Okay, let’s clean up the loose ends.

I believe the only game I played I haven’t reported on to this point is the Ingenious semi-final I played Sunday morning. This was a much tighter game with more blocking moves, etc. The fulcrum point in that game was when I had an opportunity to score 7 blue on one play and block off further plays in the line, but didn’t have a blue piece in my hand. At the end of the game, blue was my lowest score at 10, and the game was won with a score of 15. Oh, what might have been. As it was, I finished second, and the winner (Andy Latto) ended up winning not only the Ingenious tournament, but three others as well (Thurn & Taxis, Ivanhoe, and Lost Cities). That tied a record, I believe.

So, I certainly can’t complain about how things went at WBC. I participated at some level in 8 tournaments. My performance looked like this:

Formula Motor Racing: played 2 of 4 heats, finished 4th and 3rd with the 3rd being one finishing position out of first.
Amun-Re: played both heats, finished 4th and 3rd, with the 3rd being two points out of first.
St. Petersburg: played only 1 of 4 heats, finished 3rd. Remainder of the schedule conflicted with other games, so that’s all I managed.
Combat Commander: played the mulligan and first round, lost both games.
Commands and Colors: Ancients: went 1-2 in the round-robin qualifier.
1960: Won in the first round, lost by 1 vote in the second. Finished tied for 13th out of 54.
Here I Stand: Won my heat (only played 1 of 2), finished 3rd in my semi-final game. Finished somewhere around 13th out of over 40.
Ingenious: Won my heat (only played 1 of 4), finished 2nd in my semi-final game. Finished somewhere between 5th and 8th out of over 80.

So, I made two semi-finals, and had realistic shots at making the finals in both.

I played against opponents anywhere between 12 and 70 in age. Both genders. Managed to play against a father and his daughter in my two Amun-Re games. I had what may have been the best multi-player wargaming experience I’ve ever had in my Here I Stand semi-final, despite getting hammered in the 2nd turn. (And the guy that won that game also won the tournament.) I was finally introduced to Agricola. Played Nefertiti which is probably interesting enough to play again, but not interesting enough to buy. I managed to avoid playing any games with some of the handful of people around with noticeable social issues. (There’s some in every crowd, unfortunately.)

I learned a few things. First, make sure you know the tournament type BEFORE you start playing. Two, read the rules for each game you’re seriously playing before playing.

On the plane back home, I was glancing through the rules to 1960 and caught the rule where if you have media cubes in a region you don’t have to perform support checks when campaigning in that region. I had a media cube in the East nearly the entire game. Had I known this rule, it’s highly likely I would have won that game as I probably would have flipped Massachusetts if nothing else. At the very least, it would have changed one of my opponents plays to counter that cube making one less play he made elsewhere. And when it’s down to any one state flipping to make the difference, it probably changed the result. That would have put me into the final six, and who knows from there. Such is life.

I only played a couple open games - I’ve found open gaming to be somewhat dependent on who you know, and there weren’t really that many people there I knew. I suppose if I was more of an extrovert, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. Given the tournament structure, you will likely end up with some blocks of time open that you may not have planned on. (I know I was expecting to play more Ingenious, for example, but it wasn’t in my best interest to do so because of the tiebreakers.) There’s a lot of open gaming, but it’s not always easy to get into something quickly enough that’s the right length.

I had dinner with the Point 2 Point guys, met another Portland wargamer, and a Panzer Grenadier fan who works at Games Workshop. I think I got on the playtest list for Serpents of the Seas. Met Mark Mahaffey - he was my nemesis the Pope in the Here I Stand semifinal. Great guy. I’ve got a few pictures to put up, but they’re nothing major - mostly giving you a sense for numbers. (Examples: 164 people played in the Puerto Rico tournament, and over 180 in Lost Cities.

In the end, I played 19 games over the four and a half days I was there. Not as many as I expected, but I certainly can’t complain. Had I been sleeping better, I know I would have played more. Any week where you get to play Here I Stand more than once is a good one. I’m already figuring out how to make it back next year. It won’t be easy as we have a couple trips already planned, but I’ll figure out a way to make it happen. As much as I love Historicon, WBC might be better. There’s such a variety in games and attendees that there’s literally something for everyone that loves games.

Thank you, Jodie, for making this possible. It’s the best Father’s Day present ever.

Man, I’m wiped out.

One thing that hasn’t helped is that this hotel bed is VERY firm. We’ve got a sleep number bed at home, and I keep it set at 40. (National average is apparently 35.) This bed feels like ours set to 100. I almost feel like I’m being pushed out when I lay down. So, I have NOT slept well all week. It’s really caught up to me.

Where did I leave off… ah, yes. Friday morning’s Here I Stand semi-final.

Turns out, 24 people advanced as 24 people who’d played in the heats showed up. We were seeded by our results, and I ended up with the 4th seed. (3rd highest score among 1-time winners. there was one two-time winner.) That gave me first choice on one of the four tables. I took the Protestants again, as I was in that mode. This game did NOT start well. I had a poor hand, bad die rolls all over the place, but I _did_ draw Copernicus. (worth 2vps all by himself.) So, despite the mess I made of the first turn, scores going into turn two were Ottomans 16, Hapsburgs 21, English 15, French 16, Pope 16, Luther (me) 20. And I still had two new testament translations to finish and hadn’t even started on a bible yet.

What followed turned into one of the most epic diplomacy sessions I’ve ever seen. I talked to everyone except the Pope, and while the Hapsburg knew he was a target (he had huge success in the new world and had three more cards than anyone else), he kept pointing out that I was as well. In the end, when it came to announcements the Hapsburg player announced alliances with England, France, AND the Pope. This led to a LOT of infighting and discussion over whether anyone should accept any of the offers (and the cards that came with them.) In the end, only the Pope did, which is pretty much how that should have gone.

What killed my game (in addition to having HORRIFIC die rolls) was that the Hapsburgs ended up having two cards in their hand that would force me to randomly discard from my hand. I was hamstrung and knew I had no shot. In the end, the reformation was completely snuffed out of England, never got into France at all (outside Calvin’s home town) and only had about 3/4 of Germany.

What made the game, though was the final play of the game (mine.) I had been given Search for Cibola through another card play. This allows me to cancel an English, French, or Hapsburg exploration or voyage of conquest. At this point, the Hapsburg player was leading with 22 points, one short of victory. Nobody else was within reach of winning in the New World, and he still had two cards in his hand. I was the only other player with a card. I could cancel the conquest he had going, but figured he’d be able to send out an explorer with one of his remaining cards and he’d actually have better odds that way. We figured out the odds, and given the conquerors and explorers he had remaining, he’d need a 7.5 on two dice with the conqueror, and a 6 with the explorer. So, I passed and let him have the conqueror instead. (He’d never get both as I’d have another chance to play had he sent out an explorer as well.) Turns out the two cards he had left were both 1CP cards. It takes 2CP to send out an explorer. If I had canceled his conquest, he couldn’t have won that turn, and we’d have been off to turn 3. As it turned out, he still needed to roll a 7 or higher to win, and rolled exactly that.

It was an epic bluff, and even though I got my butt kicked, it was the most enjoyable game of Here I Stand I’ve ever played. Final scores were (in the same order as before) 14, 23, 15, 18, 21, 16. I still managed to finish third despite my horrific game. All told, not bad at all. I know I’ll remember that game for a long, long time.

After that, I had a couple hours until the Combat Commander tourney started. I played Nathan Trent who was relatively new to the game, but was a pretty experienced ASL player for his age. (I’d peg him as mid-20s.) We ended up playing the same scenario I played on Tuesday - #10 from CC:E. I ended up as the Axis again on a random draw, so it was the same thing as before. But, CC being CC, things never go the same. In this session we both drew open objectives chits that ended up giving him 11 more VP right off the bat. So, I’m down 20 points and we haven’t even started. The building in the center of the board was worth 10, however, so that would be a 20-point swing if I could take it. Wasn’t to be, though. He ALWAYS seemed to have a fire card whenever I moved and his opportunity fire was incredibly effective. I was starting to get close to getting him to lose on surrender at the end, though, but it didn’t quite work out. We finished the scenario on time trigger 7, and I was down somewhere around 28 points.

At this point I found out the tourney was single elimination. Oops. Guess the rest of my evening was free… Next time, I’ll read the tournament description a bit better…

So, I went down for some dinner and ended up in a couple open games. I was taught Nefertiti, and it’s not a bad game. I’d like to play it again, though, as the person who taught the game did a HORRIBLE job. It was really frustrating. It took him 20 minutes to explain something that should have taken five. Anyway. After that, three of us from that game headed over, got another player, and played Stone Age. Good fun as usual. I think I finished second in this one.

At that point, I headed home. I was completely wiped out from poor sleep, and just needed some quiet time. So, what happens? I can’t fall asleep. I don’t think I fell asleep until 2am, and woke up late with a HUGE headache. Fortunately, I didn’t have anything scheduled until noon. I finally drug myself over for the 1960 tournament. I had thought about playing We the People, but that started at 9. No way.

My first game completely fell my way. I was playing as Nixon and had HUGE card combinations and was dominating nearly everywhere. I’ve never seen this game get so one-sided. Just before the debates, my opponent conceded. He was simply hosed, and the timeslot for the Imperial semi-finals was coming up and he had qualified.

That put me into round 2. (This tournament was also single-elimination. I checked first. ) I drew Jean-Francois Gagne, a Frenchman who was playing only his third game of 1960. We sat down and got going - I got Nixon again. The first half of the game was really going his way. We got into a slugfest in the northeast, and it seemed he had a TON of events that let him place lots of influence without paying CPs for campaigning. I wasn’t getting many, so I was behind the 8-ball. The debates were essentially a draw (he got one extra cube in Ohio as the net result) but I was consistently winning the issues giving me endorsements in the east and midwest. In the final two turns I cleaned out a lot of 1-cube spaces he had in the east, picked up an endorsement in the west, and lost the endorsement in the east. I had forgotten what we did with the campaign cards in the election and didn’t plan my left-over cards properly in the next-to-last turn. I think this was a big mistake.

After we finished up the undecided states, it was time for the final tally. I had LOTS of small states, but he had NY, OH, IL, and FL, most of the south, and most of the midwest. It was going to be close, but I suspected I was going to come up short Final tally? Me, 268. Him 269. Yes, a 1 point difference. Had I been smarter about my turn 7 campaign cards, it may have been the difference. As it was, I’d saved cards for states I had locked up. Big mistake. So, that was my tourney. Come to find out, our game had been randomly drawn for a bye (there were going to be an odd number in the 3rd round) and I would have made it into the final six. So close.

And that’s nearly it for my WBC. Worst case scenario, I have a roll-off to get into the Ingenious semi-finals tomorrow morning. Thankfully, it’s not a deep thought game. I don’t know if I would have made it through the Here I Stand finals tonight had I made it.

After I get home and try to get a good nights rest, I’ll post some pics and update these last two posts with links.

My schedule for the rest of the weekend may have just been shifted. Quick report as I have to get up early tomorrow.

Plan for today was C&C Ancients, then Here I Stand heat 2. This got modified a bit. First off, I thought C&C Ancients was two sets of round-robins, then a semi-final and final. Turns out it was just one set of Round-Robins. So, I had to think on my feet.

Today was one of those days that started out not so great, then kept getting better.

In the C&C Ancients round robin, we played the Bagradas scenario three times. Started out not being able to roll dice, and it slowly got better, but not great. Lost the first game as the Romans 4-7. Second game was tight, and if I had been able to choose the clash of battle lines, I probably would have won. As it is, it ended up 5-7 for me, and I lost as Carthage. Third game was just as tight, but turned my way at the end when I chased Roman cavalry off the map. Final score as 7-6. So, things slowly improved, but the 1-2 record wasn’t good enough to advance.

I found myself with a large gap of time until Here I Stand. So, I cruised the open gaming area and got into a game of Agricola. I’m not going to add to the hype, but I’m very happy my copy will be arriving soon. It took a long time for the explanation, but there’s an amazingly good game in there. It felt like Caylus-style actions meets a Roads & Boats-style tech tree advancement. I’m very happy I got to play this today. Did okay (19 points) but it was a learning game.

At this point, I had to eat. It was 4pm, and I hadn’t had lunch. I was really dragging. Had to come back to the hotel and get some down time before heading back for Here I Stand.

After tables were assigned, I was second choice in powers. Ottomans went first, so I took the Protestants. I was fortunate in that the Papal player chose last and ended up with a power he admitted he didn’t understand how to play. In the end, it really didn’t matter much. He got help from the Hapsburg player, but he simply couldn’t roll dice. I don’t think he won a single debate in the two turns we played. It was really close at the end with two or three of us having realistic shots at winning. As it was, four of us finished over the 23 points needed to win, but I had an advantage (that I ended up not needing) in that I would have won all tiebreakers by virtue of having been ahead after turn 1. Final scores were (me) 26, France 24, England 24, Ottomans 23, Hapsburg 19, Pope 18. My first official Here I Stand win in competition, and I’m off to the semi-finals at 9 tomorrow morning!

That game is scheduled to go until 2pm (though our game tonight only lasted 3.5 hours) and that’s right when Combat Commander is due to start. So, it’s going to be a LONG day. I may have to skip a round or two of CC (first and last) to eat and sleep… CC is scheduled to go until 2am. Yes, 2am.

18 people make the HIS semis, and that’s three games. That means the top two from each game advance to the finals. I’d love getting the Protestants again, but we’ll just have to see how it goes. That final is Saturday at 7pm, so that means I probably won’t play 1960 if I make it that far.

It’ll probably be a short report tomorrow as well. At least I’ll probably get to sleep in on Saturday. (I’m so confused as to what day it is… I have to keep looking at the schedule to remember.)

Okay, my first full day at WBC. My plan going in was Amun-Re, Combat Commander, either Ingenious or Formula Motor Racing, then either GCACW or Amun-Re and St. Petersburg. That’s pretty much what happened.

Had a hard time getting to sleep as I was still pretty much on west coast time, so I was a bit sleep deprived going in. Started out with the first round of the Amun-Re tournament. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 people played. In our game, I started out in pretty good shape (second after the old kingdom) but had cash flow issues in the new kingdom. Halfway point scores were 15, (me) 14, 11, 5, 3. Final scores where (in the same order of players) 35, (me) 29, 32, 10, 34. Definitely a tough game against a (mostly) experienced crowd. I still had one more chance to qualify for the semi-finals, though.

After that it was the mulligan round of the Combat Commander tournament. This is a nice perk - it’s basically a practice game you don’t have to count. My opponent (Paul McGuane, I believe) and I randomly chose scenario #10 out of the original game from the three options available. This scenario gives double points to exiting units off the map. Turns out, we also drew a random objective giving double points for unit eliminations as well. It was going to be bloody. I took the Germans as they were attacking in this scenario and I wanted the command flexibility. The game started off well for me, as I was cruising units down both sides of the map while holding, but the time triggers were flying. I caused one on the 2nd card in my deck, then a second before I could get a quarter through. As the scenario only has six time triggers before you start checking for end, time was a-waistin’. I did manage to get a squad off the map, but things started going haywire at that point. I eventually lost by surrender just after the sixth time trigger. Things went back and forth, but it definitely was a tough slog. Given the choice, I might take the Russians in this one next time. At least this one didn’t have to count.

After that, I had a 45 minute break or so, and I walked around looking at some of the stuff going on. I think they’ve taken over all the available conference room space in the hotel. The wargames room is packed, and everywhere you go there’s either 2/3-3/4 full rooms of games, or people with badges on talking about games over food and drinks. Highlights of some of the things I saw were:

Huge versions of some multi-player CDGs: Napoleonic Wars, Kutuzov, and Wellington. I’ll be posting some pictures early next week.

As far as luminaries go, I saw Peter Perla teaching Mark Herman and a couple others how to play Conquest of Paradise. Also saw Jason White (co-creator of the Point 2 Point Podcast) in the middle of his Wilderness War tournament. He’s apparently playing in the C&C Ancients tournament as well tomorrow, so maybe I’ll get a chance to thrash him.

There are a LOT of teenagers playing, and many of them are girls. That was encouraging to see. May have to bring Megan and Jack some day (In fact, they have an entire schedule of games and events for teens.) I’ve already been in games with three different teenage girls. I’m guessing 30-35% of the people playing in the Euro tournaments are female.

Saw the prototype for Crown of Roses, the preorder offering from GMT on the War of the Roses. It’s a 2-4 player game that combines elements of both block games and CDGs. It’s also got some Kingmaker-ish elements in it (offices, etc.) It looks very intriguing. Hopefully it gets published. There’s a demo scheduled for it Friday night, but I think I’ll be immersed in Combat Commander at that point. Also saw Pensacola (the expected next entry in the American Revolution series) and maps for LOTS of MMP games on their preorder list. Also saw the early map for the new Battle Above the Clouds entry in GCACW expected next year. (That’s Chickamauga if you’re not familiar with the phrase.)

There’s been some entertaining tournaments to watch. People really get into the theme. Pirate’s Cove and Gangbusters in particular. And it’s still only the first full day… I overheard a conversation estimating somewhere around 1300-1400 people show up every year. Given the number of tournaments, that sounds about right.

Okay… after walking around a bit, it was time for more gaming. I got into the 2nd heat of Formula Motor Racing and did a little better this time. Group was fun, but it was odd - felt like Friday Canasta night as three in the group were women over 60, one one of the guys was that age as well. This one literally came down to the last turn in the last race - I had the last play but couldn’t quite get my car to 2nd place which would have given me the win. As it was, final scores (for a six race series) were 30, 30, 29 (me) 28, 22, 17. VERY close, and the winner had been in last place after three races.

After that, it was dinner, then round 2 of Amun-Re. I really need to work on my 2nd half strategy - it’s an obvious weakness in my game. This time, halfway scores were (me) 18, 15, 12, 12, 10. Final scores (in the same order) were (me) 40, 42, 40, 33, 37. I lost the tiebreaker to the other 40-point score, giving me a third place. 3 more gold would have given me a tie for first. I really need to figure out how to manage my cash better. They’re starting another email tournament next month - I’ll have to get in on that.

I finished up the night with round one of St. Petersburg. It was an odd game - seemed nobody could really get anything going, and I was fighting up hill most of the game. Final scores were 81, 72 (me) 69, 67. None of the important cards (Observatory, Mistress, Judge) came out before the 4th turn, and the game only went 6 turns. There were over 70 people playing in that round… quite the full room.

So, that’s a 4th (of 5), a loss, a close 3rd (of 6), close 3rd (of 5), and 3rd (of 4). Just couldn’t quite finish the deal. Maybe tomorrow will be better. It’s C&C Ancients day. Two three-game round-robin sessions lasting from 9am through 5pm. Semi-finals and finals follow immediately after. If I don’t advance, I’ll be playing Here I Stand in the evening. It’s highly unlikely I’ll be able to blog tomorrow night as I don’t expect to get back to the room until well after midnight.

Now, off to bed…

Long travel day today. Up at 4am, out the door by 4:30.

There must have been weather issues in Minneapolis because I thought the plane was going to swerve after we hit the runway. The descent had been quite erratic. Thought it was the pilot. Then, when we were taking off for my 2nd leg, this pilot was having a real hard time keeping the plane going straight while on the runway during takeoff. Very strange.

Anyway, landed in Baltimore right on time, and elapsed time from touch down to driving off in the rental car was just under 40 minutes. Not bad at all. Enterprise Rental car employees were incredibly friendly. Handshakes everywhere, and it all seemed genuine. I was quite impressed.

I had written off the Here I Stand tournament as I thought the first round started at 5pm tonight. Turned out that was the demo and the first round actually started at 7. I was hoping to make it, but I ended up being 30 minutes late. I’m going to play in round two (unless I make the Amun-Re semi-finals) and a win there will put me into the semi-finals. As 18 people advance, I may even have a shot with a good 2nd round.

As I didn’t have anything on my schedule until 10, I looked around for something starting at 8. Formula Motor Racing filled the bill. It was set up as a bunch of five and six player sessions where you played 6 games each. The trick was that cars stayed in the same position as they finished when starting the next game. Luck was not on my side in this one - I hardly ever saw cards for moving my own cars. At least I didn’t finish last. Final cumulative scores after the six games were 39, 34, 30, 24 (me), 23. I managed to score those a couple points on my last play, keeping me out of last.

After that and a small 30-minute break, I headed over to my Ingenious game. Very friendly opponents, and a very friendly game. Style of play in this one was VERY CONstructive rather than DEstructive, and there were a TON of ingeniouses scored. In fact, I got an auto-win in that game by scoring 18s across the board. I don’t think I’ve seen that done before. Final scores in that one were (me) 18, 10, 9, 9. Highlight of that game was getting a four-play turn. Scored an ingenious, scored TWO ingeniouses on that bonus play, giving me two more plays. I won the game on the next turn. I don’t know how many more of the four heats I’ll be able to play, but I think that win will get me into the semi-finals Sunday morning. (It’s nearly a given - 16 players will advance, and it goes by most wins, then the first tiebreaker is winning in the first heat you enter. So, I’ll get in on the first tiebreaker among all people winning 1 game only, and there’s somewhere around 28 people who didn’t win their first heat so far. There would have to be 16 people winning more than 1 game if I don’t play any more to ace me out.)

The downer of the day is I somehow lost the badge I’d made to advertise our Two Sides Blog. I’m quite bummed out by that. I know I put it in my backpack, but I must have accidentally dropped it somewhere.

Tomorrow’s getting busier. My plan is Amun-Re at 10, then Combat Commander at 12. Ingenious again if CC ends before 2, Formula Motor Racing at 3. Scarf some food, then GCACW (possibly) at 5, otherwise Amun-Re again at 6. If I get into the GCACW, then I’ll stick with that the rest of the night, otherwise, it’s St. Petersburg at 8. I’ll probably call it a night at that point and rest up for C&C Ancients on Thursday.

More to come…