The first round was fairly spirited, assisted by spirits provided by the Rogues and AoCM (Thanks!!), as the effort of gaming over a whole weekend, had not yet taken its toll. The Rogues, playing the Union side, won a fairly close contest over one of the AoCM (Kelly Armstrong, Scott Bishop and Kevin Lepley) teams. While Team TL, also playing the Union side, was successful in beating the other AoCM team (Tony Figlia, Phil Wilson, and Mike Heagerty), who used Union figures, but played using them as Confederates! The wonders of splitting a team at the last minute. The last game to finish, the Pennsylvania Confederates (PAC) (Gwyn Reeves and Paul Olszanski) vs. The Brandywine Battlefielders (Peter Hess, Robb Kirchner and Eric Boyle), ended up with one terrain objective per side and one that was still disputed. The tie-breaker was points accumulated per the F&F rule book and that ended up tied also! Because the "best" losing team was allowed to advance, the tie breaker didn't need to go any further. The Brandywine Team was named the winner for having the one disputed terrain objective more in the control of a formed unit versus a disordered unit and PAC advanced for being the most successful of the losing sides.

Saturday, after a night spent dreaming up another scenario and a different terrain set up (Thanks to James Mattes), we started again at 9AM. In a pair of amazingly similar games, the Rogues were able to defeat their "rogue" opponents (Gwyn Reeves is now a member of their club) while Team TL defeated the Brandywine team in a last minute display of initiative and it's consequences. Both of the winners played the Union side in this round and both sides used a similar strategies in the playing of the game. Goes to show that given a certain set of circumstances, sometimes wargamers will think the same!

The final was set. The Rogues; a team that had been to the finals each year of the tourney - and won it once already, versus Team TL; two gentlemen, strangers before the tournament, whose sound grasp of both tactics and the rules enabled them to get as far as they did. My task was to come up with a scenario. After a short break for refreshments and world-sculpting, we began. The terrain set up was difficult for both teams, as it had an un-fordable river down the middle of the field, with the sole bridge being one of the objectives and hills on either flank being the other two. The die roll for side/troops was won by the Rogues, who chose their Union army for a third time. This exposed the secret that Team TL hadn't revealed all tourney - their Confederate army had no artillery or cavalry! Team TL chose their preferred side and the game began. Team TL was able to jump out and control two objectives (the two flanking hills) allowing the Rogues to take the bridge and control the center of the table. This effectively split the Confederate army in two and allowed the Union side to hold off one wing whilst concentrating their firepower on the other. After a valiant effort to overcome this position and overtaken by fatigue, Team TL conceded that they had no chance to win and surrendered the field to the Rogues.

The prior champions had been re-crowned! The tournament concluded with a short presentation of the trophy and a couple of minor prizes to the winners. I am pleased to say that everybody seemed to be having a good time participating this year with much merriment and sportsmanship being shown. I would like to thank all who played, watched or just stopped by for their interest and I look forward to hosting the Featherstone Cup Tournament again in the future. Any questions or feedback can be sent to johnbsnead@netzero.net.