For more information on Titan see my Titan Home Page.
This is pretty much what I sent in as my WBC report.
Splitting the finals and semi-finals to different days seems to have been and improvement. Having a bit less time to play up to six games in, doesn't seem to have had much affect. There was one person who pretty regularly makes the semi-finals who might have with more time, but they were trying to play lots of other stuff and Titan wasn't as high a priority this year.
We seem to be having less late night games. My theory on this is that we aren't getting lots of new players and us old players are getting older and staying up past midnight multiple nights during the week is getting harder. For next year, I am thinking of shifting things forward an hour. While Titan players aren't know as early risers, I think given the way things are going, we'd be better off having games start at 9 and every four hours, rather than at 10. It might also help attendance by providing an opportunity to play at the start time for all of the other events on Wednesday and Thursday morning.
This year we had 28 preliminary games evenly divided between three and four player games. We didn't have any five player games. Participation was pretty close to last year's.
Akihisa Tabei again presented old style counter sheets to all of the finalists. Some of them seem to be accumulating a collection of these.
We still have some slow play, and I am still interested in hearing from anyone about experiments with timing for Titan.
In the final, both Art Wines and Tom Johnston had titan, warlock, lion, gargoyle and two centaurs on turn two. On turn four, Tom has a chance to attack Rich Atwater with an angel to call in a safe area, but declines. Akihisa Tabei then had some trouble when his angel stack attacked Art's two trolls in the tundra and one of the trolls hit 5 times out of 8 (needing sixes) and then finished off Aki's angel (and a troll). Rich then attacked Aki's titan stack, killed him and got a total of 178 points. In a key battle Rich attacks Art's angel stack (angel, cyclops, gargoyle, two warbears) in a brush. On turn two Rich has killed the angel and cyclops with his giant having taken 6 out of seven hits. At that point he decides not to summon his angel. He then proceeds to roll poorly and Art kills three pieces, changing the tide of the battle. Rich's remaining trolls are unable to finish off Art's warbear and cyclops and Art wins the battle. This was a significant contributing factor to Art getting titan teleport a few turns later. Art got an opportunity to attack Tom's titan stack on a roll of a 5, but was hesitating. Rich, who was not doing well offered that we would resign if Art killed Tom. So Art decided to make the attack. After nothing unexpected happened in the battle, Rich resigned.
In semi 1, Julie Ehlers got two minotaurs fairly, but got trapped in a hills behind a green stack in the brush for multiple turns. Tom Johnston got two wyverns in his titan stack. David des Jardins started slowly bu then zoomed into the lead with two hydras in both his titan and angel stacks. Dan Strock had two griffons in his titan stack. Just when Julie had gotten under the inner ring with her minotaurs, Tom attacked. Titan, two warlocks, two wyverns and a troll attacked titan, two angels and two minotaurs. Tom summoned his angel and survived with titan, two angels, wyvern and warlock. David later attacked Dan in a desert. Titan, two hydras, two wyverns, cyclops and troll with an outside angel to call attacked titan, hydra, warlock, angel, two griffons and a ranger. Dan recruited another hydra on turn four. David rolled poorly early in the battle. Even though he rolled well later in the battle, it didn't make up for the earlier poor rolls and Dan ended up surviving with titan, two angels and a hydra. Tom couldn't get into a swamp and ended up holed up in a tower. Dan teleported into the swamp above the tower. Tom decided this was going to be his best chance to win and attacked with five rangers and two guardians against titan, three hydras, angel and warlock. He got 7 hits with two guardian swings on the titan. It was still close, but Tom got a ranger on the titan to do the last hit.
In semi 2, both Nick Klercker and Art Wines started with 6s. After a few turns Art had two warlocks and Nick had three. Nick passed on attacking Ed Rothenheber's angel stack. Then Ed attacked Art's three centaur stack with angel, two rangers, two trolls and a gargoyle. Ed rolled poorly and Art was able to kill a troll and a ranger. The next turn Art attacked the survivors with titan, two gorgons, two lions and two warlocks and got stripped of recruiters, ending up with titan, angel and two warlocks. Art got this stack into a tower and took a gargoyle (there were no warlocks available). Several turns later he attacked Nick's titan (and wyvern, troll, two cyclops and two rangers) in the tundra. The titan got pinned and then killed, giving Art 340 points. After a few turns Art was able to get titan teleport and roll a 6, which he used to attack a stack in a tower. A few more turns later, he attacked Peg Meacham's titan stack. It was titan(12), three warlocks, two cyclops and a gorgon, attacking titan, two behemoths, two warlocks and an angel, in a jungle. On turn 1, Art pinned both behemoths with warlocks. Neither behemoth kills a warlock in won roll, so that both behemoths die before Peg can get a reinforcement, leading to Art winning the battle. Ed then attacked three trolls and a warbear in the tundra and decides to risk his titan. He rolled poorly and his titan was killed.
In semi 3, Aaron Fuegi started in tower 1 with ogres with his titan. He rerolled a 5 and ended up with a 4. He decided to take a third ogre in the hills rather than go to the marsh, where Akihisa Tabei would probably have attacked him. On his next turn he should have taken a gargoyle on a 3, but didn't. He then got a troll next to the tower, but Aki got a warlock. He then did a 4/2 split and rolled a two to go to the plains. At this point Kevin Hillock put a large stack in a marsh under a tundra. When Aaron rolled a 3, he decided to go to the hills rather than the inner ring and Aki caught him there. Brady Achterberg was eliminated when he split and was stuck in the mountains. Rather then go down and risk Aki killing him, we stayed and Kevin was able to kill him. In the final battle Aki hit 8 out of 13 (with a 50% chance) to get a mutual and then one the roll off to advance to the final.
In semi 4, Sean McCulloch was eliminated first when a battle in a desert went south. Titan(7), warlock, two griffons, lion and two cyclops was attacked by (David Finberg) ranger, warbear, two lions and three centaurs in the desert from the bottom. Sean put his lion outside the cone on the side that it could be reached by a centaur. A centaur attacked the lion and killed it without dying so that an angel could not be summoned. Two lions (and a ranger rangestrike) then kill the griffon in the point of the cone. The titan then comes out and fights two centaurs, killing them both. But the retaliation, plus a ranger swing kills the titan. Rich Atwater was doing pretty well as his original angel stack had a dragon and unicorn and his titan stack had a couple of behemoths. He then attacked Steve Koleszar's angel and titan stacks. The first attack was titan(8), two behemoths, two gorgons and a ranger versus angel, two rangers, two gorgons, cyclops and gargoyle. (The gargoyle was recruited after there were no more cyclops to recruit.) Steve went for the titan during the battle, passing on finishing off a 6 hit behemoth. When that failed, Rich won the battle without losing anything or summoning an angel and recruited a serpent. He then killed Steve, attacking titan, angel, ranger, two behemoth and two gorgons with five rangers, cyclops and guardian. Rich was eventually able to finish off David, though both ended the game with titan teleport.
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
Wines, Art 1 3 10 2 0 0 0 6 12 13 7 0 39 39 3 3 4 14
Atwater, Rich 2 1 4 2 2 0 0 7 10 8 6 0 28 38 5 3 7 10 18 25
Johnston, Tom 3 4 14 1 1 1 0 2 10 9 4 0 37 31 3 3 6 27
Tabei, Akihisa 4 2 7 2 1 0 0 7 8 6 4 0 27 24 3 1 5 12
Hillock, Kevin 5 5 3 2 2 0 0 8 14 11 10 0 49 46 5 5 8 16 23 27
Strock, Dan 6 6 5 2 1 1 0 7 15 15 10 0 51 51 5 4 13 16 26 27
Rothenheber, Ed 7 7 6 2 1 0 0 7 8 9 9 0 30 34 3 15 21 27
Finberg, David 8 8 8 2 1 0 0 5 5 6 3 0 20 19 3 1 18 28
des Jardins, David 9 9 11 2 0 0 0 6 8 9 4 0 28 26 3 5 7 11
Koleszar, Steve 10 10 12 1 2 0 0 5 8 6 2 0 29 24 3 2 14 23
Meacham, Peg 11 11 13 1 1 3 0 5 12 11 7 0 44 46 5 1 8 13 15 22
Achterberg, Brady 12 12 15 1 1 0 0 3 8 10 7 0 28 31 4 9 12 20 24
Ehlers, Julie 13 13 1 2 2 1 0 6 15 12 8 0 50 49 5 4 14 17 21 25
Klercker, Nick 14 14 2 2 2 1 0 6 14 9 9 0 44 48 5 4 9 11 17 24
Fuegi, Aaron 15 15 9 2 0 0 0 7 4 8 4 0 16 23 2 2 9
McCulloch, Sean 16 16 16 1 1 0 0 3 2 2 1 0 7 10 2 19 26
Barnes, Jonathan 17 17 17 1 0 0 0 3 6 9 9 0 27 31 3 8 10 22
Ley, Jason 18 18 18 0 2 1 0 2 5 5 2 0 17 18 3 2 6 20
Masso, Robert 19 19 19 0 1 2 0 0 25 17 9 0 83 60 6 3 9 11 13 16 21 25
Dickerson, Bill 20 20 20 0 1 1 0 2 5 4 7 0 20 22 2 15 22
Iannuzzi, Anthony 21 21 21 0 1 1 0 0 7 8 8 0 31 30 3 8 20 22
Delaney, Joe 22 22 22 0 1 0 0 1 2 1 0 0 5 5 1 28
Needham, Randy 23 23 23 0 1 0 0 0 7 5 0 0 22 15 2 12 18
Weintraub, Jarett 24 24 24 0 1 0 0 0 4 4 3 0 15 16 1 16
Harrison, Joe 25 25 25 0 1 0 0 0 4 2 0 0 13 8 1 7
Monte, Eric 26 26 26 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 3 5 1 19
Ricchiuto, Anthony 27 27 27 0 0 1 0 0 7 7 3 0 21 20 2 17 24
Gathmann, Pete 28 28 28 0 0 1 0 0 6 3 0 0 21 11 1 5
Barnes, Daniel 29 29 29 0 0 0 0 0 8 8 2 0 31 19 2 2 14
Rae, Bruce 30 30 30 0 0 0 0 0 7 7 4 0 27 21 3 10 15 19
Wolff III, Bruno 31 31 31 0 0 0 0 0 5 6 0 0 19 12 2 23 28
Rhodes, Lucas 32 32 32 0 0 0 0 0 5 3 3 0 17 11 1 1
Betz, Joseph 33 33 33 0 0 0 0 0 4 4 3 0 12 12 1 17
Northey, Rick 34 34 34 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 6 0 12 16 1 13
Kramer, Kurt 35 35 35 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 1 0 10 7 1 26
Gubbay, David 36 36 36 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 2 0 4 6 1 6
Sixes and mutuals are part of two player titan lore. It often helps to roll consecutive sixes at the beginning of a match. Steve Koleszar rolled four sixes in a row at the beginning of his quarterfinal against Sean McCulloch and won the game on the next roll. Julie Ehlers also rolled four sixes to start her round one game against Bruno Wolff, but this did not lead to an immediate win. The game ended only after both players has gained titan teleport and Julie rolled another six to teleport into the final battle. More on mutual eliminations in a moment.
Sixes are also hits in all battles against all opponents. Failure to roll a hit can turn a battle. In his semifinal against David desJardins, Steve entered with a superior stack, titan, two behemoths, two gorgons and a warlock against David's wyvern, three rangers and three trolls. Failure to get timely hits swung the tide of the battle and Steve lost his titan and the match in a battle he was favored to win. In another example of probability distribution and the "tail," Aaron Fuegi moved two wyverns next to a ranger and had a hydra range strike, nineteen dice total needing either a 5 or a 6 to hit, and hit the ranger only once.
In the semifinal between Aaron and Dan Strock, Dan was ahead on points and his 8-high titan caught Aaron's 7-high titan. Aaron defended with two hydras, two griffons, a guardian and a lion. In support, Dan had four gorgons, a behemoth and a Cyclops. The Cyclops was left off the board to ensure a spot for the angel upon summoning. The battle came down to titan against titan and both titans rolled enough hits to cut down the opponent. When a mutual occurs, there is a single roll off to determine the winner. It would be too time consuming to ask the participants to play the match over again. Dan rolled and lost the roll off, sending Aaron to the final.
The final was a nine hour marathon between Aaron and David, with neither opponent able to gain much of an advantage. By the time the final titan on titan battle took place, David attacked with a 10-high titan against Aaron's 11-high titan. Aaron defended in the swamp with two hydras, a griffon, a ranger and a warlock. David attacked with three hydras, a griffon and a warlock. David had an angel to summon; Aaron had the 4th turn recruit of a Hydra. In the next to last round, Aaron moved and placed a hydra on a hydra, a hydra on the angel, and his titan on the warlock. The two hydras each scored nine hits on each other in two strikes. Aaron's hydra killed the angel in two blows, receiving seven hits damage in return. The titan killed the warlock in a blow, but the warlock earlier had range struck the titan for two and now, with two more, put Aaron up to four. David's unwounded titan moved in, with ten dice to get seven hits for the win. Only four resulted, putting Aaron at eight out of eleven. Aaron struck for five hits, moved in the hydra that had finished off the angel and completed the task. David easily got the last three hits for the mutual. Since David was the attacker, he rolled the dice. Not enough hits were scored, so Aaron won on the mutual roll off, becoming the first champion to have a mutual in each of his final two games, and with the further unusual result that he was the defender in both final battles.