Friday 23rd February saw catch a 6.50 am flight out of Heathrow to get to
Copenhagen in time for the first round of the 2001 Scandinavian Open. On
arriving at the venue met up with Aussie Iain MacKay and New Zealander
Aaron Cleavin and repaired to the pub for lunch.
The tournament gets underway at 2 pm with 43 players representing 8
different nationalities. First round I play Deadeye Smoyer against
Johannes Gustafsson. Johannes has only been playing about a year and
although he has learned some good tactics the pace of his American attack
is too to threaten the victory building.
1-0
Send game is 'Late for
Mass' against Niels Larsen. The
ASO uses the Australian bidding system for all the scenarios and
having played this scenario recently I bid G3 for the Germans (lose
a lmg, replace 8-1 with 8-0, and remove the German armoured leader). Niels
played a very competent attack but although he entered the church
he could never get the into the second church hex which was the fortified
location. The German reinforcement arrived just in time and when the
Panzer IV came on a turn later to start cutting the British rout paths it
was game over.
2-0
In the Saturday morning round I end up playing the revised version of
Tiger 222 against Chris Liewendahl of Sweden. Chris clearly thinks that
this is pro-German with his G2 bid. However he makes
headway only very slowly (despite the M10 breaking
its gun on the second shot) but fails to do some basic things like use
reconisance by fire for search for the
hidden units. Nevertheless at the end of the last
German turn he has exceeded to ponts need for the
win (32 required and he has 39). However on the last turn the American
eliminates all three of the Schwimwaggen (sp) who are overstacked in a
ingle hex and the a 227/bazooka crew creep within two hexes of the Tigers
flank and dispatch it with an advancing fire shot to snatch victory back
for the American.
3-0
Saturday afternoon I meet my nemesis in Georges Tournemie the Frenchman
who has won the ASO in each of the last two years. George and I had played
two years previously when he won the tournament and
I had come in second. This year we are playing
'House of Pain' with George defending with the Germans. Things are very
close for the first three turns with the British getting onto the second
board while only losing a single half squad and a Sherman. However Georges
has done an excellent job of extracting
his German force virtually intact. And is about to make me pay a heavy
price for crossing the street. A number of low DR an 1 and 2 fp attacks
cripple the British and when a 1 fp fire lane attack
rolls snake eyes' on 9-2 and 458, followed by yatzee on random selection I
reckon someone is trying to tell me something and call it a day.
3-1
Saturday evening and it is time for some PTO style action. The scenario
in question is 'Meiktila Breakin' and I am playing another Swede Patrick
Hyvarinen. We both bid J2 but I roll lower to get the Japanese defender.
This is an interesting scenario with quite a few options for the defender.
I elect to set up all the Japanese as far back as is reasonably possible
and am happy to see Patrick waste a little time searching the forward
concealment terrain. However I am less happy to have him blow away one of
my six Japanese squads on the first turn. The Japanese have a HMG in this
scenario which I have set up in a rear woods hex. This is to prove the MG
from hell as after the crew break twice they then rally at the first
attempt and go on several rate of fire sprees. They malfunction the gun
three times and on each occasion repair it at the first attempt, and even
break a couple of units while shrouded in +3 SMOKE. Patrick does well to
reach the victory buildings in three turns but the combination of the HMG
and a particularly cunning use of the Japanese HIP capability keep him out
of that building. When prior to the last British turn the Japanese emerge
from the tunnels associated with the two bunkers to retake two building it
is all over.
4-1
The final game is Kampfgruppe at Karachev against Bjarne Hansen
probably the top Danish player. Bjarne and I have played several times
before both in Copenhagen and at 'Intensive Fire' in the UK and have a 2-2
record against each other. Bjarne has the Russian attacker and does a good
job of grinding his way, forward although he perhaps takes a little too
long to clear the wood. Never the less the Germans fall back in generally
good order inflicting a few infantry casualties in the process. This
is greatly assisted by a sniper taking care of the Russian 9-2 leader and
snake eyes eliminating an assault engineer squad. The 75L AT gun is set up
in the two hex building and for a moment it looks like Christmas as three
T34s stop in LOS. Of course the gun gacks it rolls and eventually only
accounts for one tank. The german reinforcements are now arriving and it
is looking very tight. A second T34 is immobilised with a 'daisy chain'
but the Stug malfunctions it gun and is then shocked and both the MMG and
HMG squads break. The Russian generates a berserk leader on a HOB roll who
charges into the AT guns hex and the remainder
of the Russian infantry flood forward. At that point we are right out of
time and the game has to be adjudicated. The organisers had set up a
system where adjudications are done by three people who each score the
scenario 50-50, 55-45, 60-40 etc. The scores are then averaged and if the
difference is more than 40-60 a winner is declared, but a smaller
separation is a draw. While I admit Bjarne had an edge, his best shot was
probably at the CVP victory condition, rather than building control or
exit VP, it was probably more like 45-55 and the adjudicators seemed to
agree.
So a 4-1-1 result for the tournament as a whole. George
Tournemie went on to win the competion (again!) and Mel Falk of Sweden was
second.
Many thanks to Michael Hastrup-Leth, Mikael Siemsen, and Jakob Nørgaard
for organising another successful event. Michael had said that he wanted
to make the Scandinavian Open the best tournament in Europe and with 40+
participants from at least eight countries I think he has probably already
done that. If you get the chance to attend be sure and do so. I hope to be
back again next year.
Derek Tocher
London
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