Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

The Emperor of France was surrounded. Gathered about him were the Marechals of his Empire, quietly waiting for their Great Captain to complete his study of the map and reveal his next masterful stroke. A movement of supreme genius that would lay low the Coalition rabble and establish the French dominance of Continental Europe. Weighing the location of every road, village, river and ridgeline, the mind of the masterful warrior of France iterated the endless permutations of all possible military movements. After a long moment, he reached the conclusion he was seeking. “Here”, he said pointing to a city on the map. “Have all of the columns converge on this location. Berthier, make it so.”

The name of the Saxon city is Leipzig and the Struggle of Nations begins yet again!

Gentlemen Officers of the NWC, salute!

We are currently in the process of taking the names of all officers that are interested in participating in the NWC sanctioned 2012 Struggle of Nations Tournament. The tournament will be based on the HPS Leipzig title. There will be two divisions of play, a single player division and a multi-player division.

The single player division will be divided into three categories: Junior Officers (Rank of Major or lower), Guards Officers and General Membership. Officers may choose to play in any one of the three categories depending on their desires and qualifications. All officers who are not otherwise qualified for the Junior Officer or Guards categories, or simply do not wish to play in one of these two categories, may participate in the General Membership category. The single player division of the tournament will be conducted in a number of elimination rounds until only one, definite winner emerges for each of the three categories. The total number of rounds that need be played to reach this conclusion may vary by individual category, and is directly dependent on the number of players participating. As an example, if you have eight players in a category, you would play four matches in Round 1, two matches in Round 2, and a final, single match in Round 3 to determine the winner in that category. If you have sixteen players, you would have to play 4 Rounds to complete the tournament. Thirty-two players would require 5 Rounds, etc. Since the officers will be divided into three categories from the outset, the number of players in each category should be less, so that fewer rounds will be required to complete the 2012 Tournament than were required for the 2011 Tournament. In addition, all scenarios used in this tournament will be small, custom designed affairs of only 12 to 16 turns in length. This will allow a round to be completed in roughly 30 days. The fact that these are one on one competitions will also reduce the time necessary to complete each round as there are fewer overall file exchanges than in a MP game. All of these single matches will be played ‘blind’, meaning that neither player will be able to study the custom scenario before the match begins. It will be up to the players to properly scout their opponent’s position as they move to contact.

The multi-player category of the tournament will consist of a single, medium sized engagement of about 50 turns in length. The selected battle will be a stock scenario from the Leipzig game, as such the players will have the ability to study the initial disposition of their opponent’s forces should they so choose. The battle will be played two on two, with French officers on one side and Coalition officers on the other. The battle will be scored in some manner based on the Level of Victory and (possibly) casualties inflicted on your opponent. The scores from all games will be added together to determine the overall score for the armies. The side, either French or Coalition, that scores the most points will be declared the winner and gain ‘Army Bragging Rights’ until subsequently bested in the next club sanctioned tournament.

Officers may participate in both the Single and MP Categories of the tournament concurrently should they so choose. As half of the officers will be eliminated from the Single Play portion of the tournament after the Round 1 match, this method provides that they could still be enjoying tournament play in the MP portion, and not be stuck waiting for this tournament to end and the next to begin.

I plan to have the 2012 SON Tournament Webpage completed within the next week and have all participants registered by October 15th. The tournament will begin a few days after we have all the registrations in hand and pair the various officers against their opponents. You may register for the 2012 SON Tournament by sending an email to me at mark(dot)jones(at)neel-schaffer(dot)com. Be sure to also send a copy to Todd Schmidgall at tlorens(at)hotmail(dot)com as he and I will be closely working together, along with some other dedicated and talented officers, to help make this tournament a success. I would encourage you to register as soon as you can to ensure that you are included in the tournament. We will make every attempt to allow all interested officers to participate, but the nature of single elimination rounds does dictate that we have specific numbers of players to make the rounds work. Should we be forced to limit the number of players, we will do so based on the dates that the players first registered for the tournament.

The Tournament Webpage will provide more details once completed. I would encourage you to generally withhold your questions until I can get the Tournament Webpage completed and posted. It should answer most of the outstanding questions you may have at this time.

We look forward to hearing from you. Best of luck, gentlemen. Let’s have some fun!

{Note: This message was dispatched by individual email to all officers in our system. As I cannot be sure of all deliveries due to the large number of members, this post will serve as an additional notification for anyone who may be interested in participating in the 2012 SON Tournament.}

Mark & Todd

Congratulations on the organization of the 2012 SON Tournament. The tournament web page is clear and concise and should answer everyone's questions. Great job. Bill

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Thanks, Bill. Your kind words are much appreciated.

The truth of the matter is that no matter how clear and concise the webpage, there will always be those who have questions.

Mark
Salute for a great effort. Without people of energy and action such as yourself we could all entertain our selves by moaning instead of enjoying ourselves fighting

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Jim Hall
Field Marshall
Commander Anglo-Allied Army

OK fellows, both the Junior Officer and General Membership Categories of the Single Player Division have nearly 16 officers participating in each of them. We may not be able to place any additional players in these two categories unless we get as many as 16 more in each one. The reason for this lies in the progression of the elimination. 16-8-4-2-1 works. 32-16-8-4-2-1 also works, but nothing in between those numbers works. This means that we cannot exceed 16 officers in a category, unless we can make the next leap up to 32 officers in a category. I believe that I am correct in this unless someone out there knows another way to do it. If anyone can show us a fair structure that works for, say, 23 officers using byes or some other method, we will gladly listen to your idea.

We now have nearly 8 officers signed up for the Guards Category of the Single Player Division as well. Again, we will need to limit the number to 8 unless we can get 8 more to make the total number of participants equal 16. Same story here. If you know a fair way to make the category work with 11 officers, please let me know.

Now by my count, we currently have 23 Coalition officers signed up for the Multi-Player Division. However, we only have 13 French officers at present. As only one scenario will be played in this Division to determine which side of the club will have 'bragging rights', the only criteria we have to meet is to have an even number of officers per side, and that the total number of officers on each side are equal. Right now, we need a minimum of 1 more Coalition officer and 11 French officers to make this work as it really should. Remember that the Coalition currently holds the title which it earned in the last Austerlitz Tournament. Personally, if I were a French officer, I would step up to this challenge in a heartbeat to earn it back. I cannot say what any of you might want to do.

Keep sending your requests for participation in either, or both, Divisions. We will do the best we can to accomodate everyone, but the nature of the Single Player Division will mathematically limit the number of participants that can effectively enter. The Multi-Player Division is much more wide open, as long as we can balance both sides of the club.

The pairings for the Single Player Division are complete. I have created the Pairings Webpages and linked them to the 2012 SON Tournament Webpage. The Tournament Webpage can be accessed from the 'Struggle of Nations Tournaments' Button in the lower, left corner of the NWC Homepage.

The first round of SP Play will start on Monday the 22nd. I still have to start 20 scenarios for you fellows, email them to both opponents, and register each match in the DoR System. I will get that done this weekend. I may get Todd to help me get all these games started, although I will have to make the DoR Registrations as they need to be Tournament Matches. The deadline for the completion of the first SP Round will be November 21, 2012. It will be a hard deadline, so be sure to progress your games accordingly. If you run into any problems with an opponent who will not progress the game, let us know. We will give such circumstances due consideration. Also remember, that if your opponent fails to return a turn within five days, you may claim a Major Victory. Make sure you read the tournament rules and understand them.

The start of the MP Division will be delayed due to a significant difference in the number of Coalition and French registrations in this division. We still need 1 more Coalition officer to bring the Coalition total to an even number of 28. We need 14 more French officers to match them, and also bring the total number of French participants to 28.

I wanted to be in the MPG also????

You are listed in the MP Division as well, Cliff, but until the French side of this club 'ponies up' 13 more officers to play, that part of the tournament is on hold. We have gotten one more French player today, so it is moving in the right direction at least.

I have received some requests to provide the email addresses of opponents for the 2012 SON Tournament. I have done so thus far, but I want each and every one of you to learn how to find them for yourselves. Some time back, I posted instructions for the use of our DoR System and posted them here in the Rhine Tavern as a permenant notfication to help you use the tools that we have spent so much time developing for your benefit. Specifically, my post concerning the DoR System is here:

http://wargame.ch/board/nwc/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=12092

As stated in that document, the email address of any member in this club can be found by accessing the "Email List" button in the DoR System. There are many other ways to find this information, but this button was specifically set up in the DoR System for that purpose.

Also be sure to visit the Tournament Websites and be certain that you understand the rules by which the 2012 SON Tournament will be played. The link is in the lower, left side of the NWC Homepage and should be self explanatory.

I will be posting the answers to common questions here in the Rhine Tavern. This will eliminate the need for me to answer the same question in numerous individual emails. You may certainly email me with questions, but if I have already answered it in this forum, I am going to direct you right back here. Please develop a regular habit of checking this forum thread as we move forward in the tournament.

I would like to mention/remind everyone, especially if you're playing an opponent for the first time, to make sure you check your Spam folder, as I have stumbled upon this problem in the past with my email and new opponents.

Regards.

We have had one player in the SP Division, General Membership Category realize today that he does not actually own HPS Leipzig. As we have just started, I see no harm in making a substitution if anyone who is not already playing in the SP Division is interested in taking his place. I will accept the first officer to step forward, regardless of army affiliation. If I do not receive a response by the end of the day tomorrow, I will advance his opponent to Round 2 of the tournament without the playing of any game.

Thanks to all who stepped forward and volunteered to fill the vacancy in the SP Division. Just a reminder that we still need about a dozen more French officers to step forward before we can begin the MP Division for 'Army Bragging Rights' and a nice medal to all of the officers on the winning side of the club. By the records, there are more French officers in this club than in all of the Coalition Armies combined. Where is your pride, gentlemen? The Coalition currently holds the award for winning the last tournament. Surely you officers of France would like to regain that honor.

Wouldn't you?

I have modified the Player Pairings webpages for the SP Division. They now contain active links to your opponents.

Ok I understand bad Sandy might have put some of us down but where is the game???????

I cannot speak for your opponent's actions. I did send all of the files on time, so I know that I am not impeding progress. My suggestion would be that you email your opponent an ask. I specifically modified the Player Pairings webpages to make this type of communication easier for the players.