AAR: Market Garden – Battle on the Mississippi

On October 17th, we had the pleasure of putting on a special themed tournament at our usual gaming spot, Deaf Ear Records in LaCrosse WI. As part of the Battle on the Mississippi series, this time we focused on operation Market Garden. Only lists from the Bridge by Bridge or Market Garden books were allowed. This put an extra challenge on the players and we thought would help balance the lists.

We were pleased to have prize support from Battlefront and are deeply grateful for their assistance. Likewise thanks are due to Joe Abrisz who was one of the authors of the Bridge by Bridge and Market Garden books for helping out. Thanks to Chuck Hiner for once again being the TO.  Thanks are also due to Matt Vach and Bill Wojahn and others for terrain as well. Thanks to Chuck for lining up the trophies. They were absolutely perfect.

We had 7 themed tables representative of the operational area. From the comments by the players, it was a challenging day, having to both defeat both opponent and the terrain.

Signed up for the tournament were a great group. We had a couple of wwpd unranked players and a couple of top ranked with lots in between. The vast majority of the lists were infantry lists and unsurprisingly on the allied side, lots of airborne.  Attending were:

Allied  – list type – WWPD ranking:

• Keith Gilmour – British Armour – 28
• Joe Abrisz – British Infantry – 139
• Rick Davis – American Airborne – 212
• Collin Chouinard – British Airborne – 213
• Eric Saterdahlen – American Airborne – 321
• Matt Vach – American Infantry – 466
• Chuck Hiner – British Infantry – Unranked

Axis – list type – WWPD ranking:

• Chris Novak – German Infantry – 24
• Patrick Barkaloo – German Infantry – 236
• Tom Gall – German Infantry – 349
• John Dudkiewicz – German Armour – 524
• Bill Wojahn – German Infantry – 539
• Brian Hanson – German Infantry – unranked
• Mark Bullen – German Infantry – unranked

The tables we had all looked great. The crew was especially proud of the Nijmegen and Arnhem tables. We wanted to capture the character of both the raised road terrain and water which channeled the battles.

Let’s have a look:

Table 1: Valkenswuard Breakout

Table 2: Wihelmina Canal

Table 3: Son desperation

Table 4: Nijmegen

Table 5: Arnhem

Table 6: Elst to Driel

Table 7: Ooterbeck

For matching up the players, Tom has started to create an iOS/Android app to track and run tournaments. We were using it on the side as the software is under development yet. Not to be disappointed, it of course crashed but paper trail to the rescue. Least the first rounds were easy-peasy given the electronic aid.

Round 1:

For this round and only this round, if you were an allied player you, no matter the situation, you were the attacker. Players were broken down by allied and axis and then ranked by their wwpd score  for the seeding and then matched by list type to favor infantry on infantry and tank on tank battles

The mission was: Encounter

The matchups and results were:

• Keith Gilmour (1) vs Chris Novak (1)
• Joe Abrisz (3) vs Patrick Barkaloo (1)
• Rick Davis (5) vs Tom Gall (2)
• Collin Chouinard (6) vs Bill Wojahn (1)
• Eric Saterdahlen (6) vs Brian Hanson (1)
• Matt Vach (1) vs Mark Bullen (6)
• Chuck Hiner (1) vs  John Dudkiewicz (2)

Round 2:

For this round,  players were still broken up into axis and allied lists, now ranked by their first round score. Then each side was matched up and checked to make sure they hadn’t played each other before in the prior round.

The mission was a Hasty Attack.

The matchup and results were:

• Collin Chouinard (2) vs Mark Bullen (5)
• Eric Saterdahlen (3) vs Tom Gall (2)
• Rick Davis (4) vs John Dudkiewisz (3)
• Joe Abrisz (3) vs Chris Novak (4)
• Keith Gilmour (5) vs Patrick Barkaloo (2)
• Matt Vach (3) vs Bill Wojahn (4)
• Chuck Hiner (6) vs Brian Hanson (1)

Round 3:

For this last round, everyone was ranked by the score they had amassed thus far with ties broken by the rating given by their opponents. (Also used for the best player award) It of course opened the round to potentially axis on axis or allied on allied, but for the championship, we wanted the best against the best from the prior two rounds.

The mission was: Fighting Withdrawl

The matchups were:

• Eric Saterdahlen (6) vs Mark Bullen (1)
• Rick Davis (5) vs Collin Chouinard (2)
• Chuck Hiner (1) vs Chris Novak (6)
• Joe Abrisz (3) vs Keith Gilmour (4)
• John Dudkiewisz (3) vs Bill Wojahn (4)
• Matt Vach (1) vs Tom Gall (6)
• Brian Hanson (1) vs Patrick Barkaloo (6)

Results:

1. 15 – Eric Saterhalen
2. 14 – Rick Davis
3. 12 – Mark Bullen
4. 11 – Chris Novak
5. 10 – Collin Chouinard
6. 10 – Tom Gall
7. 10 – Keith Gilmour
8. 9 – Joe Abrisz
9. 9 – Patrick Barkaloo
10. 9 – Bill Wojahn
11. 8 – John Dudkiewisz
12. 8 – Chuck Hiner
13. 5 – Matt Vach
14. 3 – Brian Hanson

Eric Saterdahlen was the overall Champion with his American Airborne infantry.

Rick Davis was the Allied Champion.

Mark Bullen was the Axis Champion.

Chuck Hiner was awarded the best painted army.

Matt Vach was awarded the best sportsman.

Joe Abrisz was awarded the dinosaur. As the story goes, something about a boatload of elite troops that wouldn’t assault tanks… no assault boys … no sir, not going to do it… how about you boys … nope .. how about you? No… but you’ll have to ask him about that story!

Sorry for being a bit slow on getting this AAR posted. The day after the tournament I got up, ran off to the airport and spent a week in China. The network over there isn’t always the best but least on the very last day got to visit the Forbidden City. I hear there is a store in Beijing that carries Battlefront… but alas didn’t get to drop by.