britannia [Updated October 2002]

BRI  6 prizes Experienced Swiss Elim Scheduled 
   Rnd1 Heat1  18   Rnd1 Heat2  10
   Rnd1 Heat3  9   Rnd1 Heat4 16  
   Round 2  9  Semi   Round 3  9  Final 

   Maryland 3 

Ewan McNay, CT

2002 Champion

2nd: James Jordan, MD

3rd: Bruce Young, SC

4th: Richard Jones, UK

5th: Scott Pfeiffer, SC

6th: Brett Mingo, MD

Event History
1991    Richard Curtin      39
1992    Duane Wagner      53
1993    Brett Mingo      91
1994    Scott Pfeiffer      73
1995    Randy Schib      69
1996    Scott Pfeiffer      55
1997    David Gantt      52
1998    Jim Jordan      49
1999    Scott Pfeiffer     46
2000    Ewan McNay     62
2001    Mark Smith     42
2002    Ewan McNay     42


AREA Ratings


GM: James Jordan

Past Winners

Richard Curtin - NY
1991

1992: Duane Wagner - NJ
1993: Brett Mingo - DC

Scott Pfeiffer - SC
1994, 1996, 1999

Randy Schilb - MD
1995

David Gantt - SC
1997

Jim Jordan - MD
1998

Ewan McNay - CT
2000, 2002

Mark Smith - KY
2001
       
 

The First of the Fast Forward History Games ...

It was a quiet week in merrie olde England. There were highs and lows, with some scores in the 30's, and a high of 166. As usual, red and purple came out ahead on wins. Amusingly, blue came out at the bottom with only one win the whole week. We saw Caledonians in Cornwall, and Jutes making crucial moves against the Normans in the end game. In one game (that one with 166 points), Red was the board. All of it.

The high score plaques were won by Joe Abrams (a first!) with 114 for Purple, Brett Mingo captured Green with 140.5, Jonathan Squibb picked up Red with 166!, and your GM won Blue with the only win at 125.

The semi-finals were seeded this year using the results of the last three years. This system worked rather well, scattering the highest rated players among the tables rather than having luck concentrate them. Many of the usual suspects were in the semi-finals, and three top players, Ewan McNay, Bruce Young, and Jim Jordan, made the final, setting up for a hotly contested game. The surprise fourth for the final was Richard Jones, a faithful gamer who comes from England every year to play. He scooted past two former champions, Scott Pfeiffer and Duane Wagner, as they got involved in a nasty knife fight that took them into second and fourth respectively.

The final, with Ewan as Red, turned out to be a fairly normal game. A somewhat treacherous Roman invasion set the frame for Jim and the Purple game, with dice not being a purple friend. The Roman invasion melted away from England's shores and the Saxons and Angles came sailing in. Neither took a very strong position, but the Saxons made a strong statement by stabbing at the southern Welsh. Naturally, the Welsh fought back and the red/green contention got off to a rollicking start.

The Scots and Picts split the north in their usual style and maintained a solid relationship for most of the rest of the game, making the North the only peaceful place on the board. Meanwhile, in the south, a lightning run by the Welsh to York hurt the Angles enough that they gave no serious contention to the Saxons. This let the Saxons continue to grow complacently while pairing with the Irish to steadily ding the Welsh.

Then came the Danes. The Danes did a great job hammering the Saxons and bringing the green point total back up, but in the process they were hurt badly enough that the inevitable Saxon counterattack knocked them down to a minor power. At this point, although there were few Saxons, there were more of them than anyone else and so they pulled in those crucial Bretwalda and King points consistently.

A botched Dubliner invasion came next and was misplaced with few strikes against the daunting Saxons. With that threat gone, the remaining Saxons and Danes just had to set up against the Norwegian and Norman invasions. The Norwegians took their primary territories on turn 15, but found too many natives deciding they were good targets on the last turn. The Normans were amazingly successful in the face of stiff opposition and chased many Saxons before them, but lost too many troops in the invasion to grab the territories needed for Kingship.

In the end, Ewan's Reds triumphed with a reasonably broad margin at 111.5 points. With a moderately successful Norman invasion, Bruce almost pulled off second with Blue, but the final dice roll put him into third at 102 points, to Jim's Purples 102.5. Richard's Greens came in fourth, but managed a 98.5, which was truly an excellent score given the competition arrayed against him.

 GM      James M. Jordan  [4th Year]  NA
    NA   NA

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