Our top vote getter in the Annual
Century new event vote for 2002
The
inaugural WBC Wilderness War Tournament was a rousing
success, drawing an even 50 participants. Things went much smoother
than I had any reason to expect since it was my first time as
a GM. The ceremonial Pipehawk (shown at right) for first place
went to Game Developer and Assistant GM Rob Winslow; no surprise
there. Rob had a scare in Round 2, but appeared to have a relatively
easy time of it otherwise. The other finishers were unknown
to me as WNW players before the convention, but all turned in
impressive efforts (the other finalist, Roger Taylor, crushed
me in Round 2).
The format was single elimination play of the AM Scenario
in a single day. The rounds were scheduled for three hours starting
at 0900 on Friday. That seemed a little tight, as the Assistant
GMs and I, unfortunately, had to adjudicate a handful of games
to keep everything on schedule and the vast majority of the games
that were not blowouts appeared to go close to the full three
hours. The tournament finished up at 0100 the next day even
though we avoided having six rounds when two of the surviving
six players dropped out after Round 3. In the future this may
need to be a two day event and the rounds will more than likely
need to be lengthened to 3.5 or four hours.
If
the results of this tournament are any indication, and I personally
believe that they are, the AM Scenario is very balanced and
well suited for tournament play. Of the 46 games played, there
were 24 French wins. The British did a little better in the
later rounds, but not by much. VPs were bid in only 11 games,
and the record of those players who bid a single VP for a particular
side was quite poor. All five players who bid to play the British
lost as did four of six who bid to play the French. Of course
this is a new game and these numbers may change at future conventions
as players gain experience. Significantly, about a third of
the games were sudden death blowouts (evenly split between French
and British wins), which might indicate that there were quite
a few inexperienced players on hand.
Other additional prizes were a paperback of Parkman's "Montcalm
and Wolfe", a Rodger MacGowan print of the game box and
some souvenirs from Fort Niagara. The other Assistant GM, Greg
Schmittgens, had WNW buttons made for the first 30-35 people
who showed up.
I would like to thank
the Assistant GMs for their help, Game Designer Volko Ruhnke
for designing an awesome game and for being on hand to lend moral
support and Bob Titran, who contributed the Niagara prizes.
I would also like to thank the players, who made running the
tournament such a pleasant experience for me. And finally, I
would like to acknowledge the sportsmanship of the unofficial
King of the Card Driven Games, Peter Reese, who, even though
he had a shot at his third championship of the Convention, selflessly
dropped out when we were down to five players so that we could
avoid an extra round on Saturday. This allowed Third Place Finisher
John Haas, who had to leave the convention that night, to have
a shot at First Place. My hat is off to Peter.
|