Junior Events [Updated October 2002]

WBC attempts to always have one event running between 9 AM and 9 PM exclusively for kids 12 and under. Such events are free to children accompanied by a BPA member in attendance at the conference. While parents need not be present to play, parental attendance is encouraged to lend a hand. However, parents should refrain from playing the game for their children.

How young is too young? Children should be old enough to read at a minimum. Parents are reminded that this is not a day care service and their children should be well behaved and respectful of others if they are to attend unsupervised. WBC and its GMs assume no responsibility for keeping track of your child's whereabouts before, during or after the event. There is no substitute for parental supervision.

 Although all Juniors events are Class C ­ Coached ­ and will be explained, it is best if the children have some advance familiarity with the games in question.

Lastly, remember that bringing a copy of the game is often a good idea to ensure enough copies to allow everyone to play.

 All Juniors events are held in Chase ­ the room closest to the elevators.

    W17: Wednesday 5 PM        GM: Tom De Marco                Champ: Jessica Hardesty over 15 entrants

2nd Scott Uhrich

3rd Shea Lawson

4th Alex Henning

5th Alexander Lange

6th Tim DeMarco

  F17: Friday 5 PM                     GM: Ken Lee                           Champ: Jessica Finkeldey over 20 entrants

2nd Shea Lawson

3rd Alex Henning

4th Kelsey Lee

5th Mathew Beach

   H14: Thursday 2 PM               GM: Rich Shipley                     Champ: Alex Henning over 18 entrants

2nd Angela Collinson

3rd Katie McCory

4th Grant Herman

5th Tim DeMarco

6th Steven Greenwood

F14: Friday 2 PM                          GM: Tom McCorry             Champ: Jessica Hardesty over 23 entrants

2nd Emmy Shambeda

3rd Katy Lee

4th Mathew Beach

5th Katie McCorry

6th Claire Anderson

S9: Saturday 9                             GM: Kaarin Engelmann             Champ: Lissa Rennert over 31 entrants

2nd Matt Beach

3rd Rebekah Broh-Kahn

4th Jacob Hebner

5th Nick Dalt

6th Alex Henning

See the adult Circus Maximus report page for more details.

W10 Wednesday 10 AM            GM: John Poniske             Champ: Jessica Hardesty over 17 entrants

2nd Shea Lawson

3rd Angela Collinson

4th Claire Anderson

S18 Saturday 6 PM                      GM: Ed Beach                            Champ: John Darr over 16 entrants

2nd Natalie Beach

3rd Nick Darr

4th Mathew Beach

Sixteen young gamers traveled through the Chase Room portal to arrive in Middle Earth for the first Lord of the Rings junior tournament. With the recently-released movie soundtrack swelling in the background, the player-hobbits were divided into four teams. Each team would venture forth to Mordor in an attempt to destroy the One Ring.

The cooperative nature of Reiner Knizia's game demanded a unique format. The winner of this event would be a whole table of hobbits - whichever group made it closest to the end of their quest at Mount Doom. Within that group the hobbits would then be ranked in order of longest survival (or their final health if they made it all the way to the final space). Prizes were available for all members of the winning team, but the plaque would go to the strongest hobbit at the end. Our normal junior-tournament rule against siblings playing together at the same table in a competitive environment was suspended for this cooperative game.

With the assistance of two helpful adults [thank you Mark Greenwood and Gail Kirchner!], we ran up to three parties of hobbits simultaneously. Despite a lack of experienced players (only 5 of 16 had played the game at all before), all four groups made it to the final Mordor board. Table 3 (Katherine Sudy, Angela Collinson, Andy Dunn, Scott Uhlrich) were in the best shape entering the final board; Sauron had only advanced six spaces on their corruption track. However all the groups had a rough time in Mordor, with each party of hobbits perishing before they reached Mount Doom.

Using their greater experience with the game, it was the double-sibling team at Table 1 that made it the furthest. This team of four reached Space 56, three spaces further than any other group. This was quite a feat given that Sauron had advanced a full nine spaces on the corruption track when they started the board. At the winning table, Matthew Beach made the first sacrifice for the party, allowing his hobbit Sam to die to avoid a further move by Sauron. Nick Darr also sacrificed his Frodo shortly thereafter. At Space 56, Natalie Beach's Merry died bearing the ring, ending the game. John Darr with Pippin, the last hobbit alive, claimed the plaque. Natalie, Nick, and Matthew all took home Lord of the Ring action figures for their significant contributions toward their team's victory.

We look forward to an even better tournament next year when more players will have previous experience with the game (and hopefully more will bring copies). We'll bring the soundtrack back again; the kids loved having it play in the background. They even swore that the music was perfectly synchronized to the action on the game boards!

    H9 Thursday 9 AM                     GM: Mark Love                    Champ: Jacob Hebner over 20 entrants

2nd Grant Herman

3rd Suzanne Welker

4th Nick Darr

5th Angela Collinson

See the adult Monsters Ravage America report page for more details.

H17 Thursday 5 PM                    GM: Ken Whitesell                   Champ: Tim DeMarco over 19 entrants

2nd William Kendrick

3rd Steven Greenwood

4th Erin Treadway

Plastic Infantry Guys: Now, a real boardgame style way to use traditional army men for pieces! Which team (green or gray) will prove to be king of the table top?

   F9 Friday 9 AM                           GM: Mark McLaughlin   Champ: Alex Henning over 30 entries

2nd Nick Darr

See the Adult report of Princess Ryan's Star Marines for more details.

W14 Wednesday 2 PM                  GM: Ray Stakenas              Champ: Scott Uhrich over 15 entrants

2nd Erin Treadway

3rd Alex Henning

4th Tim DeMarco

5th Suzanne Welker

T18 Tuesday 6 PM                           GM: Kathy Stroh                  Champ: Natalie Beach over 13 entrants

2nd Mathew Beach

3rd Jessica Finkeldey

4th Scott Uhrich

   S14 Saturday 2 PM                      GM: Kaarin Engelmann        Champ: Suzanne Welker over 23 entrants

2nd Jonathan Darr

3rd Steven Greenwood

4th Katie McCorrie

5th Zach Dunn

6th Shea Lawson

See the adult Titan The Arena report for more details.

U9 Sunday 9 AM                               GM: Daniel Broh-Kahn       Champ: Daniel Collinson over 14 entrants

2nd Jacob Hebner

3rd Rebekah Broh-Kahn

4th Suzanne Welker

5th Mathew Beach

6th Sarah Welker

VEX: VEX is the world's first collectible card game with a theme of flags. Each VEX card contains over a dozen pieces of information about the flag of a single country. The designer will host the event, answer any questions, and provide copies of the game for all participants. The first round of this Juniors event will be of basic VEX, like Rummy, playable in 15 minutes or less. Additional rounds will be multiple player or two-player, based on total participation. No knowledge of the game, or even ownership is required, so come out juniors and end your week at WBC with a free game of VEX! Everybody wins!