18th Friedrich World Championship, 2023

The Final

A: The players choose their roles

John McCullough has the first choice, and takes the seat of Frederick.		Alex Calderon decides to be Maria Theresa.
Followed by Christian Blattner (Elisabeth) and Bjorn von Knorring (Pompadour).		And then, the game starts!

B: The game
reported by John "Friedrich" McCullough

I managed to delay choosing defending suits until after the 4th card draw. Clubs was my best suit, so I chose that to defend with 15 troops v Alex (Austria/Imperial Army) in Silesia. I also had good hearts, which I chose to use with 9 troops v Christian (Russia/Sweden) in the Neumark. That meant I had to defend with my 4 troops v Bjorn (France) in Spades, which were weakish then. From the start I sent weak generals Friedrich and Winterfeldt to harrass/destroy the Imperial Army (IA). Alex sent it West and it eventually reached the far left hand corner of the board. It was around turn 8 or 9 before I allowed it to head East again. Unbeknown to him, Christian never had a chance of winning (even though Elisabeth survived until the end of the game in round 22) because I built up a monster suit of hearts and still had about 80 pts left at the end. At one point, having no hearts, he pulled off a very clever move. I was worried that a Russian general heading S in Western Poland might be heading to attack my 15 troop stack in Silesia. I detached Dohna (8 pts) and Heinrich (1 pt) towards it, putting Dohna out of supply (I was manoeuvring a supply train nearby). Christian attacked both my generals with an equal amount of troops and got 2 draws and blocked my supply train with a 3rd general. I killed one of the attacking generals next turn and extracted a reserve for the other but could not get Dohna back in supply and he died. That left just Lehwaldt defending with 1 troop. However, I immediately saw that it was a blessing in disguise for me – I could now buy a troop in Silesia to make a 16 stack and buy some to strengthen both Lehwaldt and my defending general v France. I had plenty of my 'buying' suit, diamonds. I got enough spades to fend off Bjorn and Cumberland chipped in well, drawing about 30 pts of spades twice from Bjorn – first when attacked cross border into diamonds and straight after in a spades battle. I kept moving around a bit in the Silesian clubs sector, to make it harder for Alex to form his 24 pt stack and then engage me with it. But from around turn 7 or 8 he started attacking with a 9 pt advantage (later 8, see above) every time. And then the clubs started to dry up. Around turn 18 we had a big battle and Alex cleared out my clubs and reserves and I had to take a −6 retreat. That gave him his last 1st order objective and his 15th objective overall. Only Bunzlau remained. I marched back to within 3 spaces of it, luckily drew some clubs and won the next battle. By then the Sweden and India cards had dropped and for 2 turns Alex would have had an automatic victory if either America or Elisabeth dropped. I drew more clubs and re-took Liegnitz. Then the IA arrived and cleared out my clubs to a draw. Alex attacked me with his big stack next turn but I had again luckily drawn good clubs and I inflicted a −5 retreat on it. I then split my stack – sending one general to kill the IA's supply train and the other E to capture Oels. Alex hit back, surrounded and killed my general that had killed the IA supply train. He attacked my other general 8 v 8 but luckily, without any reserves and few spades, I managed to take a −1. In turn 22 he finally took Bunzlau and Liegnitz and attacked me again with his 8 general near Oels. But of course I could take a card free −1 retreat. Elisabeth dropped out. Had it not, Alex would have won in turn 23. A 6 hour or so thriller that finished just after midnight. Thanks to Alex, Christian and Bjorn for such an exciting game.