For more information on Titan see my Titan Home Page.
The very short summary is that Aaron Fugei won the multiplayer event and Sean McCulloch won the two player event. Participation was up a bit.
Below is essentially the report I turned into Don for use in the yearbook. I borrowed some stuff from Aaron's after action write up.
This year we played 42 games. 30 of these were four player games (including the four semifinals and the final) and 12 were three player games (and no five player games). This works out to 156 game seats. Last year we had 138 game seats. This is about a 13% increase. The number of participants increased about 18% over last year.
This suggests that the current format is working ok and we don't need to switch to MSME at this time. The two hour dead time seemed to work well. It is long enough to make sure we get a game going at the 4 hour start increments, but not so long that people who finish in the dead time get grumpy about having to wait to start another game.
The other event in our future is the Titan rerelease being done by Valley Games Inc. If it comes out early enough, I'll take a look at any rule changes they make and discuss with some people if we want to switch to their rules, play some games under each set or continue using the current rules. I'll want to make that decision before the end of February so I can include it in my event preview. My expectation is that the release won't occur early enough to use any rule changes for 2008. However, I do expect there to be discussion at the event if the game is out before or at the WBC in 2008.
We had four players attend from Japan. Ted and Alex Lange are just living there temporarily. Akihisa Tabei last attended in 1997. He brought Masahide Hisanaga "Hide" Shinjuku-Ku with him. Hide was very impressed by the WBC and was planning on trying to set up a similar event back in Japan. He was also hoping to bring some of his Titan students along with him next year. Hopefully that will all work out.
As usual, some unusual things happened during the event. Ted Lange's titan survived 25 dice needing 4 or better (only three hits out of six needed) while eliminating Peter Gurneau's titan. David Platnick ended up winning a game with his titan the only character left in the game. In one of the semifinal games, three players (Bob Masso, Aaron Fuegi and Jason Ley) all had 2 warlocks at the same time.
I have some notes from two of the semifinal games.
In semifinal 1 Joe Harrison blocked Tom Johnston and neither player recovered from this. Tom did get a chance to kill Dan Strock, but rolled less than the 5 he needed to reach him. Dan played conservatively and did not risk teleporting near some weaker titans inorder to pressure them. Tom withdrew at a point that allowed Dan's serpent stack to kill Brian Sutton's dragon stack. Brian had a number of 1/3 shots at a hydra but was never able to get one. Brian tried a couple of desperate attacks incuding 2 trolls, 2 rangers and 2 wyverns against 2 wyverns, warlock, gorgon and 9 die titan, but his miracle didn't happen. However everybody had fun in the game.
For semifinal 2 I have contents of some significant battles. Akihisa Tabei attacked David desJardins with angel, 4 rangers, and 2 cyclops against a 6 die titan, warlock, 2 minotaurs, 2 lions and a gargoyle and David ended up with titan, unicorn, 2 minotaurs and angel. Rich Atwater attacked Michael Pustilnik with Angel, Hydra, 2 griffons and 4 rangers against angel, gorgon, 3 cyclops and ranger in the brush and Michael survived with a ranger. This was after things started off well for Rich in the battle. Rich withdrew rather than face titan, unicorn, 2 warbears and 2 rangers being attacked by 2 angels, 4 rangers and a lion. Akihisa attacked Michael with a 6 die titan, warlock, 2 rangers and 3 gorgons against an 8 die titan, hydra, 2 griffons and 3 rangers in the desert and they mutualled. This left Davdid as the winner.
This year was the first year that all players in the final were past champions. Aaron provided me with some notes on this year's final.
No one was eliminated from the game early. David desJardins moved into the lead when he was able to catch Dan Strock's angel stack and end up with a killer stack that included his titan and two angels. Aaron got a giant in his titan stack and David Finberg got a hydra in his. desJardins then was able to chase Finberg's using tower teleport to move to a tower that Finberg was on the left side of. Finberg made a split where he pretty much had to roll a 1 to survive and did. David then rolled another 6 and switched to chasing Aaron.
Aaron got helped a bit when desJardins went for a small chance to kill Aaron's titan with a secondary stack that ended up making Aaron's titan stack a little better. desJardins wouldn't have made this attack if he had correctly remembered the contents of Finberg's angel stack. As he wouldn't have need to weaken Aaron's titan stack. On desJardin's next turn he needed a 4 or better to reach Aaron's titan stack and got it. Unfortunately he didn't also attack Finberg's angel stack which would have given him an angel to summon into the battle. So desJardins' attack was 9 die titan, 2 angels, 2 rangers and two gorgons versus a 9 die titan, angel, giant, 2 rangers and 2 warbears in the marsh without an angel to summon. Both players rolled low in the battle, but Aaron ended up winning with just his titan and an angel earned for the points for winning the battle.
Finberg now had hydras in his titan stack and another stack with a serpent. Aaron rolled a 1 on his next turn to get into a tower and get an ogre so that he could start recruiting again. 2 turns after that he rolled a 6 and recruited a warlock while starting to chase Dan's titan. Dan was able to split and escape while picking up a recruit, so Aaron switched back to recruiting and filled out his titan stack with another ogre and two trolls in short order. At that point Dan gambled on sitting in a marsh which was a good place to be for recruiting on his next turn. But Aaron picked that turn to roll a 6 and teleported in on him. Aaron got about 150 points for eliminating Dan.
Aaron and Finberg continued recruiting for a while until Finberg had 5 hydras in his titan stack and had an another stack with 2 serpents. While Aaron had gotten to 2 wyverns in his titan stack and had an outside stack with a serpent. At this point Finberg had Aaron's titan stack trapped between his titan stack and his angel stack with only a couple of blockers to slow the serpent stack down. Just after the last blocker was eliminated, Aaron rolled a 6 which allowed him to teleport away.
Finberg was able to start up the chase again shortly. Aaron needed to split blockers from his angel stack to protect both his titan stack (which now had a hydra) and his outside angel. Again he rolled a 6 at a key time to let his angel stack escape while his titan stack was able to kill off a dragon stack in a plains below a mountains.
Finberg then made a good roll to threaten Aaron's titan stack and Aaron followed up with a 1 which was the only roll which didn't escape. A couple of turns later Aaron was forced to attack Finberg.
The final battle was a 15 die titan, hydra, 2 warlocks, 2 wyverns and a troll (with an angel available to summon) against an 8 die titan, 5 hydras and a lion in the plains. (The lion was the result of an illegal recruit, but when this was discovered, removing it would have helped Finberg, so he was forced to keep it.) After some extreme luck in both directions Aaron ended up winning.
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
Fuegi, Aaron 1 4 12 2 0 0 0 6 4 7 6 0 15 28 2 7 9
Finberg, David 2 2 4 2 1 2 0 8 19 16 11 0 65 62 6 4 10 17 19 22 33 35
Strock, Dan 3 1 1 3 3 0 0 9 14 17 16 0 58 72 6 5 9 14 21 28 33
desJardins, David 4 3 9 2 0 0 0 7 6 7 9 0 24 30 3 4 13 24
Pustilnik, Michael 5 5 7 2 0 1 0 9 9 19 6 0 32 54 4 5 25 28 32
Sutton, Brian 6 6 10 2 0 0 0 7 5 9 4 0 17 24 3 3 6 30
Vipperman, Jeremy 7 7 11 2 0 0 0 6 6 9 8 0 25 33 3 6 11 26
Masso, Robert 8 8 15 1 2 0 0 3 9 11 12 0 36 50 4 15 19 21 32
Ley, Jason 9 9 5 2 1 0 0 8 12 17 12 0 40 59 5 16 26 29 34 36
Klercker, Nick 10 10 6 2 0 2 0 7 7 12 8 0 21 35 4 1 8 21 31
Johnston, Tom 11 11 13 2 0 0 0 5 7 7 6 0 33 28 2 17 37
Tabei, Akihisa 12 12 16 1 1 1 0 5 11 8 6 0 39 38 4 4 13 20 25
Atwater, Rich 13 13 2 2 3 0 0 6 13 11 10 0 49 57 5 6 16 23 27 29
Nielsen, Eric 14 14 3 2 2 0 0 10 14 12 11 0 44 55 5 12 17 18 29 37
Harrison, Joe 15 15 8 2 0 1 0 4 13 11 13 0 53 52 4 1 4 10 18
Hillock, Kevin 16 16 14 1 2 0 0 3 15 10 15 0 56 55 4 10 25 33 36
Shinjuku-Ku, Masahide Hisanaga 17 17 17 1 1 0 0 4 6 5 3 0 21 17 2 14 22
Rothenheber, Ed 18 18 18 1 1 0 0 3 8 7 2 0 28 24 3 3 7 14
Pounder, Geoffrey 19 19 19 1 1 0 0 3 5 6 4 0 19 23 2 27 34
Wines, Art 20 20 20 1 0 1 0 2 20 18 7 0 73 60 5 10 23 29 34 37
Platnick, David 21 21 21 1 0 0 0 3 2 2 6 0 7 12 1 31
Gathmann, Pete 22 22 22 1 0 0 0 2 0 1 1 0 2 4 1 2
Murphy, Anne 23 23 23 0 2 1 0 0 14 16 11 0 57 60 5 12 16 20 28 35
Weintraub, Jarett 24 24 24 0 2 0 0 0 11 7 6 0 38 30 3 3 21 30
Lange, Alexander 25 25 25 0 1 3 0 2 16 15 10 0 53 52 6 1 11 19 24 27 30 33 37
Rae, Bruce 26 26 26 0 1 3 0 0 17 16 9 0 61 58 5 9 11 16 31 36
Northey, Rick 27 27 27 0 1 1 0 1 20 20 10 0 70 66 6 5 7 9 15 20 28
Smith, Mark 28 28 28 0 1 1 0 1 8 5 3 0 28 29 2 18 26
Meacham, Peg 29 29 29 0 1 1 0 0 17 17 11 0 62 64 6 15 18 23 26 32 35
Effinger, Robb 30 30 30 0 1 1 0 0 8 6 10 0 31 35 3 24 31 32
Beyma, Richard 31 31 31 0 1 0 0 1 8 9 5 0 30 29 2 5 27
Thompson, Justin 32 32 32 0 1 0 0 1 6 3 2 0 23 13 1 17
Lingle, Larry 33 33 33 0 1 0 0 1 2 2 6 0 8 14 1 11
Ticola, Peter 34 34 34 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 3 4 1 2
Hurda, Al 35 35 35 0 1 0 0 0 6 5 6 0 26 24 2 24 25
Davis, Glenn 36 36 36 0 1 0 0 0 4 1 6 0 13 14 1 1
Betz, Joseph 37 37 37 0 1 0 0 0 3 1 1 0 12 7 1 13
Cornett, Jeff 38 38 38 0 1 0 0 0 2 4 1 0 10 10 1 12
Collis, John 39 39 39 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 7 5 1 8
Berenbach, Marc 40 40 40 0 0 1 0 1 6 6 4 0 21 25 2 7 36
Lange, Ted 41 41 41 0 0 1 0 1 4 3 2 0 15 11 2 2 22
Cambron, Rick 42 42 42 0 0 1 0 0 2 4 4 0 8 17 1 35
Page, Nick 43 43 43 0 0 1 0 0 2 3 3 0 9 12 1 30
Wolff III, Bruno 44 44 44 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 2 0 7 5 1 8
Gurneau, Peter 45 45 45 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 4 4 1 2
We welcome two players from Japan this year, Hide Hisanaga and Akahisa Tabei. Hide performed well in the tournament, besting past champions Bruno Wolff and David DesJardins in the second and third rounds, losing to past champion Aaron Fuegi in the semifinal to end up in 3rd place. Throughout the tournament, he delighted all with whom he came into contact, and he was courteous and considerate to everyone. Thank you to both of our new friends from Japan.
Sean McCulloch got to the final by beating former champion Dan Strock in the first round and newcomer Geoff Pounder in the third. Against Geoff, in the match to see who would face Aaron in the final, he attacked with three warlocks early enough that Geoff's Titan was still strength six, and five out six warlock range strikes on the Titan meant the battle was decided.
In the deciding battle of the final, Aaron attacked a stack with his 6 strength Titan that should have been an easy kill. Two trolls held down the right flank. Aaron put a ranger between them and his Titan on the outside troll, protected by the edge of the battlefield and a line of creatures filling in behind. His Titan swung on the troll and got only two hits, four out of six ones on the dice. Even with this downside, the ranger swung at the other troll, since the Titan and ranger easily kill the outside troll on the next swing. But long odds made their presence felt. The two trolls got eight hits, needing sixes, out of sixteen dice, to kill the ranger and put four hits on the Titan. All was not lost, since Aaron could still escape. Sean's gorgon flew to take the spot vacated by the dead ranger, and gorgon and troll together only got one additional hit on Aaron's Titan. However, the warlock and ranger now adjacent to the gorgon only got five hits, needing six to kill it. Aaron might have been able to kill both the troll and gorgon if he had gotten more hits on his first Titan swing, but now those two creatures had seven hits of life and Aaron had but six dice left. His Titan fell on the next swing, and Sean McCulloch became a first time champion. Well done Sean! We'll be looking forward to having you defend your title next year.