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Rich Atwater (right) takes a
break from his Titan 2-player GM duties to play the multi-player
version. Most Titan fans play both. |
Long out of print and a prized
collector's item, Titan's ranks have been depleted - this
year's field being the smallest ever. |
Always a Titanic Struggle ...
Things went smoother this year. No adjudications were needed,
people didn't let things get to them for the most part and the
extra flexibility in starting games helped keep waiting down.
There was a bit more at stake this year as Kevin Hillock chipped
in a set of one hundred dice to go to the winner. Though in the
end he decided winning his own dice back wasn't appropriate and
gave them to Tom Johnston who finished second after a close battle.
Participation was down slightly this year. We went from 51
players playing in 36 preliminary games with 135 seats to 38
players playing in 33 preliminary games with 122 seats. While
we still mostly played 4-player games this year the breakdown
was split more evenly than before. This year 19 of the preliminary
games were 4-player, 12 were 3-player and two were 5-player.
It turned out exactly 16 players had at least one win this
year. This worked to Mike Pustilnik's advantage, as he wasn't
able to arrive until Friday evening and only had time to win
one game. The game he got placed in had three players who had
already qualified for the semis and he personally dispatched
each one of them. After the game he still had to wait to see
the outcome of another game to see if he would make the semis.
But Bob Masso, who had no chance to qualify himself as he hadn't
won any of his first six games, eliminated his sister, Peg Meacham
and David Gubbay, leaving Mike as the16 seed. Mike went on to
win his semi-final but was the first casualty in the Final. Still,
he did pretty well playing only three games (and winning two
out of three against tough competition) and taking home the 4th
place plaque.
The Final had an interesting ending. It was set up by Kevin
Hillock attacking Brian Sutton (via titan teleport) with an 11-die
titan, two serpents, two behemoths, two warlocks and an angel
versus an 8-die titan, dragon, warlock and three unicorns in
the plains. Kevin won and ended up with a16-die titan, warlock
and angel.
Kevin wasn't able to pick up any recruits on his next four
turns. At which point Tom Johnston attacked him (via titan teleport)
with a 9-die titan, two warlocks, three gorgons, a cyclops and
an angel to call in the swamp. Tom had declined an attack two
turns earlier when he rolled a 6 while Kevin's titan stack was
in hills.
Kevin needed to fight the battle aggressively, even though
he was the defender, because of Tom's edge in rangestrikers.
And he also had to avoid losing a piece while doing so to keep
Tom's angel out of the battle. He was able to do this successfully
and by the time Tom had killed something the battle was down
to titan and warlock versus titan and warlock. It looked like
a mutual was likely, though Kevin had an edge. However, before
Tom got his turn Kevin's warlock rolled 5 out of 5 on Tom's Titan;
taking it from four hits to nine and killing it exactly.
And as usual, some odd events happened in the preliminary
games.
* In one game David desJardins had a seven-high stack at the
start of Turn 3! (Note this requires getting attacked and having
the net result of the attack be that you gain one piece.) Another
odd event in this game was that David ended with four giants
and two dragons, in each one of six different stacks.
* In another game Art Wines rolled a 6 on Turn 1 and took
a warlock in the midst of Joe Delany's stacks. But Joe was able
to turn the tables on Art by recruiting warlocks on Turns 3 and
4 and then dispatching Art on Turn 5.
* Steve Koleszar was almost able to pull out a win in a game
he was prepared to concede, when the remaining two players, David
desJardins and Art Wines, had a titan on titan battle. However,
after Art killed David's titan, David conceded rather than striking
back with his Titan, preventing the mutual and Steve had to settle
for second.
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