WBC, Day 3...

Slept in Wednesday morning, as planned. Recovered a bit from the previous two nights! I must admit, I felt guilty that I wasn't playing Wilderness War, but man, I needed a break from day-long wargames this year.

***Boardgame Geek is down for maintenance now, so no links to games, sorry***

I get up, have coffee, and wander around the Host, shooting the shit with many different folks. As 1:00 approaches, I head off to the Galaxy room, to play in the first heat. Oh man, but this was an unlucky game for me. My secret base died early, and the other 2 players refused to attack the clear leader (not me, LOL!), so the best I could do was eke out a distant second. The scores were 14-6-3-1. Multi-player games can often go against you if inexperienced players make plays that help others -- such as in my Santa Fe Rails game yesterday. But it was OK, there were 3 more heats coming, and the GM, Mark Mitchell, said 1 or 2 seconds might be enough to advance, anyway. Oh yeah, did I mention that Galaxy was my team game this year? I was on "Team Viagra," ranked #13...


I spend some more time just hanging out and catching up with old acquaintances. Later in the afternoon I decide to take a shot at playing Ingenious, a game Pete Stein runs. I like the game, but mainly have played the 2-player game with my wife, while the tourney utilizes the 4-player version. Well, I show up and actually win my board, 13-10-9-8. I'm told by Pete that I'm either in the semis, or, at worst, will have to "dice off" with folks in the same boat as I, depending on how many show up for it on Sunday morning. That sounded fine to me, as I hadn't even planned on playing Ingenious, it just fit nicely into my schedule.

After dinner I ran into Bill O'Neal, and he was between games, so we played a game of Manouevre -- my Austrians vs. his Spanish. It was a pretty good game, but Bill opened things up at the end and ended up winning 5-3. I thought I had a good chance mid-game, but then Bill played a stout defense on his right wing and that led to my army eventually breaking. Again, another fun (and quick!) game.

Next, I headed to another Pacific Typhoon (I decided to play PT over Atlantic Storm each time...) heat, and this game was most excellent! Back and forth all game, and in the end it end it came down to 3 players, including me, with a chance to win. The last battle was won by a player out of the running, and then we counted points. All 3 leaders had 28 points -- a 3-way tie! The tiebreaker is "battle points," and Gary (?) had 22, while I had 20 and Joe Burch had 15. So Gary won, and I had to walk away from another "close but no cigar" game. D'oh!!!

As the evening wore on, I checked the schedule and saw that an Alhambra heat was about to start. I like Alhambra, but there's an awful lot of luck in 4 or 5 player games, so I debated on playing. What the Hell, I went for it, as nothing else was waiting for me. I had a great wall built up, and was ahead in 2 buildings. The final scores were 127-104-89-82 with the 127 belonging to me. This assured me of getting into the semis, so I was glad I stopped in and played.

The 11:00 PM game was one I had to go to -- the Can't Stop tourney. I won this last year, so it would have been poor form to stay away. And besides, I like rolling dice! Well, what can one say about this game? You roll dice and you gamble your position. In Round 1, I gambled well, and won a 4-player game. In Round 2, we played 3-player, and there was a young guy at my board. His buddies were drunk and loud, and while it was funny for a couple minutes, it quickly got annoying. I wanted to win, or have the woman at my table win, just to shut them up. So I took foolish chances (trying to get lucky) to quicken the game. I didn't win, but the woman did. And one of the loudmouths spilled beer all over himself. So it was a Pyhrric victory, eh?

After Can't Stop, it was time for bed. Or was it? Not when one stops by the bar and starts drinking -- this leads to a 1:00 AM game of Pacific Typhoon. It was me, Bill Peeck, Bob Titran, Frank Mestrve, Tom Dunning, and Bill Place. Tom and I tied for 2nd with 25 points. Frank won with 31. Now it was definitely time to hit the sack...

WBC, Day 2...

Woke up early Tuesday morning and had my coffee -- needed to be caffeined up for the Manoeuvre tourney that started at 9:00 AM. This was a tournament with "pods," where you played the other 3 people, and best records advanced to an 8-person quarterfinal. High roll could pick the side he wanted to play, with the caveat that you have to play every nation (assuming you go the distance) and can play no nation more than twice. In my pod, the first game saw me as the British vs. Ken (?)'s French. I won a territorial victory, garnering 25 points. 2nd game was my French vs. Ed (?)'s Prussians. I won a pretty decisive attrition victory for 27 points. The last game saw my French playing Brad's Austrians -- Brad was the guy I played on Monday night. He put up a good fight, but the French overwhelmed them eventually, giving me another 27 point victory. I easily advanced to the quarters as the 2nd seed.

Being the 2nd seed got me in a game with John Miklos, Mark Miklos' son. John is an excellent player, and I had already "shot my wad" with the French and the British. John selected the French, and I wavered between the Prussians, Spaniards, and Russians. I settled on Prussia, and we had a good game. For a while. Then John broke my right wing, and ended up routing me for a 5-1 victory. Ouch! John did go on to make the finals, though he lost his last match. I learned a few tricks, some of which I hope to employ next year!

After hanging out for a bit, I entered the first of 4 Atlantic Storm/Pacific Typhoon heats. We could choose to play either game, and I went for PT. It was a pretty good game, and I had some chance to win, but was stynied at each turn. As the game ended, the winner had 38 points, while I was 2nd at 30. The other scores were 29, 19, and 12. Damn, but I haven't won a heat here in a couple years, gotta get going!

Onto Santa Fe Rails, a monthly favorite at out Rochester meets. We played a 4-player game, and there were a couple of newbies to my left. They fed an awful lot of point opportunities to Steve Scott, the eventual winner, and he picked up 84 cash during the game -- which is huge. Hell, 50 cash is huge, I'd never seen a number as high as 84 before... So, try as I might, I could never make up that deficit (wish the newbies had been to my right...), and I finished in 2nd. Final scores were: 119-114-101-65. Seeing how the winner was spoon feed the victory, I feel like I played an excellent game, even though I didn't win. Oh well...

Now, I began thinking about my day and a half in Lancaster. I had started off with 7 straight victories, but then was saddled with 3 losses in a row. I needed to turn things around, so I went off to have a few beers, and just relax for a bit.

Later on that evening, I decided to play Ivanhoe, since a bunch of Western NY guys were playing. We were all happily buzzed, so why not? Now, this is not one of my favorite games -- it's OK, but it often takes too long for what it is. Luckily, my game finished quickly, and I won. Back on track...

Mike and Bob were in the "monster game room" playing Third World War with Jeff and Chris from Jersey, so I went and checked on their game for a while. After Mike's brake "incident," he finally made it to Lancaster and they all looked like they were having fun.

Ended the night hanging out with the boys at the bar, into the wee hours of the morning. Figured since I was skipping Wilderness War this year, I could sleep in on Wednesday, which I did.

A real fun start to the con, even if I blew it with Manoeuvre...