 |
 |
|
Scott Moll and Nick Benedict
... presumably not doing a podcast. |
George Seary and Lyman Moquin
have the vendor's room to themselves for their Final. |
George, Braveheart and the Blocks
... Take 3
This year's tourney can be characterized by a few words: "Revenge
of the English" with over two English wins to every
Scottish victory, there was a clear bias for the forces of Edward
Longshanks. Even with the new rule "tweaks" that
include improving the Scottish Archer speed and the skill of
Fraser's infantry to a "C3", the Scots could not hold
their own. . . with one glaring exception: Defending champ
George Seary won with the Scots an impressive 3 out of 3 outings,
and even more impressively, in the semi- and Final elimination
rounds against experienced players -- thus holding onto the crown
for anther campaign season. The other new rule in play regarding
reserve forces may actually favor the English at least in the
beginning game -- but if Wallace and the King get together, it
is clearly an advantage to the Scots.
Attendance was down this year to 17 warriors, at least partially
due to "Crusader Rex" (another block game created
by Hammer designer Jerry Taylor) running in parallel as
a Trial event only a few feet away. (We've taken some notes
to better coordinate this next year.) Only two of the defending
laurelists returned from last year, but there were quite a few
new faces. 20 games were played, with 14 - 70%! - going
to the English with an average bid of about1 for the English.
Going into the semi-finals, Nick Benedict (2-1, with
a hotly contested loss from Rob Taylor of 8-6 nobles) squared
off against defending champion George Seary, who bid 0 and took
his favored Scots. The beginning of the game was a pretty
standard affair with George setting up his strike base in Atholl
and converting the East, but then striking south, ending up in
Selkirk on Turn 4. Nick responded with Edward and two big
knight blocks, and in the resulting three-turn combat in which
the Scots pushed everything they had from the reserves (and cut
off the escape route), perished in the forest. Apparently
Edward II thought that Scotland wasn't any longer worth contesting,
and sued for peace, thus giving George his entry to the Final.
The other semi was between Rob Taylor (with an ublemished
3-0 tourney record) facing off against former champion Lyman
Moquin (with an English bid of 3), which turned into a rout of
the Scots in the first turn -- an excellent draw of knights and
cards allowed Lyman to pin and execute Wallace on Turn 1, with
Morray valiantly keeping up the fight but perishing in Turn 2. With
that, the Scots capitulated, and English law once again ruled
Scotland.
Thus, facing off in the Final was Lyman and George. Lyman
took the English with a bid of 2, and the die was cast. There
was a little drama the first turn when Lyman sent two knight
blocks by sea to reinforce Mentieth, and provided some relief
to the northern English nobles, but he couldn't stop the rebellion
from gaining momentum and getting the French into the draw pool. The
tempo picked up on Turn 4 when Edward arrived in force to establish
order, but was consequently stuffed by deft movement of Wallace
and his band, and in a nicely done state affair, the Scottish
King was crowned in Fife in 1301. Objections from the highly
escorted Athol and Mar were quickly squashed. That said,
Eddie returned the next turn, and with all but one English infantry
already on the board, he was armed and ready. Slowly building
up Mentieth over the year, he wintered with 10 troops in 1302
into 1303.
And then couldn't get the initiative (cards) to launch any
meaningful offensive. Again, George's hit and run tactics,
now using both the Scot King and Wallace, shut down the avenues
of invasion, and Eddie left Scotland no further north than where
he wintered that year.
The game then began a yawning stalemate in the middle for
a few years, as both sides built up their forces -- but the tide
had clearly gone to the Scot side, and with control of both Mentieth
and Lennox, the English could no longer get an offensive going
again. Eddie returned nearly every turn, but lacked both
the blocks and cards to seriously erode George's domination of
the board --thus, George took the game 11-3 with a decisive Scot
victory and the title yet again.
  Hammer
of the Scots Play By Email
The second PBeM tourney of Hammer of the Scots commenced Oct. 1, 2004, and is now in the books. This time, 30 players vied for the dominance of the Scottish Nobles. Games
were played on a website that handled the cards and the random
draws of the blocks. Overall, 28 games were played and the
English won half. The Scots dominated the last round,
with George Seary leading the way for the clans as he added the
PBeM crown to his WBC trifects of three straight HOS titles.
Common perception paints the Scots as the underdogs, but tournament
statistics do not back that theory. The other Laurelists were
Suzanne Tuch, Bill O'Neal, Hank Burkhalter, Ray Freeman and Paul
Barrett, in that order. |
Phil Barcafer [3rd Year]
NA
NA