Alex Lange in a rematch vs defending champ Ty Hansen	Stan Myszak vs Seth Gunar

A dark shadow crept across the land of Middle Earth this year, causing a number of past participants to be corrupted by the lure of "Monday tournaments". Those who found their way, embarked on a storybook quest to save Middle Earth. Nine companions began the journey early Saturday morning in the mulligan round. The GM fell to the odd number while the remaining eight battled for the one game. Yes, games were rarer than rings this year! Luckily two matches ended swiftly to share one copy and the GM's copies enabled all to play this time. In the first game, newcomer Lachla Salter quickly expanded his shadow armies as Martin Sample's FSP raced across the board toward Mordor. Lachla's first siege on Minas Tirith failed, but other forces prevailed to seize ten VPs with the FSP in Mordor, just a stone's throw away from dunking the ring. Dan Hoffman's shadow was not so lucky in the second game vs Jacob Hebner. Jacob's FSP sailed across the board and his Ents foiled Dan's plans by wiping out Isenguard and relieving the siege on Helms Deep. The lost SP military tempo enabled an unhindered ring dunk. Meanwhile, another newcomer to the WBC and USA coming all the way from Finland, Daniel Rauma battled with Stan Myszak. Smeagol appeared early, but corruption was high for Daniel's FSP. Stan deployed the Balrog, Corsairs and Dunlendings in his military web toward claiming ten VPs for a Shadow win. The remaining match of the mulligan pitted Andy Latto vs Todd Treadway. Todd managed to muster in the Balrog, Corsairs and Dunlendings, but Andy also drew Smeagol and got the Ents into play. The FSP's corruption stayed manageable, which allowed the FP to dunk the ring for the win.

Christopher Yaure, Seth Gunar, Chris Greenfield, Kevin Lewis, Alex & Ted Lange, Chris Trimmer and Ty Hansen, with barely enough additional copies of the game, joined the party for Round 1 on Sunday night. A highlight game had Christopher Yaure accept a Dwarven ring from Daniel Rauma to play the FP. Daniel used all of the special units available to the SP, including the Dunlendings, the Balrog, and the Corsairs of Umber. He also made good use of Saruman's Voice until the FP activated the Ents. On the military side he sent Isengard forces, including Dunlendings, northeast towards the Shire. Against the Fellowship he played 2-3 eyes, and rolled more. Despite moving slowly (the Fellowship only reached the Dead Marshes by game end) Frodo had six corruption. Christopher was pessimistic about his chances, but Daniel emptied out several strongholds in setting up his military adventures. This opened the door for the FP to get units to both Minas Morgul and Umbar before they could be reinforced and Christopher won a FP military victory.

Nine winners qualified to continue the Monday elimination rounds. However, two were corrupted by other tournament forces. So the remaining seven continued their quest with the seed yourself draft. Defending champion Ty Hansen let the fates decide if he should take the bye with a coin flip or pass it to the next in line, teammate Chris Trimmer. The coin did not fall his way so he took the bye. The pairings yielded Ted Lange vs Kevin Wojtaszczyk, Christopher Yaure vs Jacob Hebner and Stan Myszak vs Chris Trimmer. In the first game Kevin gave three Dwarven rings to Ted to play the Shadow. He then blitzed the shadow military quickly toward Lorien and the DEW, killing any threat of Galadriel as Ted's action dice came up all swords in the critical Lorien assault turn, leaving no chance for defense. Those character actions however enabled the FSP to speed toward Mordor. Ted managed to get a strong DEW defense going in Erebor which stymied the quick SP offensive, but a critical turn stall delayed the FSP's entry into Mordor. This gave the SP enough time to muster the Corsairs and assault Dol Amroth for a SP military win. In the second match AREA's 5th ranked Jacob Hebner accepted 0 dwarven rings to play the FP from 73rd ranked Christopher Yaure. Christopher followed Daniel's Round 1 approach by sending units towards the Shire, as well as Easterlings and forces from Mordor towards DEW. Jacob moved the Fellowship quickly and reinforced both the Grey Havens and Rivendell. While the SP was taking the Shire and all of DEW, they also sent Southrons towards Gondor and Isengarders against Rohan. With Frodo and Sam on Mount Doom, Christopher managed ten VPs with all four FP cities, the two DEW strongholds, and Dol Amroth to grab the upset victory. In the third game, Chris Trimmer bid for the SP giving Stan Myszak two dwarven rings to play the FP. The game ran 12 turns as the action dice kept thwarting the plans of both players and enabled the FP to get some thick defenses in place. The FSP had trouble moving quickly, but did manage to enter Mordor as masses of shadow troops engaged FP forces all over the map. In the end, the strength in numbers of the SP armies prevailed just as the FP reached throwing distance to mount doom.

The semifinals had Christopher Yaure face Chris Trimmer, the highest rated WOR player and a two-time champion. Yaure accepted one dwarven ring to play the FP. The SP followed the DEW strategy, sending lots of Sauron nasties north. The FP was able to capture the emptied Minas Morgul and Far Harad and attacked Angmar with one elite against one regular. Chris reinforced with one Nazgul, Despite having two cards, the FP lost one (elite downgrade by a Nazgul re-roll) while killing nothing on the first two rolls. On the third roll, both units were killed and the SP retained possession of Angmar. Chris's SP then took the military initiative and reached nine points. He moved a large party to Westemnet and was threatening Edoras, which was lightly defended and would have given him his tenth point and the game. Fortunately the FP had a couple of Ent cards and Ents were very unhappy that day, eliminating eight units. That gave Yaure's FP the extra turn needed to finish Frodo's walk up Mount Doom to dunk the ring, adding another chapter to his storybook quest in Middle Earth. The other semifinal had Kevin Wojtaszczyk facing Ty Hansen in a rematch of last year's semifinal that Ty won on a Day Without Dawn play. In this one, Kevin also played the FP, with Ty giving him four dwarven rings. In the first turn the FP rolled a Will and Ty mustered Saruman early, instead of waiting till the SP's last die. It was an interesting gambit, as Kevin could choose to separate out Gandalf and upgrade him to Gandalf the White to get five action dice right away. However, that would also prevent the FP from being able to muster in Galadriel later. This was a critical choice, which ultimately affected the end of the game. Since the opening FP cards included Fear! Fire! Foes! Kevin did separate Gandalf with Legolas and mustered Gandalf the White. The North was at war the next turn and Legolas moved toward Rivendell. Saruman produced a large army and took Helms Deep while the Mordor troops had to be reinforced with Southern & Easternlings at the DEW. Meanwhile the FSP concentrated their efforts on quickly moving the FSP and entered Mordor in Turn 5, using dwarven rings to re-roll Army/Muster dice to increase the chances of getting a sword or will. However, corruption was getting moderately high and the SP started loading eyes into the hunt box to open the risk of a corruption win on an eye draw. DEW fell and Lorien was put under siege, bringing back the thoughts of the first turn FP decision to forgo Galadriel. Lorien did turn into a multiple turn siege and the FSP reached the last step to mount doom. The last turn had the FP roll one character/will in the five dice and all four of the dwarven rings were spent with just one elven ring left. Ty had two red stop tiles in the bag, but the seven other tiles were safe for the FP. So this time Kevin got the chance to draw a hunt tile for the FP win, but alas it was not meant to be, as the red eye was drawn, revealing the FP and leaving the FP one character die short of another draw. Ty then completed the remaining SP battles and gained ten VPs for the victory.

The Final was then set with Ty Hanson, the defending champion vs Balrog killer Christopher Yaure. Christopher accepted one dwarven ring to play the FP. Early on Ty activated Saruman and recruited heavily with the Voice. He then advanced out of Orthanc and besieged Helm's Deep. The FP captured Orthanc with Ents, which cost the SP a die for the rest of the game. The loss of Saruman was to prove decisive later. While the Fellowship advanced onto Mount Doom, Ty picked up eight points and threatened to win by sieging Minas Tirith. Frodo had moved a couple of times that turn and a bad tile draw on another move would have given Ty a corruption win. So Christopher chose to wait till the next turn to go for the dunk, risking that Ty would capture Minas Tirith on the current turn. Ty played an Urak-hai strategy card that would have won the siege, but the card was not playable due to the earlier death of Saruman. So Ty could just manage a 5+5 attack against five defenders for the win. Christopher played Confusion and Ty rolled one "1", limiting him to a maximum of four kills. That gave Frodo the extra turn he needed to dunk the ring and gave Christopher Yaure the victory and his first Century shield, my precious ...

Congratulations to Christopher Yaure and many thanks to everyone who participated in the tournament! Overall the Shadow won 11 games (10 SPMV, 1 Corruption) to six for the Free Peoples (5 Ring Dunks, 1 FPMV). Four dwarven rings given to the FP was the maximum bid with many games settling for one or even none.

Lastly, as you can see from the above participation levels, the tournament has dropped perilously close to extinction. A few years ago the Hannibal pre-con tended to draw participants away from our tournament, so I tried scheduling around that. This year an even bigger conflict emerged with more tournaments running on Monday. In light of that, Hannibal and WOR will have to run during similar pre-con times. To drum up more support I am leaning toward using the newly published and available Ares 2nd edition version, without any expansions, and possibly moving the format back to a Beginners level. More details, more prizes and more ideas will be posted in the 2013 event preview!

GM Kevin Wotaszczyk vs Chris Greenfield. The two-time champ had to settle for third this year.	Soon-to-be-champ Chris Yaure defeats Finn Daniel Rauma as Jacob Hebner hovers.