Play Games. Have Fun.

Panzer North Africa

Nashcon, August 14-17 in Nashville TN

Millenium Con, October 16-19 in Temple TX

     The two games of “Inattentive Column” played out very differently. In one, Ted Drozd’s Canadians led off their ambush of the poorly-armored Soviet transport vehicles with deadly point-blank .50cal fire from their M113s but left their infantry behind too far to the rear and were overcome one-by-one by Ron Jongeling’s Soviet tanks. In the other game, Rob Schoenen’s Canadians fared far better, avoiding Steven Proksch’s Soviet return fire and darting behind cover, leading Soviets to advance cautiously until time ran short and forced an ill-fated rush for the board edge.
     In Round 2 Ron’s defending Panzer Grenadiers defeated Doug’s second-echelon Soviets in “Another Desperate Salient”. Meanwhile, Rob outshot Ted in “Shootout at Schesslitz”.
     Round 3 included a game of MBT’s sister game Panzer as both Ted and Doug had bought a copy of the new North Africa expansion at the vendors and wanted to play it. In the other game, Ron defeated Steven in “Shootout at Schesslitz”.
     The Final featured Ron riding his hot streak against former Avaloncon champion Rob. The sleep-deprived contestants chose Scenario a fairly quick meeting engagement scenario from the British module; Ron advanced his forces in three columns while Rob advanced in two. Ron’s rightmost group held up Rob’s left on a hillside while his other two columns turned on Rob’s right, mercilessly shredding large portions of it into tiny pieces of metal. Rob didn’t foresee his afternoon getting any better and conceded after a few turns of punishment, handing Ron his first MBT tournament victory.
     Many thanks are due to game designer Jim Day for sponsoring the tournament year after year and, of course, making the game in the first place!

MBT WBC 2024 After Action Report

New GM, New Scenario, New Champion!  

     This year’s MBT tournament featured a new GM in Jonathan Squibb, taking over for Rob Schoenen who had run MBT for the past four conventions (plus several in the 1st edition of the game going back to Avaloncon) and giving Rob the ability to spend more of his Friday and Saturday actually playing games. As all the rounds had an even number of entrants this year, it was the new gamemaster’s turn again to sit out the fight.
     The tournament brought back Rob’s scenarios from last year, also adding two new ones from Jonathan. The first, “Inattentive Column”, is an ambush scenario with a small number of Canadians taking on a dense road column of poorly-trained Soviets, with the battle intended to indirectly model some of the fights early in the Russo-Ukraine War. The second is “Shootout at Schesslitz II”, a remake of one of Rob’s 1st edition scenarios from Avaloncon that features quick play and tank maneuver.
     The 1st round saw 6 entrants compete in three games, two of “Inattentive Column” and one of “Shootout at Schesslitz”. The Schesslitz game included Johnny Wilson, a new entrant who had joined the tournament after taking interest in the demo, with past champion Doug Smith showing him the ropes in his first game; although Doug demonstrated why he’s a past champion, Johnny learned quickly and the battle was not entirely one-sided. The battlefield ended up littered with the flaming wrecks of both sides.