The Panzer Party was officially inaugurated on Sunday. The previous night neither Reep nor I could decide how early we would be awake or what time to depart for Stephensville for the first day of the party. We thought that perhaps the first one of us to awaken would call the other, but upon further thought that seemed like not the best idea. So instead we decide that the second one awake would call the other. (hee hee!)

The Illian family, being late to awaken and even slower to get around, eventually picked up Philip at his hotel somewhat after 11:30 am and headed for Stephensville (which turned out to be much easier to find in full daylight than it had been for me twelve hours earlier!).

Upon our arrival there was a warm welcome for Philip and the Illians who had yet to meet everyone until now. Philip was awarded his dog tags from Mick and Jo. And soon we set about connecting, starting, and networking our computers. Jo and Mick had obtained a couple nice banquet-sized tables with the original intention of using one for the computers and another for the serving of food. But it soon became apparent that we weren't all going to fit on the single computer table. So some rearrangements were going to be required. We requisitioned (well... stole! ) Jo's food table and added it to the table that had been dedicated to our networked computers. Although this undoubtedly destroyed Jo's plans for serving food, it turned out to be an outstanding setup for all our computers.

In all we had seven computers networked together on Mick's cable modem. I had my full-sized PC, Mick had another as well as his laptop. Björn brought his laptop as did all three of the Scandinavians. That turned out to be just the right number of computers. It allowed two to four players to join in PG2 multiplayer games together and still left three or more systems for web-surfing or working on other PG-related things.

The day was still cloudy and rather cool as the previous days had been, but unlike the previous days, on this day we experienced quite a bit of rain. It wasn't constant nor extremely heavy, but there were periods of light showers on and off throughout this day and night. Apparently the weather had followed us from Iowa although, thank goodness, the severe weather never appeared.

Mick's wife Jo fixed a tremendous batch of Cajun seafood gumbo. Since she and Mick both grew up in the deep south (Mississippi and Louisiana), the gumbo was as authentic as it gets! And it was well received by everyone and much appreciated by all!

Besides the delicious food Jo made for us all, the day was largely spent getting to know one another and playing and working on Panzer General II. Björn worked on the extremely important PG2 work that he does; Adler continued working on his Polish campaign as well as his e-file; Christian worked on building his PG2 scenario project when he wasn't deeply engaged in philosophical conversation with Reepicheep; Steve and I continuously sought good photo opportunities; and Progi worked on After Action Reports about the party with a bit of help from me. The kids (Kameron, Amber and John) spent a lot of time playing Playstation among other things. And most of us spent a great deal of time hanging out on Mick and Jo's back deck, enjoying the wonderful scenery.

And what wonderful scenery it was! Despite having seen pictures of the Marchand house, including that excellent over-head view of Stephensville taken by aerial recon at some point, none of us knew just how beautiful it really was until we were able to see it with our own eyes! Another thing none of us had noticed from that aerial photograph was how close to Mick's back door the stream and woods actually are! The wooded creek area was no more than 10-20 yards from the back deck! This gave us an excellent view. Personally it made me GLAD that I am a zealous smoker! It was utterly beautiful and unspeakably peaceful spending time on the Marchand's back deck! Some of the most enjoyable time I experienced while in Wisconsin occurred while sitting out there on the deck chatting with friends or simply inhaling the peaceful setting.

We watched the resident chipmunks playing along the riverbank, relaxed to the sounds of nature, and generally marveled at the serenity and peacefulness of the area. We even got to see a rather exotic bird at one point.

Before Lobo and his family learned that they were not going to be able to come to the party, they had planned on camping outside in a tent near Mick's house. For months we had been referring to this particular location as "Camp Lobo" and continued to call it that during the first couple days of the party. However, the rains of the previous few days had drastically swollen the creek, and the area in which Lobo would have pitched his tent became increasingly soggy as the stream's water continued to rise. As the days passed and the creek became larger and larger, "Camp Lobo" went from being a nice dry camping location to a rather wet marsh, then it became a swamp, and before we left on Wednesday Camp Lobo had become Lake Lobo! This caused us to officially re-dub Camp Lobo as "Port Lobo."

It was here at Port Lobo, perhaps fifty yards from Mick's back deck, that we saw a very large bird! Some thought it was some sort of a crane, others thought it was perhaps a Blue Heron. In any case, it had extremely long, thin legs and a distinctly blue coat of feathers. Steve and I received orders from MJ Regimental Headquarters that we should take our cameras and see how close to it we could get. Unfortunately my usual recon abilities struck once again and we apparently scared it away. I prefer to think of it as a successful repulsion of enemy forces rather than yet another botched recon mission by the Whoopy-Cat.

On this day a single multiplayer game of PG2 was played. No one intended or expected that it would be the only multiplayer game played that day! The game was a four-player multiplayer scenario created by Adler specifically for our party (IIRC). The Axis was represented by Steve and Björn who played as the Italians and Germans respectively. At the outset of the game (in the early afternoon sometime) Mick and Adler represented the Allies.

The Allied players held the upper hand initially, but the game was always fairly close. Then Björn launched a wicked counterattack that forced Adler to retire amid a flurry of Swedish expletives that had the whole room rolling with laughter. Reepicheep then stepped in to take Adler's place on the Allied team with Mick. The game continued to be an exceptionally close match. Then, when the scenario was many hours old and rather near the end, Reepi, forgetting about the bug, used an air transport... *D'Oh!* And that was the end of that scenario as the whole game came crashing down with a thud. Of course what made it particularly sad was how very long they had played that scenario and how very well fought it had been! It really would have been impossible to know who would have triumphed if the game had been allowed to continue.

This was just the first of many epic multiplayer scenarios we played on the MJ Regimental HQ Network. And it was by FAR the longest scenario any of us played! Reepi felt badly about crashing the game, but to tell the truth, if he hadn't crashed it, the game might well have continued until sunrise the next day!

Stephen "Duke of Brabant" DeJong had personally delivered a bottle of whiskey to Mick and Jo at some previous date when he had been in the area. He knew he wouldn't be able to attend the party himself, so he delivered it to the Marchands with the intention that we would partake in it at the party in remembrance of him and the others who were not able to attend. We dutifully drank a toast to him in his absence and wished he had been able to join us in person.

Thank you, "Duke"! It was very thoughtful of you and we did indeed enjoy the libations although we certainly wished you could have been there with us.

Soon afterward the Illians and Philip decided to call it a night, returning to our respective hotels in App1eton. It had been a fantastic first day!! ...But only the first of several memorable days to come!

Monday morning we picked up Philip at his hotel again, but this time he would not be coming back. Since his ride (us) was leaving Wednesday morning and since there was plenty of extra room at Mick and Jo's place, Reepi checked out of his hotel and would stay the rest of the week in Stephensville with the others.

Before going to Stephensville that morning we had a nice "breakfast" (again, well after normal 'breakfast hours' ) at a Perkins restaurant in App1eton. Good food; good conversation; good company! Very fun indeed.

Monday saw considerably more sunshine than the previous days, but the weather was still a bit cold and there were plenty of clouds on and off throughout the day.

When we arrived at MJ Regimental HQ in Stephensville the gang was already engaged in a variety of activities, including a number of multiplayer PG2 games. I was by no means capable of keeping track of every multiplayer match that took place throughout the week, but here is at least a partial list of games played on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday:

~ Guadalajara - Björn (Axis) - vs. - Adler (Republicans) -- Result: Adler offered an honorable surrender, Franco gained control of Spain, and all Russian-speaking guests were politely executed (or asked to leave the party).

~ Porto - Björn (Germany) - vs. - Adler (Allies) -- Result: Not wanting to tarnish his undefeated record, Björn intentionally crashed the game, thereby avoiding a loss to Adler. ...either that or Adler crashed the game to avoid a second loss to Björn. ...either that or the stupid game simply crashed on its own. (But that sounds far less dramatic, doesn't it.)

~ St. Lo - Christian ("Ferdi") (Germans) - vs. - Johnny ("Whoopy.Jr") (Americans) -- Result: A close game right up to the end, but Christian changed history by defeating the Allies at St. Lo, creating a major wrinkle in the space-time continuum from which we have still not recovered!

~ Viipuri - Björn (Germans) and Amber ("PzAngelBFG") (Finns) - vs. - Christian ("Ferdi") (Russians) -- Result: While Björn and Christian slugged it out on land, Amber deployed her Finnish forces in the water and successfully invaded the peninsula to the east, capturing one objective before... you guessed it! ...the game crashed. Again.

~ Viipuri (mk.II) - Christian ("Ferdi") and Björn (Axis) - vs. - Amber ("PzAngelBFG") (Russians) -- Result: This time Christian and Björn ganged up on our 14-year-old panzer heroine. Being perhaps the least experienced PG2 player amongst us, she soon found herself in a maelstrom of charging panzers. Upon her defeat she was asked why she didn't spend any of the enormous cache of prestige she had accumulated. The confused panzerette said she had tried but couldn't see that she had any prestige to spend. It turns out she was looking in the wrong place and thought she had no money to spend! Lesson learned, but learned too late as the Finnish-German forces were able to successfully thwart the Russian advances and liberate the besieged city of Vybörg.

~ 4-Player Madness (Ciechanow map) - Axis Attackers: Björn (Italy) and Christian ("Ferdi") (Germany) - vs. - Allied Defenders: Philip ("Reepicheep") (Americans) and Joel ("Whoopy-Cat") (Poles) -- Result: Despite relentless attacks by the persistent Germans and Italians, Reepi and Whoopy put up a valiant, desperate defense and held on to win. The victorious Allied defenders conceded, however, that we probably couldn't have held on even one more turn and would surely have been defeated if the scenario had continued another two turns or more. Thank goodness the scenario ended when it did as the Allied forces were practically non-existent after the final Axis turn!

~ Mlawa - Adler (western Germans) and Steve Brown (eastern Germans) - vs. - Mick ("mjpatterson") {later replaced by Philip ("Reepicheep")} (western Poles) and Björn (eastern Poles) -- Result: After a long and closely fought battle, the Poles were able to hold on for final victory.

Other multiplayer games may have taken place during these three days, but if so, I have no information about them. Surely even more battles were fought after Björn, Steve, and the Whoopy-family left on Wednesday.

Overall, most battles were closely fought struggles between gallant warriors. The general consensus seemed to be that Reepicheep was easily the most difficult player to defeat and if we had an award for best player Philip would have probably gotten the most votes. This seems all the more incredible since PG3 is his primary game. A non-scientific poll of various PG3 regulars confirms that Reepi has a similar reputation for greatness playing that game as well!

Mick's wife Jo served the crew with an outstanding meal of spaghetti and meatballs that was as good as any I've ever tasted! I already assumed that her years spent in Louisiana would have made her an excellent preparer of Cajun/French cuisine, but I could never have guessed she was equally adept at serving such fine Italian dishes as well!

A highlight of the day was the presentation of The Spam Award to Master Spammer Steve Brown. Again the Marchands showed incredible ingenuity in creating a custom-made and professional-looking trophy with a lovely can of Spam adorning the top as well as Steve's name engraved upon the placard. A small ceremony was made in presenting it to Steve, and a good laugh was had by all. Many kudos were given to Mick and Jo for thinking up such an outstanding and original idea and for going to the trouble of acquiring the trophy for Steve - an award for which he was long overdue indeed!

Later, Adler broke out an excellent bottle of 15-year-old scotch which was as smooth as a baby's bottom and greatly enjoyed by many (certainly by Yours Truly!).

It had been an incredible day all the way around! I think we were unanimously sad to leave the party that night , but we all wanted to be able enjoy the following day as well, and the only way that was going to happen was for the Whoopy-Family to head back to the hotel and get some sleep. ...Which we did.