For more information on Titan see my Titan Home Page.
This is pretty much what I sent in as my WBC report.
While in recent years things have seemed pretty calm as the time for preliminary games has come to a close, this year there seemed to be significantly more pressure to keep or earn semi-final slots. The extra pressure seemed to increase participation of players trying to keep from being pushed out of the top 16 and players trying to move into the top 16. For comparison, last year only 8 games were started on Thursday, while this year 17 games were started on Thursday.
As seems to have become custom, Akihisa Tabei again donated old style counter sheets to give to all of the players in the multi-player and two player Titan finals.
This year in preliminary play there were 14 three player games, 27 four player games and no five player games. That is a pretty significant increase over last year's participation.
For next year, my tentative plan is to run the same schedule as this year. In the future I don't see us moving later because with the potential length of Titan games, having the final on Sunday is too likely to conflict with people's travel plans, to do. If things change with the auction, we would have the option to shift earlier, but I suspect that wouldn't help the overall WBC schedule.
I'd like to thank all of the semi-final and final winners for providing descriptions of their games, which I have used below.
Semi-final one was a hard fight by all. Brady Achterberg was eliminated when he attacked Kevin Hillock's angel stack, and Brady's warlocks didn't do well. This weakened Kevin's position and resulted in Jon Bluett being able to catch and eliminate Kevin's titan. The game then went a long time without any significant battles, with both players dancing around each other. Jon finally found an opening to attack, but still it took several more hours to bring the game to a conclusion, with Jon finally defeating Isaac Fuegi. While Isaac is Aaron Fuegi's nephew, he hasn't played that much Titan. This was his first tournament, and his play noticeably improved over the event and he ultimately finished 8th overall. Not bad for his first time out.
In semi-final two, David des Jardins was the first player eliminated when his attack on Dan Strock's angel stack went south. David attacked with a Ttn6 Wlo Wlo Cyc Cyc Tro with Ang to call. Dan's stack, which was trapped in the hills, consisted of Ang Ogr Ogr Ogr Min Tro. The battle started with the warlocks range striking the angel and missing. Then the angel closed with one of the warlocks and killed it in one blow. But the warlock hit with all five of its dice in return. Eventually the battle ended up being a mutual. Much later, Akihisa Tabei's titan teleported onto Jason Ley's titan. Jason's titan was eliminated, but at the end his unicorn needed to get three hits on Aki's titan to get a mutual. The unicorn only got two, so the game continued. And to make matters even worse, Jason's titan only needed to get three hits on eight dice to kill Aki's colossus and it too only got two hits. Aki ended the battle with Ttn16 Arc Col. However, Dan was able to catch him three turns later in a desert with Ang Gor Ser Ser Ser Ser Ser and secure the win.
In semi-final three, Ed Rothenheber was the first player out; withdrawing when things did not go well. Art Wines then split his angel stack into Ang Ran and Tro Tro Ogr Ogr Cen, which eventually became Ang Ran Ran Ran Cyc Cyc Cyc and Tro Tro Tro Ran Ran Ran Ran and trapped David Finberg's titan stack on the bottom. David rolled ones two turns in a row and was unable to escape. This left Art at 293 points. Rich Atwater then rolled a 6, which allowed him to threaten Art's titan. Art did a split and run to escape. A few turns later Rich attacked seven rangers in the marsh with Ttn6 Beh Beh Tro Tro Gor Ran and Ang to call. On turn three of the battle Rich tried to kill all of the remaining rangers to avoid a reinforcement, but failed. Art then recruited a troll and rolled three hits each, with a ranger and the troll, on Rich's titan to end the game.
In semi-final four, all four players had warlocks in their titan stacks by the end of turn two. Michael Pustilnik misjudged the strength of Aaron Fuegi's angel stack and allowed Aaron to due a seven on seven attack on Michael's angel stack that went very well for Aaron, giving him a commanding position. Aaron had both good board control and a lead in points. Michael's titan stack was trapped behind some tough stacks, but he rolled two ones to get into a tower. Things didn't go so well for Julie Ehlers, who was pared down to just her titan stack. The game ended unexpectedly quickly when Julie attacked Michael's Ang Cyc Gar stack and lost, when after Michael's angel overflew Julie's line, it was able to kill her titan. This was followed by Aaron attacking Bob Masso, Ttn9 Wlo Cyc Ran Ran Ran Ran and Ang to call versus Ttn7 Wlo Min Lio Lio Ran Ran in the mountains. Aaron rolled very poorly and ended up mutualling with Bob. Aaron won the roll off to take second. This left Michael the winner.
In the final, Jon Bluett eliminated Dan Strock, but this let Art Wines start chasing down some smaller stacks. Several turns later Art rolled a six which let him tower teleport and control most of the board. He was then able to get points, giving him titan teleport and an archangel. A few turns after that he was able to catch Jon's titan stack on the bottom. Jon felt the battle was hopeless, so he left his titan off in order to minimize the number of points Art received for eliminating him. Art was able to catch Michael Pustilnik's titan in the brush while it still had only one hydra. Art got hot with a gargoyle and a cyclops to kill a griffon with only one swing each. This allowed the archangel to be summoned and the archangel killed Michael's titan in two swings, making Art the winner.
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 4 10 2 0 0 0 5 10 12 7 0 37 39 3 19 26 37
Pustilnik, Michael 2 3 9 2 0 0 0 6 13 10 11 0 48 43 3 14 23 34
Bluett, Jon 3 1 6 2 1 1 0 8 15 18 11 0 54 58 4 25 34 38 40
Strock, Dan 4 2 8 2 1 0 0 7 23 27 13 0 90 78 5 19 21 27 36 40
Masso, Robert 5 5 5 2 1 2 0 6 17 16 10 0 65 64 5 6 11 18 28 33
Atwater, Rich 6 6 13 1 3 1 0 3 17 17 6 0 65 54 5 1 3 11 21 25
Tabei, Akihisa 7 7 15 1 2 2 0 6 25 22 12 0 89 83 6 8 22 26 32 36 41
Fuegi, Isaac 8 8 17 1 2 2 0 2 23 23 14 0 97 79 6 5 14 27 34 38 41
Hillock, Kevin 9 9 1 3 0 2 0 12 16 24 10 0 62 66 5 9 18 23 25 41
Ley, Jason 10 10 3 3 0 0 0 10 18 18 7 0 60 55 5 2 3 23 27 29
Fuegi, Aaron 11 11 7 2 1 1 0 5 15 18 8 0 60 62 5 15 17 26 29 35
Finberg, David 12 12 14 1 3 0 0 5 16 19 7 0 55 59 6 4 20 21 28 30 39
Rothenheber, Ed 13 13 4 2 3 1 0 7 14 25 9 0 62 66 6 12 13 19 24 28 31
des Jardins, David 14 14 11 2 0 0 0 4 13 13 7 0 47 46 4 20 22 33 37
Ehlers, Julie 15 15 12 1 4 0 0 6 24 20 18 0 88 80 6 12 13 16 27 36 41
Achterberg, Brady 16 16 16 1 2 2 0 5 22 21 16 0 84 80 6 5 8 15 16 31 40
Stark, Peter 17 17 2 3 0 1 0 10 22 26 18 0 88 89 6 8 15 17 33 36 40
Chandra, Rahul 18 18 18 1 2 1 0 4 23 18 13 0 75 69 6 5 13 29 32 34 37
Harrison, Joe 19 19 19 1 2 0 0 4 14 13 3 0 48 41 4 2 3 21 24
Koleszar, Steve 20 20 20 1 2 0 0 3 10 12 3 0 33 37 4 1 4 20 22
Iannuzzi, Anthony 21 21 21 1 1 1 0 5 25 18 19 0 90 79 6 6 8 14 18 33 39
Rae, Bruce 22 22 22 1 1 0 0 4 15 18 13 0 57 55 4 1 18 28 32
Hieter, Nathaniel 23 23 23 1 1 0 0 2 8 4 3 0 32 23 2 7 23
Gathmann, Pete 24 24 24 1 0 0 0 3 6 5 2 0 20 19 2 10 29
McNay, Ewan 25 25 25 1 0 0 0 3 2 6 1 0 11 16 1 39
Wolff III, Bruno 26 26 26 1 0 0 0 2 6 7 0 0 22 19 2 2 4
Woodson, Robert 27 27 27 1 0 0 0 2 4 9 2 0 17 18 1 13
Meacham, Peg 28 28 28 0 4 0 0 2 20 14 15 0 73 61 6 7 9 17 25 31 35
Quirk, Kevin 29 29 29 0 2 0 0 1 13 15 8 0 46 48 4 26 35 38 39
Needham, Randy 30 30 30 0 2 0 0 1 4 2 4 0 14 16 2 6 10
Hanechak, David 31 31 31 0 1 2 0 3 11 10 4 0 37 37 3 14 19 30
DeMarco, Mike 32 32 32 0 0 1 0 1 6 3 4 0 20 17 1 15
Kim, Peter Walter 33 33 33 0 0 1 0 1 4 12 1 0 18 22 2 7 12
Kizer, Chris 34 34 34 0 0 1 0 1 3 9 3 0 14 18 1 31
Mitchell, Sam 35 35 35 0 0 1 0 0 6 8 6 0 21 23 2 6 11
Mitchell, Chris 36 36 36 0 0 1 0 0 3 6 5 0 11 18 1 5
Betz, Joseph 37 37 37 0 0 1 0 0 3 5 3 0 14 16 1 32
Mitchell, Jana 38 38 38 0 0 1 0 0 3 4 2 0 14 12 1 9
Wagner, Jacob 39 39 39 0 0 1 0 0 2 6 2 0 11 14 1 16
Barnes, Robert 40 40 40 0 0 0 0 1 4 10 2 0 16 20 2 7 24
Spencer, Jay 41 41 41 0 0 0 0 0 5 5 2 0 17 17 1 17
McCulloch, Sean 42 42 42 0 0 0 0 0 3 10 5 0 19 22 2 16 30
Cornett, Jeff 43 43 43 0 0 0 0 0 3 4 3 0 14 12 1 9
Sutton, Brian 44 44 44 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 4 4 1 10
One of the more interesting situations in the early rounds was in the first round battle between Bruce Rae’s titan and Michael Pustilnik’s titan. On the next to last round, Bruce’s titan had one hit point left and Michael’s had 2. Bruce had an unwounded angel and warbear. Michael’s dilemma was this: should he advance a lion with four hits into the bramble next to the titan and angel hoping to get a 6 since it was striking out of the bramble or advance the titan and hope to get a mutual with either a 5 or a 6? With a mutual, there is a roll off with a 50% chance of advancing. If the lion fails to hit, the unwounded angel will make short work of Michael’s titan with two remaining hit points. Michael tried to calculate the odds of the lion rolling a 6 and decided it was slightly better than a 50% chance (It is 59.8% if my math is correct). So he took that option, rolled exactly one six, and won.
In one semifinal, Michael decided his best result would be if he attacked with his 6 titan, 3 trolls and a ranger with a summon against Aaron Fuegi’s Angel, behemoth and 3 cyclops. The attack did not go well and Aaron advanced. In the other semifinal, Bruno Wolff was watching five opponent stacks recruiting hydras, so he took the opportunity to attack Brian Sutton’s titan with his two behemoth, two gorgon titan stack. Brian had two hydras and a couple other creatures on the defense, and both titans were 7 high. As expected, the hydras made the difference, but sometimes desperation forces attacks which may not be high percentage.
The final between Aaron and Brian was short in duration but had plenty of drama. There were only three battles and all were critical. Brian received the first 42 points when he attacked two gargoyles and a cyclops in the jungle with three rangers and a gargoyle. The angel was summoned only after the battle ended without a loss for the attacker. The next battle Aaron attacked with his angel stack the same victorious stack in the same jungle with the defender having mustered a gargoyle and summoned an angel. Aaron had a cyclops, three lions, ranger, griffon, and angel, and survived with griffon and angel, plus an important extra pip on the titan when the gargoyles mustered during the battle. The final battle took place in the hills where the defenders were three rangers and two minotaurs. Aaron’s 7 titan also had three ogres, two trolls and a cyclops with an angel to summon. The battle did not go well for Aaron, and when only the unwounded titan was left, he advanced on a ranger at the top of a hill needing two hits and got them, but the ranger was replaced by a ranger with one hit, and Aaron failed to roll three dice of 5 or higher on the next swing. The rangers had 12 dice combined, and were able to get 7 combined hits of 4 or better, so the battle ended as a mutual.
Brian Sutton returns to the 2-player championship after a long hiatus. More than 17 years previously Brian had won three 2-player championships in four years. Aaron continues his very impressive streak of eight consecutive trips to the semifinals with five championships in that time.