For more information on Titan see my Titan Home Page.
The very short summary is that Kevin Hillock won the multiplayer event and John Sharp III won the two player event. Things went a lot smoother than last year. Participation was down a bit.
David desJardins recorded the multiplayer final. I have posted the raw data. At some point there may be a cleaned up version available.
Below is essentially the report I turned into Don for use in the yearbook.
Things went smoother this year. No adjudications were needed, people didn't let things get to them for the most part and the extra flexibility in starting games helped keep waiting down.
There was a bit more at stake this year as Kevin Hillock chipped in a set of one hundred dice to go to the winner. Though in the end he decided winning his own dice back wasn't appropriate and gave them to Tom Johnston who finished second after a close battle.
Participation was down slightly this year. We went from 51 players playing in 36 preliminary games with 135 seats to 38 players playing in 33 preliminary games with 122 seats. While we still mostly played 4 player games this year the breakdown was split more evenly than last year. This year 19 of the preliminary games were 4 player, 12 were 3 player and 2 were 5 player.
It turned out exactly 16 players had at least one win this year. This worked to Mike Pustilnik's advantage, as he wasn't able to arrive until Friday evening and only had time to win one game. The game he got placed in had 3 players who had all already qualified for the semis and he personally dispatched each one of them. After the game he still had to wait to for the outcome of another game to see if he would make the semis. But Bob Masso, who had no chance to qualify himself, as he hadn't won any of his first 6 games, eliminated his sister (Peg Meacham) and David Gubbay, leaving Mike as the number 16 seed. Mike went on to win his semifinal game but was knocked out of the final first. Still, he did pretty well playing only 3 games (and winning 2 out of 3 against tough competition) and taking home the 4th place plaque.
The final had an interesting ending. It was set up by Kevin Hillock attacking Brian Sutton (via titan teleport) with an 11 die titan, 2 serpents, 2 behemoths, 2 warlocks and and angel to call versus an 8 die titan, dragon, warlock and 3 unicorns in the plains. Kevin won and ended up with a 16 die titan, angel, warlock and angel.
Kevin wasn't able to pick up any recruits on his next 4 turns. At which point Tom Johnston attacked him with a 9 die titan, 2 warlocks, 3 gorgons, cyclops and an angel to call in the swamp.
Kevin needed to fight the battle aggressively, even though he was the defender, because of Tom's edge in rangestrikers. And he also had to avoid losing a piece while doing so, to keep Tom's angel out of the battle. He was able to do this successfully and by the time Tom had killed something the battle was down to titan and warlock versus titan and warlock. It looked like a mutual was likely, though Kevin had an edge. However, before Tom got his turn Kevin's warlock rolled 5 out of 5 on Tom's Titan; taking it from 4 hits to 9 and killing it exactly.
And as usual in Titan, some odd events happened in the preliminary games.
In one game David desJardins had a 7 high stack at the start of turn 3! (Note this requires getting attacked and having the net result of the attack be that you gain one piece.) Another odd event in this game was that David ended up with 4 giants and 2 dragons, each in one of 6 different stacks.
In another game Art Wines rolled a 6 on turn one and took a warlock in the midst of Joe Delany's stacks. But Joe was able to turn the tables on Art by recruiting warlocks on turns 3 and 4 and then dispatching Art on turn 5.
Steve Koleszar was almost able to pull out a win in a game he was prepared to concede in, when the remaining two players, David desJardins and Art Wines, had a titan on titan battle. However, after Art killed David's titan, David conceded rather than striking back with his Titan, preventing the mutual and Steve had to settle for second.
Fin Sem Pre Opp Opp Opp Opp Opp Opp Game
Name Ran Ran Ran 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Kil 1st 2nd 3rd 4th Kil Gam Gam Numbers
Hillock, Kevin 1 2 6 2 1 1 0 6 14 13 8 1 53 54 5 6 16 24 30 33
Johnston, Tom 2 3 7 2 1 1 0 6 13 16 9 1 50 55 5 2 7 15 20 25
Sutton, Brian 3 1 5 3 0 0 0 7 5 11 7 1 25 31 3 3 21 29
Pustilnik, Mike 4 4 16 1 0 0 0 4 8 4 2 0 21 16 1 31
Fuegi, Aaron 5 5 9 2 1 0 0 7 21 14 12 0 69 62 5 5 6 10 19 26
Finberg, David 6 6 11 1 2 2 0 5 16 14 11 1 56 67 5 4 13 21 26 27
Harrison, Joe 7 7 13 1 1 1 0 3 23 20 9 1 86 70 6 4 6 9 17 20 33
Rothenheber, Ed 8 8 14 1 1 1 0 2 19 13 7 1 66 53 4 12 24 26 31
desJardins, David 9 9 3 3 1 1 0 10 13 17 11 0 47 60 5 4 14 18 29 30
Ley, Jason 10 10 4 3 0 1 0 11 15 17 12 2 58 67 5 1 5 10 13 23
Northey, Rick 11 11 12 1 1 1 0 4 12 13 10 2 45 51 5 3 7 16 18 25
Platnick, David 12 12 15 1 1 0 0 3 6 6 3 0 22 24 2 6 9
Moore, Kyle 13 13 1 4 1 1 0 12 20 19 8 1 65 65 6 2 10 12 15 22 31
Strock, Dan 14 14 2 3 2 0 0 7 13 15 15 0 54 67 6 4 8 11 19 22 28 31
Wines, Art 15 15 8 2 1 0 0 8 13 16 13 1 48 65 5 14 17 20 24 33
Atwater, Rich 16 16 10 2 1 0 0 5 18 7 9 1 65 49 4 1 10 11 23
Owens, Steve 17 17 17 0 2 1 1 3 26 16 15 0 89 82 6 1 3 12 13 16 20
Masso, Robert 18 18 18 0 2 1 0 2 25 19 16 2 90 88 6 8 12 13 14 17 19 28 32
Weintraub, Jarett 19 19 19 0 2 1 0 1 20 7 8 0 65 42 4 5 15 25 29
Koleszar, Steve 20 20 20 0 2 1 0 1 17 11 8 0 59 47 4 7 14 21 30
Gubbay, David 21 21 21 0 2 0 0 3 2 4 4 1 9 22 2 9 32
McCulloch, Sean 22 22 22 0 1 0 0 1 7 8 4 0 22 24 2 21 28
Simmons, Ted 23 23 23 0 1 0 0 1 7 3 1 0 19 12 1 22
Sharp III, John 24 24 24 0 1 0 0 1 6 4 3 0 19 15 1 15
Smith, Mark 25 25 25 0 1 0 0 1 4 2 4 0 15 16 1 18
Shambeda, Jed 26 26 26 0 1 0 0 0 6 2 2 0 18 12 1 2
Ackman, Cliff 27 27 27 0 1 0 0 0 5 3 2 1 19 15 1 1
Czyrca, Kelly 28 28 28 0 1 0 0 0 1 2 4 0 6 11 1 27
Meacham, Margaret 29 29 29 0 0 2 0 1 17 23 14 2 69 74 6 8 11 13 18 27 32
Lingle, Larry 30 30 30 0 0 2 0 1 8 7 5 0 29 32 2 5 8
Delaney, Joe 31 31 31 0 0 1 0 1 5 3 2 0 17 16 1 33
Wolff III, Bruno 32 32 32 0 0 1 0 1 5 3 2 0 13 16 1 11
Gathmann, Pete 33 33 33 0 0 1 0 1 5 1 1 0 16 11 1 23
Czyrca, Chris 34 34 34 0 0 0 1 0 0 4 3 0 6 15 1 32
Koleszar, John 35 35 35 0 0 0 0 0 9 5 5 0 31 24 2 23 26
Long, Daniel 36 36 36 0 0 0 0 0 6 3 2 0 18 12 1 2
Castonguay, Jim 37 37 37 0 0 0 0 0 3 4 3 0 11 14 1 7
Czyrca, Ernest 38 38 38 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 3 1 6 15 1 32
Last year's winner was David desJardins. In the first game of his march to the championship, he played and beat John Sharp III. This year David and John once again squared off in the first round, but the result was different. John beat David, then proceeded to march to the championship. Since the opening matches are randomly drawn, it does not seem likely that these two will meet in the first round next year, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were willing to play each other in the final!
Along the way there were many good games played. 26 players started. Four players were allowed late starting times because of conflicting events, a benefit the 2-player tournament always extends. Please note that this only requires the GM to be notified no later than the starting time on Wednesday morning.
Steve Owens found out how unfortunate it is to have serpents in the desert. He had six serpents with his titan when attacked from below. Because serpents can only move one sand hex, and there are three sand hexes on the side he was defending, he had to leave three of them off the battle board on the first turn, instantly becoming dead creatures and out of the game.
Three time champ Brian Sutton bowed out to Ed Rothenheber in the quarterfinals. Ed then lost in the semis to Jeff Cornett, who had to beat Bruno Wolff and Dave Finburg just to reach the semis. In the other half of the draw, past champions Aaron Fuegi and Dan Strock met with the winner to face John Sharp, who survived a mutual roll-off against Kyle Moore. John beat Dan in the second semifinal.
The final showed that Jeff was a competitor, he had earned over three hundred points in battle while John still had not reached 100. But one of the battles had weakened Jeff's titan stack and when offered the opportunity to attack, John took it and thereby became the 2006 2-player champion.
I look forward to seeing all again next year.