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Tom Good and Johnny Wilson |
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Dale Long vs four-time champ Lyman
Moquin |
Ron Draker and Malcolm Smith in the
Final |
 Opposing Clans . . .
A KGB matter ...
The demo on Tuesday evening recruited two badly needed new
players for the Wednesday morning start. The field was small
again but a perfect number for a Round 1 bracket: 16. The Swiss
rounds showed a slight bias for the English with 12 wins in 20
preliminary games. Round 2, with the initial winners matched,
proved even more biased for England with five wins in six games,
but the third round swung the balance back toward the Scots with
four Celtic wins in six contests. The most notable statistic
from the early rounds was that the vast majority of the games
were automatic victories, regardless of side, with the winner
gaining possession of the allegiance of all of the clansmen and
the loser completely eliminated.
Border raids by the Scots into England were a popular tactic,
in at least one case causing Edward to have to disband in Scotland
to hurry home to deal with the incursion. The eventual champion,
Malcolm Smith, was helped to a Scots win because Edward never
made it into Scotland -- the English only drew him out of the
force pool once, and it ended up being a one-card turn and a
quick trip back to the block pool for Edward as both players
turned up events on the first card play of the year. Wallace
also had some difficulty in staying on the board, in one case
having to disband twice to clear overpopulation in Scots castles,
and in another dying when his English front line opponents managed
to roll eight hits in ten shots to end the battle before the
Scots reserves could deploy.
The reprise of last year's Final occurred in the semifinals
this year, as Malcolm's Scots took on defending champ Lyman Moquin's
English. The sitting champion was dethroned as the Hobelars were
cut off and destroyed in the Highlands, and the Scots were able
to maintain a line across the center of the country for one of
the few close results of the tournament, an 8 - 6 Scottish win.
In the other semifinal match, Ron Draker was able to overcome
Edward's absence from the force pool for the first year to take
an automatic victory over Steve Koleszar's Scots.
That set up a Final of Smith vs Draker, with Malcolm bidding
one extra English unit at setup to be able to play his preferred
Scots. Noting that "Edward I was never killed but often
wounded", Malcolm was able to repeat his strategy from the
semifinal to hold a line across central Scotland against the
invader and claim the title with his second straight 8 - 6 win.
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Randall MacInnis [2nd Year]
NA
NA