For more information on Titan see my Titan Home Page.
The very short summary is that David Finberg won the multiplayer event and David desJardins won the two player event.
Below is essentially the report I turned into Don for use in the yearbook.
David Finberg became the first three time multiplayer Titan winner. This year as an extra benefit to winning, David received a new copy of Titan signed by Jason McCallister, courtesy of Valley Games.
Jonathan Barnes became the youngest player to make the Titan final at 11 years of age. In his semifinal game he was matched against three players that had all been in past finals, so he didn't have an easy path to the finals.
Akihisa Tabei further increased his reputation as an extremely aggressive player by attacking David's titan legion on turn one! As far as I know this is the only turn one attack that has occurred in an official WBC game, let alone a final. Akihisa decided to attack David's titan legion knowing that it had recruited a troll, but not that it contained his titan, with his titan legion which did not have any ogres. He did not get lucky early and had to commit his titan to try to get his angel in, forcing David to risk his titan to end the battle before the angel arrived. In the end David ended up with the same legion contents he started with, 84 points and a more open board near him. However he was shaken by the attack and felt that it negatively impacted his play for a while.
Jonathan was the next player out. David attacked him in the plains with a 13-4 titan, two angels, 2 rangers, two trolls and an archangel available to summon. So even though Jonathan had a legion that in many games would be very good, 6-4 titan, dragon and 4 unicorns, he had little hope. David survived with 15-4 titan, archangel, two angels, ranger and troll.
Jason Ley resigned once David had turned that troll into a giant and Jason felt he couldn't win even if he got to David's titan legion, giving him no reasonable chance to even get lucky at that point. David had a pretty commanding position at the end, but up until the giant was recruited Jason thought that he might have a small chance in a titan on titan battle.
We did not see a big increase in participation with new Titan sets being available for the first time in a long while. New sets were seen being used and perhaps it will take a while for them to have an affect on attendance. I am still hoping that we start seeing some increase in interest with reasonably priced sets available for people again. This year we had 42 different players, 4 five player games, 22 four player games (including semis and final) and 8 three player games, for a total of 132 player seats. Last year we had 37 different players, no five player games, 24 four player games and 7 three player games, for a total of 117 player seats. The difference is comparable to other year to year changes, so while an increase is nice, the change isn't really significant. This year was odd in that we had a fair number of five player games. A couple of times we had just one game starting and 5 people to play, but in at least one case there was a preference for a five player game (and a four player game) to having 3 three player games.
Unlike last year, this year when Bruce Rae left his titan off the map in a battle, it was intentional. He wanted to minimize the points his opponent was going to receive in a battle he had essentially no chance to win. By leaving just the titan off, his opponent gets full points only for the titan, all of his other characters count only as half points.
There was an interesting final battle between Joe Harrison and Steve Koleszar where having too many serpents can be a problem even outside of the desert. Joe was attacking with an 8-4 titan and six serpents and no angel to summon against a 19-4 titan and three angels in the woods from the left side. The way it played out was that Steve set up with titan in F4 and the angels in F1, F2 and F3. Joe then considered whether or not to leave a serpent off as if he entered all six, he would after to expose his titan to the risk of an 8-4 titan and a serpent killing an angel in one shot. In the end he decided to take that risk and Steve decided to stick with his plan of defending in the corner with his titan. But it was noted that if an angel had been able to reach A2, Joe would have had to have left a serpent off, which got us thinking about the initial setup. It turned out that the first serpent that Joe threw into the double team at E4, got 8 hits, popping an angel and damaging the titan. After that he just needed to make some careful play so that Steve's titan couldn't reach his and ended up winning the battle. After the battle we went back and looked at possible setups for the defender and found that if the defender put the titan at A2 and an angel at B2 the attacker would be forced to leave one serpent off (or face instant death) and another would have to start in the titan angel double team and very likely get only one shake. This makes the battle very close.
David desJardins recorded the final.
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
Finberg, David 1 2 10 1 2 1 0 5 13 13 7 1 45 46 4 1 5 15 18
Ley, Jason 2 1 4 2 0 2 0 8 15 22 9 4 61 62 6 7 9 13 19 25 29
Barnes, Jonathan 3 4 12 1 1 1 0 1 10 19 7 2 45 50 5 16 18 23 24 27
Tabei, Akihisa 4 3 11 1 1 1 0 4 15 10 9 3 53 42 5 1 4 10 11 26
Wines, Arthur 5 5 2 3 0 0 0 9 7 18 10 3 37 47 4 15 17 21 27
Atwater, Rich 6 6 5 2 0 1 1 7 10 13 8 1 41 45 4 4 10 19 21
Fuegi, Aaron 7 7 13 1 1 0 0 5 7 9 3 2 28 28 2 6 8
Harrison, Joe 8 8 14 1 1 0 0 4 5 7 6 2 21 28 2 9 25
Strock, Dan 9 9 1 4 0 0 0 13 9 9 10 0 38 38 4 7 11 14 20
des Jardins, David 10 10 6 2 0 1 0 5 14 12 5 1 58 42 4 1 6 7 28
Hillock, Kevin 11 11 8 1 3 1 0 5 18 15 9 5 66 66 5 8 17 19 26 27
Hasegawa, Kenichi 12 12 16 1 0 2 0 4 5 4 2 1 19 18 3 3 5 22
Pustilnik, Michael 13 13 3 2 2 0 0 6 14 19 13 4 61 69 5 1 8 12 19 23
Sutton, Brian 14 14 7 2 0 0 0 9 6 6 5 1 22 26 3 3 6 12
Klercker, Nick 15 15 9 1 2 1 0 6 20 15 9 1 67 56 5 7 15 18 20 24
Rothenheber, Ed 16 16 15 1 1 0 0 2 8 6 3 1 32 23 2 9 20
Meldrom, Adam 17 17 17 1 0 0 1 2 4 7 6 0 16 23 3 16 22 26
Melton, Craig 18 18 18 1 0 0 0 3 4 6 2 1 17 17 2 2 14
Vipperman, Jeremy 19 19 19 1 0 0 0 2 2 2 3 0 9 8 1 5
Rae, Bruce 20 20 20 0 3 0 1 1 17 16 12 1 66 60 6 2 8 9 18 25 28
Gubbay, David 21 21 21 0 2 2 0 3 13 10 7 2 49 45 4 14 17 24 29
McCulloch, Sean 22 22 22 0 2 0 0 1 8 5 5 1 31 23 2 10 15
Koleszar, Steve 23 23 23 0 1 1 1 2 19 20 10 2 76 63 5 8 12 17 21 29
Barnes, Daniel 24 24 24 0 1 0 0 1 9 6 5 2 29 28 2 16 19
Cornett, Jeff 25 25 25 0 1 0 0 1 5 4 4 2 17 20 2 4 28
Martz, Paul 26 26 26 0 1 0 0 0 9 7 6 1 33 32 3 12 13 23
Berenbach, Marc 27 27 27 0 1 0 0 0 8 1 4 2 31 20 2 3 21
Weintraub, Jarett 28 28 28 0 1 0 0 0 7 7 6 0 29 24 2 14 24
McCandless, Mark 29 29 29 0 1 0 0 0 2 1 2 0 8 9 1 13
Ricchiuto, Anthony 30 30 30 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 3 1 7 8 1 22
Hoff, Marty 31 31 31 0 0 2 0 1 8 5 3 1 30 24 2 11 25
Rogozinski, Michael 32 32 32 0 0 1 0 1 3 4 1 0 7 13 1 23
Ricchiuto, Angelo 33 33 33 0 0 1 0 1 2 1 2 1 6 8 1 22
Northey, Rick 34 34 34 0 0 1 0 0 4 4 1 1 17 16 1 12
Bassin, Bob 35 35 35 0 0 1 0 0 3 3 2 1 12 11 1 10
Wallschlaeger, Mike 36 36 36 0 0 1 0 0 3 2 2 1 12 11 1 4
Strock, Thomas 37 37 37 0 0 0 0 0 5 4 2 0 15 14 1 27
Platnick, David 38 38 38 0 0 0 0 0 5 1 3 0 18 11 1 11
Sutton, Jennifer 39 39 39 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 3 0 11 8 1 5
Wolff III, Bruno 40 40 40 0 0 0 0 0 3 1 2 0 13 8 1 3
Bookman, Todd 41 41 41 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 3 1 7 8 1 22
O'Connor, Matthew 42 42 42 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 0 1 4 8 1 2