The inaugural Space Base PBeM event was run in 2025 and drew 58 players vying to be the top Commodore of outer space. Eighty-five four-player games were played across three rounds to determine a champion, using a 1000-100-10-1 scoring system to rank players in each round. This tournament was expected to end in early 2026 but concluded well ahead of schedule, more on that at the end of the report.

Everyone played 4 games in Round 1 against 12 different opponents. The biggest blowout win (measured by first-to-second score ratio) was earned by Debbie Gutermuth’s 41-17-15-14 victory, and while many scores went well past 40 and into the 50s, special mention goes to Rob Kircher’s impressive 66 point game and Jon McSenn’s spectacular 73 point win. Jon also had the honor of being the only player to win all 4 of their games in the round. Six players won three Round 1 games, and the advancement cutoff ended up at 1120 (one win, one second place, two third places.) Chad Martin and Jeff Mullet barely missed the cutoff on tiebreakers.

Round 2 saw some new results and some familiar ones. Carl Chauvin picked up the tournament’s first victory via the You Win card. Albert Bangma had the biggest win ratio with a very efficient 48-19-18-15 beatdown, and Bronwyn Woods had the highest score with 52. When the space dust settled, advancement to the final required a score of 1210. Lumin Sperling had the lowest advancing score with that 1210, and in increasing order of round scores, the other finalists were Steve LeWinter, Rob Kircher, Bronwyn Woods, Debbie Gutermuth, D.J. Borton (3 wins,) and none other than Jon McSenn, who produced another perfect 4-win round to lead the pack.

The final round used the common 7-table format where everyone plays each opponent twice across 4 games.

On Table 1, Rob took first place with 41 points in 10 rounds, using both the P.S.S. Zholobov (sector 7, swaps sectors 4 and 9) and U.E.S. Zudov (sector 9, exchanges with any other card) to eventually create a massive 11 credits and 9 VP for each 4 rolled by an opponent.

On Table 2, Rob scored yet another win, with 55 points in 11 rounds for the highest score of the Final. He used yet another sector-swapper, the U.E.S. Kubasov (sector 6, swaps sectors 5 and 8) to transfer a tall stack of cards. Rob’s 11 credits and 1 VP on opponents’ 5’s quickly overtook the rest of the table.

On Table 3, Lumin won with 48 points in 10 rounds. His opening featured the “arrows” card in sector 9, quickly flipped to add the rewards of sector 10 when opponents rolled a 9. The dice obliged, and Lumin supplemented the 9’s with level 3 cards in sector 5 to get the usual big endgame buys.

Table 4 saw the second and final You Win of the tournament, this time achieved by Lumin. With both You Win and some complementary green effects in the market to start the game, Lumin was able to use the U.E.S. Glenn (sector 6, place 1 charge anywhere) along with some boosters to end the game in the middle of the 7th round.

Bronwyn scored a 45 point win in 11 rounds on Table 5, using a balanced approach: after getting the arrows cards in sectors 10, 11, and 12 early on, she bought a level 3 card for sector 2 and then the colony card on sector 4, before making some final improvements to her sector 10 and using her credits to end the game.

On Table 6, D.J. won the tightest game of the final, 45 to 40, in 11 rounds. An early focus on sectors 8 and 9 paid off for D.J., who eventually flipped his arrows card in sector 8 to earn 10 credits and 6 VP for the two sectors combined. With three 8’s and one 9 rolled by opponents in the final rounds, he was able to finish ahead.

And finally, on Table 7, Steve got to 45 points in 9 rounds to notch a win. Steve benefited from some early 4’s to race out to a level 3 card and a colony for his second and third purchases of the game. He continued to buy colonies aggressively, and the simple setup paid off.

Unfortunately for Jon, he was able to get the same result in all 4 games—but in second place each time saw him fall to 6th place overall despite an impressively consistent run throughout the tournament. Lumin and Rob both ended with two 1st, one 2nd, and one 3rd in the final round, which is about as close as it ever gets. Thanks to better tiebreakers of (your score/next highest score) added up, mostly from You Win worth 40 in a quick game, Lumin earned first place for the tournament.

Laurelists were:

1. Lumin Sperling
2. Rob Kircher
3. Bronwyn Woods
4. DJ Borton
5. Steven LeWinter
6. Jon McSenn

My sincere thanks to all participants and my AGMs Rob Murray and Ryan Feathers for making my first PBeM GM experience a smooth and straightforward one. Rounds 2 and 3 were completed at a breakneck pace, which came with a pleasant surprise. With this event concluding in 2025, we are eligible to run another Space Base PBeM in 2026, something I did not expect when kicking off this tournament. I expect to try for the same timeframe next year, with signups starting early August and the tournament starting the first week of October.