2019 Texas Team Tournament, June 20-23, Austin, TX

MAS01

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Hell, Wisconsin has TWO towns named Paris. A little longer drive though.

Have a safe return, Jim!!
 

Sparafucil3

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I made it home safely. Even got 12 hours of sleep last night. Now to find some ASL, :) -- jim
 

rreinesch

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Folks have packed up their gear and headed for home. Hopefully having had a good time in their trip to Austin and the Team Tournament. Here are the final results:

10-3 Champion: Matt Shostak
9-2 Runner Up: Sam Tyson
SK Champion: Kevin Boles
Team Champions: Matt Shostak, Dave Mareske, Brian Ward
Major Johnson: Matt Shostak
Audie Murphy: Stephen McBee
Col. Klink: Dan Best
Close Combat Award: David Cheever
Ferocity Fest: Allied Winner: Sam Tyson, Runner up: Chris Kubik
Axis Winner: John Hyler, Runner up: Dave Mareske

It was the Matt Shostak show this year. We also had up to 12 people playing SK this year with 11 of them requesting to be a part of the SK mini tournament, which required some fancy bracketing and the addition of a 4th round. In the end we had 75 people this year between registrants and walk-ins. I'll have the website updated shortly for 2020 with the information for next years event as soon as I get the contracts signed with the hotel.
 

Danno

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Congrats to Matt! The trifecta of the Texas Team Tournament.

A big thank you to Rick for putting on such a great tournament. I had a great time as usual and thank all 8 of my opponents for some really good games.

Danno
 

commissarmatt

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This sounds really good. Can't wait. Made all the final reservations last night. Wouldn't mind a recommendation for some great BBQ, as I will probably rent a car this time.

Had a blast last year. Sure it will be the same or better this year.

Mark P.

Good to meet you at the tourney, Mark.
 

Mark Pandori

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Nice to meet (and play) you, Matt. It was good for me, and impressive, to see what real ASL skill and experience can do. (ahem, take me apart at the joints...). I learned a lot, playing you.

Hopefully, a rematch next year that includes me putting up better resistance.!

Thanks to Rick for putting on an event that is friendly and fun. It's an annual for me. Thanks to Dave Reinking for one of the most unusual ends to an ASL game (in a loss for me). Hopefully, either you or I will share that snake die roll and what it enacted. I think it is an all-timer. I know I had good dice in the middle of that game, but it isn't how many lows you roll,,,,,it's when you roll them.

Thanks Doyle, and Bob also, for fun games. Congrats Bob, on being a new grandfather.

Mark
 

commissarmatt

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Here's a brief recap of my tourney. I won't try to go into a play-by-play of every game because I doubt I could remember it all well enough anyway, but I'll try to hit the highlights. As usual, Rick Reinesch did an excellent job organizing and running this tournament. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for doing this for so many years at such a high level.

First game was The Trap at Targul Frumos, which was the Ferocity Fest selection this year, where I was matched with Dan Best. I'm glad I finally got to lock horns with you, Dan! Ferocity Fest is a mini-tourney idea that we picked up from the Houston guys. The idea is to turn in the best performance for your side. So naturally you want to win the scenario, but you want to win it by a bigger margin than the other players who are playing the same side in other games. This is measured by scoring points for a variety of things during the game. Winning the scenario scores some points, as does scoring casualties, but also other 'ferocious' things your troops may do during the scenario, such as killing an AFV in close combat, scoring a KIA with a flamethrower, etc. And when doing those things, to score you must utter some ferocious words as indicated on the scorecard in order for it to count. Great fun. Anyway, we diced for sides and I got the Germans. I put my 9-2 with two squads, and MMG, HMG combo in a 2-squad foxhole behind the two-hex stone building in the perimeter. Also with them was the flakpanzer. This spot was very difficult to see from the Russian starting positions, but would treat adjacent troops to a 40-fp facial directed by the 9-2, and followed up by the flak, so it was intended to be, well, ferocious. The set DC was directly in front of them in that building also for good measure. Dan set up the Russians to come from all directions and swarm the board-3 perimeter from multiple angles. His right hook (my left) took longer to get there over the hills, though, and in the meanwhile the German defenders put a major hurting on his left flank and center. He moved a stack of 3 squads and a leader into some woods on a level-1 hill, and it turned out my 9-2 kill stack could see them, so they were promptly all broken and routed away. The next turn, my StuG sallied forth to mess with their rout paths. I can't recall if his hilltop T-34 shot at the StuG or not, but in any case the StuG forced the broken stack to rout right back to those same woods, where they were promptly shredded into oblivion by the 9-2 group in the next fire phase. On my left, my 75L gun on the hilltop to the left managed to immobilize two T-34s as they came into view on the nearby hill. One was in a bad spot, so it was as good as a mission kill. The two JS-2 came on with the intent to punish the feisty StuG for its insolence, but the StuG was able to survive via motion attempt, and then circle around later and plug one of them in the side or rear for a shock that ultimately turned into a kill. Nicely done, little StuG! Meanwhile in the village proper, the JgPz was in a stone building. I thought it would be my safest unit, but a short exchange of fire with an SU-85 left the SU-85 the victor. Other highlights included setting off the set DC on a 6-2-8 right next to the 9-2 group, and luckily there was no falling rubble. The big German reinforcement group came on, and things got progressively worse for the Russians, so Dan eventually threw in the towel. Good game Dan. Rick arranged for all of these Ferocity Fest matches to use the Russian balance (because ROAR showed it favoring the Germans), which was to delete the hero from the German at-start OB. Several of us FF players discussed this afterwards and wondered about properly balancing this scenario. It's simply too fun a situation to not play it, but I think the Russians need help. My gut feeling right now is to restore the hero to the Germans, but make their reinforcement group enter a turn later. I think that ought to do it.

Next up on Thursday I had the pleasure of matching up with Bob Zinselmeyer from our north Texas group. I'd never played him before either. He selected FrF93 Wiener Walzer from my list of candidate scenarios and we diced for sides. I got the Germans. This one is a bit weird. The Germans must all enter aboard halftracks, using platoon movement, and all in a narrow area covered by the Russians to start. But they must head past the initial Russian screening force to a couple of bridges, because the victory hinges around having a unit near one of the bridges while not losing a certain number of AFVs. Opposing at first, the Russians have a 45L gun, a BT-7A which can set up HIP, and 5 squads with a 50* mortar and two MMGs. Later they get reinforced a couple of times, first with a platoon of infantry and a couple of T-34 M41, then another T-34 M41 and a BT-7 M37. The initial German force is 8 squads that have to come in on those halftracks, mostly SPW 251/1s, but they later get five PzIIIH tanks to help out. I figured the only chance for the Germans was the rush past the screening force as fast as possible and just hope the defenders don't kill too many vehicles on the first turn, after which the platoon movement restrictions are lifted. That's more or less exactly what happened. Bob didn't roll well on the opening shots, killing only 1 halftrack I think. The rest blew past the defenders and got to the bridges and tried to hunker down. The rest of the game saw the Germans trying to hold on while being attacked from both sides, but the reinforcing PzIIIHs really helped out, and eventually it was too much for the commies. Good game by Bob, but he couldn't overcome poor shooting in the first defensive fire.

My last Thursday game was the renowned The Puma Prowls against Paul Hornbeck. The number of scenarios played is a factor in the Major Johnson award, so it's good to try to play a little extra. We diced for sides and I got the Russians. A sneaky LOS and a bit of luck put him behind by one vehicle early on, and he could not overcome it. For such a simple scenario, The Puma Prowls has surprising depth to it. I've played it many times, as it's a great one to have on hand for a game day or tourney when you want to get one more quickie in. It's dicey of course, but fun.

Friday paired me with Felipe Zavala, another great guy I'd never played before. It was great chatting with you at lunch, Felipe! He picked FrF97 Wrecking the Rentals from my candidate list, and dice gave me the attacking Russians. For the second time in a row, I was the attacker in a scenario where it seems you have to try to storm by a screening force and take your lumps, hoping for the best. And again things turned out pretty well. His hidden Marder revealed itself to hit a Sherman but bounced the shell off the armor. The Sherman quickly moved out of the covered arc of the Marder, which was in woods. The Marder did manage to nail a Valentine in the next fire phase, but the Sherman then wrecked the Marder. Having bulled their way forward in to the victory area, the rest of the game was a about trying to evict those troops that had gotten in there. Again overcoming the initial setback was a bit too tough for the Germans. Good game, Felipe.

Next up was Mark Pandori, continuing the trend of matching up with opponents I'd never played before. Mark picked SP243 Konrad Three and we got going. This one is a 1945 match featuring IS-2m tanks vs. King Tigers, along with some other things. My German attackers had to essentially clear two bridge areas of Russians. That they did, as the Russian tanks fought valiantly but came out on the short end against the Tigers and Panthers. Good game, Mark, and nice meeting you.

Game three on Friday had me playing Fred Schwarz, another new opponent. He picked The Zebra Mission and dice gave me the attacking Americans. Another late-war action, this is a nice tourney-sized scenario featuring a Pershing and a couple of Shermans against a Nashorn and Wirblewind supporting a motley collection of infantry trying to hold out in some stone buildings. Fred played a good game, but the Nashorn lost HE early, was stunned by infantry fire, and then knocked out by the Pershing (if I recall correctly). Then the Pershing was free to dispatch the Wirblewind. American smoke and firepower carried the day, but I almost snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by allowing an escape route for the last German holdouts, who won an ambush and withdrew in the final victory building. Luckily there was still a turn to play and they were not afforded that courtesy the next time around. Good game Fred.

Saturday I drew Stephen McBee, another player I'd never played before, in the quarters of the individual championship bracket. Stephen picked SP114 Seizing Gyulamajor which is another late-war slugfest set in 1945 in Hungary, so again we had heavy metal in play. We messed up several rules in this game but it was still a good one. I think I grokked the scenario poorly, attacking lengthwise through board three rather than getting my King Tigers to the left to shell the hills from a distance and win the showdown with the Stalins. But two Russian squads were set up forward on one of the hills, and they were killed on turn one. Later a sneaky LOS let another King Tiger brew up a T-34/85. Over time, the German firepower began to tell and eventually attrition got to the Russians. When the Stalins finally started going down due to Tiger fire and panzerfausts, the handwriting was on the wall. Highlights included the 81* mortar halftrack scoring a critical hit to kill the Russian artillery observer in the big stone building, not long before it too was destroyed by long-range Russian fire. In retrospect this game was probably a little too big for an elimination round, but it was a good, fun game nonetheless. Good game, Stephen.

The semis put me up against the renowned Dave Lamb, last year's tourney champ. We picked SP154 On the Road to Hell. This one is also late-war, this time featuring a British-American attack against some German paratroopers trying to hang onto a crossroads with the help of a JadgPanther. Dave didn't find much luck in this scenario at all. He had 3 Shermans to make an initial swarming attack against the TD, and sent two toward its open side (it had set up behind a wall), but that went poorly when an 8+2 stunned one of them, while the other missed (I think). Anyway, the JagdPanther managed to kill both of them in the next fire phase (retaining rate), then later was able to turn and kill the third which was on the other side. Despite all this, it was looking like it was shaping up to be an allied win, because Dave kept his troops pressing on all sides. Eventually the Germans were able to fan out enough, and the British and Americans weren't able to knock enough of them out to clear the road. Good game, Dave. The majority of the luck was on my side, but you played well enough to almost pull it out anyway, the mark of a champ.

That put me in the final, but I still wanted to get another game in, and longtime buddy and grandfather of Austin ASL Mike Seningen was available. We picked one of the smaller ones we could find, WCW4 Cat Becomes the Mouse. I didn't play especially well, but this is a small dicey one in any event. His Firefly knocked out one Tiger before going down in flames, but the rest of his force was no match for the remaining German tanks and they were able to force their exit for a victory. Hey, it's dicey but I'm grateful for any win against Mike, one of the best players around.

The final was against Sam Tyson, one of the stalwarts of Texas ASL and Bounding Fire Productions. For a change of pace, at least for me, we wound up with an early-war scenario, SP254 Propitious Arrival. This one is in France in 1940, and is a points contest where each side scores points by having armor on certain hill hexes, and also for controlling a few stone buildings in a little village. It's sort of a meeting engagement where the Germans get to move first with four tin cans to try to hold off the French in the early game before some higher-quality reinforcements arrive. The French get ten FCM 36 tanks which are surprisingly good for this time of the war. The Germans start with 4 tanks, then get 5 more on turn 2, all of which have B11 for their main guns. It seemed to me that the most important thing for the German tin cans was to try to prevent the French infantry from getting to the village before the reinforcing German infantry. They succeeded in this task, breaking and pinning a squad or three here and there on the first French move. But Sam alertly sent his MMG, squad, and leader to the top of a level-2 hill, and his other tanks to the hilltops where they would count for victory. The next turn the German tanks malfunctioned 3 (or was it 4?) guns on their initial shots. Yowch. The FCMs killed a couple more. It was looking ugly for sure. So ugly, in fact, that I was truly just one or two more bad results away from throwing in the towel. The dice, however, turned right then. A couple of lucky kills of FCMs, followed by a couple of French tanks malfunctioning their guns, changed the game from "I can't see how I can win this" to "so you're saying there's still a chance?". The dice continued this trend to the point where it started to look like a good German chance. I still managed to make some mistakes which Sam alertly capitalized on, but the dice would not cooperate with him in a couple crucial spots. Good game as always, Sam.

Fun tourney. I'm glad I got to play so many guys I'd never matched up with before. Rick even amped up the Major Johnson trophy. I hope someone took a picture of it. He mounted under glass a model of a German rail gun, made by Jeff Toreki. It looks terrific. It sure seemed like everyone was having a good time, and we had a really strong showing for the Starter Kit as well.

Looking forward to the North Texas Shootout in November, Ed Beekman!
 
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