sword of rome [Updated October 2005]  

2005 WBC Report  

 2006 Status: pending 2006 GM commitment

John Wetherell, PA

2005 Champion


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Event History
2005    John Wetherell     36

 Laurels

Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
  1.  John Wetherell     PA    05     40
  2.  Nick Anner         NY    05     24
  3.  Bob Woodson        NV    05     16
  4.  Mark Hinkle        NH    05     12
  5.  Mike Hennessy      NY    05      8
  6.  Derek Miller       VA    05      4

           

2005 Laurelists

Nick Anner, NY
2nd

Bob Woodson, NV
3rd

Mark Hinkle, NH
4th

Mike Hennessy, NY
5th

Derek Miller, VA
6th


The Member's Choice ...

The inaugural Sword of Rome tournament which was selected by the membership as the most requested new event had 36 people playing 13 games over a space of three days. I was very lucky to have a great group of players. All my rulings were accepted with no whining of any kind and the two tables that ran over the time limit adjudicated themselves. I was bracing for the worst and got the best. A special thank you to Stuart Tucker for getting this rookie GM out of a tight spot in the semifinals. Of the 16 players that qualified only 13 appeared for the encore. Since only one alternate could be found, I was left with either 13 or 14 gamers, both of which would not work. At this point, Stuart graciously stepped aside and let me run three tables of four-player games, which while not perfect, was better than the alternative.

To alleviate concerns about play balance, players bid support to determine the order in which they picked their power to play. The average bid was only 0.88, with a high bid of four. The Romans were the most popular choice, followed by the Greeks, Gauls, and Etruscan/Samnites. Of the 13 games played, the Etruscan/Samnites won four times and the Greeks, Gauls, and Romans split the remaining nine equally. None of the optional rules from the 1.2 version of the living rules were used iand the average game took around five hours to complete. The GM asks all players that participated in the tournament to give their feedback on the format. I am thinking about eliminating the bidding given the low average bid and going to a two-heat format, to allow more players a chance to play, with the four best players advancing to a Final. The heat format would also allow me to give out prizes for best Roman, Greek, Gallic and Etruscan/Samnite players.

The tournament produced some amazing results from Mark Hinkle's semifinal win via a first turn automatic victory (the first that the GM has ever seen or heard of) to the other end of the spectrum where Fred Schater's Gauls did not win a single battle in his semifinal loss. The tournament also saw three invasions of Africa with one of them being successful in knocking Carthage out of the game. Stuart Tucker and John Wetherell both scored 12 victory points to tie for highest score, while four players finished the game with zero victory points.

 GM      Wray Ferrell   NA
   wferrell1@nc.rr.com   NA

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