The Golden Turkey is an award given to a gamer in our club that plays a tactically inept battle. It’s reserved for someone that loses a game through stupid moves and bad decisions, not bad luck.

Our own SJCW members: Ceasar Bennet and Charlie Keller.

Ceasar Bennett received the Golden Turkey Award at The Historical Battle “Kursk II” in June 1996. This battle pitted the Russian Horde against the Poor Innocent German Army. The Russians lost very bad. Over the years Ceasar has had several opportunities to pass the award to another gamer, but when the opportunity arose he would always leave the trophy at home. At the last Game Day he finally managed to pass theGolden Turkey to Charlie. The Golden Turkey battle that we played was a Battalions in Crisis game and each side was to have 1000 points. I was the Russian player, and I had a plan. I bought three T-34/85s, six T-34/76cs, a platoon of infantry, two 76mm AT guns, one 85mm AA Gun, one AA vehicle, and 2 Airplanes. I was convinced I could fight any “legal” German force. If you know the history of the Ceasar and Charlie rivalry then you know that for 4 years Ceasar has accused me of cheating him and any agreement between us must be checked by a lawyer.

The German player (Ceasar) did not have a 1000 point list together before the game day. Before the battle Ceasar purchased two AA vehicles from Bill and immediately added them to his force. The Germans must use a different counting system than Americans. How else can you explain the Germans arriving with four Panthers, six Pz IVHs , two AA Vehicles, a platoon of infantry mounted in half-tracks, and off-board artillery (155mm) totaling 1210 pts? The battle was a one sided affair. Even Phil’s helping running the Russian airplanes couldn’t avert a disaster. After Ceasar using some superb dice rolling to shoot down both planes on turn one the Russians did not have a chance.

On Turn 1 , nine Russian Tanks were looking down the barrels of ten German Tanks. After 4 turns all the Russian Tanks were dead and only 3 German Tanks were dead. The only glory the Russians had was that their infantry had to jump off the tanks before they were killed, so they proceed to kill all the half-tracks and shoot up the infantry. After 2 more turns the Germans killed all the Russian Guns. It was all over but the crying. One might complain about the German point total, but Ceasar played the game very aggressively and he disemboweled me very quickly. He made the dice rolls that were important and pushed up the field despite the causalities. I have never seen Ceasar play like that and he does deserve to give away the Golden Turkey Award. Good Game Ceasar!