The First of the Fast Forward History
Games ...
Yes
friends, Scott Pfeiffer at last has a high score award, with
Blue no less! Other than that, much of the craziness from last
year died down. The high and low scores looked more normal (no
30's scored this year, no more Caledonians visiting their cousins
in Cornwall.) Although there were still some pathological Roman
invasions. In three games, the Belgae discovered
machine gun caches and scored 12, 14 and 16 points. Of course,
Blue only won one of those games.
From the standpoint of winning colors, it was the usual slant
to Red and Purple. Blue had one win, Green two, and those all
occurred in the 1st round. The other 15 games went to Red and
Purple, with eight and seven wins. Red was the only color with
blowout games this year though. The other high scores were all
under 120. Purple went to Mark Smith with 118.5, Green to Jim
Jordan with 116.5, and Blue (did I mention this?) to Scott Pfeiffer
with 113. Red went to Ewan McNay with 151.
Strangeness this year occurred in the semi-finals, where we
managed only three!? So three winners and one runner-up went
to the final. On a good note though, we went up in total players,
pulling in 48 players this year.
The final consisted of a set of the usual cast of characters,
Ewan McNay, David Gannt, Rich Curtin, and Nick Benedict. All
are past winners except for Nick. And distinguished by Rich,
who was the first winner of the tournament in 1991. Nick pulled
Purple, while Ewan (to his despair) drew Blue. The game began
with the Romans mowing down everything in sight. With only a
single loss to the Belgae and none to the Brigantes the Romans
controlled the first third of the game with complete authority.
The mid-game settled into a normal red domination pattern,
except that the Angles and Brigantes sparred heavily, much to
the detriment of both. With so much blood in the north of England,
the Scots were left to peacefully dominate over the minimal Picts
and score a large number of points. Meanwhile, both the Angles
and Brigantes essentially disappeared.
A similar fate awaited the Danes with the start of the end
game. An extraordinary Danish invasion netting 28 points turned
into a following turn where one wondered whether the Danes had
ever been on the board. There were only Saxons left to face the
final invasions, and they posed no particular problem for the
initial invasions, with both Norwegians and Normans scoring well.
But in a burst of final energy, Kings were killed at every turn,
with Harold, Harald, and William all disappearing before the
end.
At the last, Nick's Purple pulled it out between his Romans
and Scots and we have a new name to add to the Britannia Plate.
Note that, for next year, colors will be randomly picked in
each round, not just the semis and final. Additionally, the rule
of one win advancing to the semi-finals has worked very well,
so that will be continuing, and will probably mean that we will
only play three heats next year. I'm looking forward to another
rousing tournament in 2004!
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