Allen Kaplan's painted minature set was the envy of the event.	Alas, Allen lost when he played with blocks in a scenario where he lacked the miniatures.

Our second year saw a slight dip in the numbers of participants but still a strong group of 36 players gather to play the first round in four player groups where each player played all the others in their group in the same scenario and the best in the group advanced to the second round. The scenario for the first round was Hippacritea from the Truceless Wars scenario pack. Side selection was handled by players bidding discards they were willing to give their opponent which could be used at any time. The results were an even split, 27 wins for each side. Discards were mainly given to the Roman player with the Carthaginian player only getting cards in four games. Of the 27 Roman wins, ten were accomplished with no extra discards. When Carthage won, they won by an average score of 5 to 2.8 while Rome won 5 to 2.3.seven

With the group winners automatically advancing to the second round, we also took seven other players. This worked well as it meant that all groups with two or three people tied with 2-1 records to lead the group were able to advance. The second round was another group stage where the 16 players were broken down into 4-player groups again. This time the scenario was Leptis, again from Truceless Wars. The average bid for the 22 games was 3.9 discards. This was a lopsided affair 18-4 in favor of Carthage. The average wins were Rome 6-3 and Carthage 6-2.8. Only the winner of each group advanced. In one group, this was hard to determine as three of the four players went 2-1; the ultimate winner advanced only because he won as the Romans.

The semi-finals were two games against the same opponent in the same battle, Raphia from the 1st Expansion, switching sides. In one match-up, Brian Conlon faced Bill O'Neal, a repeat semi-finalist. This was a match-up of old time participants for me as both of these players were regulars in the Across 5 Aprils tournaments I ran. The other match-up was Jack Morrell against Allan Kaplan. Both match-ups were decided by winning both sides. Jack and Bill were triumphant. Allen Kaplan was present again with his unique set which has a painted and mounted miniature set; too bad he hadn't prepared any of the figures for the first Expansion as he lost when he had to play with blocks.

This set up a Final between two Rochester area players, Jack Morrell and Bill O'Neal. The battle was Magnesia. Bill handled the Romans in the opener and did very well, winning 7-1 and really putting the pressure on Jack. Bill did trail in the rematch but only had to focus on trying to get two banners which he was able to do about halfway through for the victory.

I want to thank all the players. The tournament flowed very smoothly. I only had to give time warnings about a half dozen times and adjudicate one game. We will be back again in 2008 with new challenges and a new bidding system - complete battle dice re-roll.