick up 13 points for Ben’s win over Mark (even if I still lost to Gary). Those 27 points are added to my now 4-3 record and 27 points from my other 2 wins (for a total of 54pts) and instead of placing 37th, I now place a very respectable 12th. So close – and much for fate.

Well there you have it. I’m planning on heading off to PJ Norton’s Officefest May 18 & 19 – so expect another blog around that time. Thanks to Mark DeVries and Ben Richardson – two great players and my roommates for the weekend. Mark ended up 3-4 and in 27th while Ben did the strongest of the West Michigan crew going 5-2 and placing 9th.