19th Friedrich World Championship, 2024
The Final
A: The players choose their roles
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B: The game
reported by John "Maria" McCullough
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Andreas let slip early on that he had picked up very good early cards (it did not surprise me, for the early Austrian cards were mostly low values). He later said that the only suit he was weak in was clubs – which, as it happened, was from the start Austria's strongest suit. He clearly had a lot of hearts because he was battling Loughlin (Russia/Sweden) in hearts from Turn 2 in East Prussia. Loughlin eventually conquered the 4 objectives in East Prussia and was doing well by turn 10, with 7 or 8 objectives in total and putting pressure on Andreas' defence in diamonds. Then Loughlin had very bad luck, as the Elisabeth card of fate dropped at the end of turn 10 (the earliest opportunity possible under the seeded deck tournament rules) and Russia was out of the game. Early on it did not seem clear to me whether Andreas was defending v Christian (France) in hearts or spades but eventually his defending general settled in spades. Hannover certainly had good cards, winning several battles v French generals. Christian seemed to find it tough going, not least because Andreas was only using cards v France, Russia and Sweden. No cards were exchanged between Austria and Prussia until after turn 10. I had moved my 24 stack of 3 generals plus another general into southern Silesia. Andreas had a 2 stack there (which I deduced was his main defence), another general and a supply train. He eventually settled his two stack in Breslau in the spades sector. Although I had few spades I marched my stack to 2 spaces S of his. He clearly was waiting for an attack next turn, because he did not respond. What I noticed then was that Hildi (the Imperial Army general) lurking to the SW of Saxony was unchallenged and there was a single Prussian general defending Saxony. I decided then to go for a victory with the Imperial Army. I marched my 3 stack West, bypassing the Prussian stack and eventually left a 5 strength general behind in the clubs sector to delay Prussian pursuit. To my surprise it was several turns before the pursuit began and by then it was too late. From then on it was down to the fate deck to decide the outcome. Clearing a path for Hildi to take his 10 objectives was relatively straightforward, helped in part by entirely legitimate attacks by France on Prussian/Hanoverian generals S and SW of Magdeburg. One of America/India had also dropped fairly early but I was committed and felt the odds of the other or Sweden not dropping (if they had, Christian or Loughlin would have won) were in my favour. I finished the job in turn 15. |
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 John McCullough! |
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