The novelty of the tower that resolves combat by how many cubes are dislodged as opposing to becoming hung up in the tower gives the game a unique appeal.	The two heats were evely attended but only four players played in both.

Thanks to the generous sponsorship of Rio Grande Games, Shogun debuted as a trial event last year. Not be confused with Milton Bradley's namesake game circa 1980, Shogun is a new release that is a rethemed version of the game Wallenstein. The game blends Euro-mechanics and wargame elements, and is recalled by most due to its use of a unique 'cube-tower' to determine combat results.

With the event being held for the first time, the pregenerated army setup for the 'sun' side of the board was used for the two preliminary heats. Winners of preliminary games included Craig Moffit, (assistant GM) Mark Guttag, Scott Pfeiffer, John Faella, Frank Schmitt, and a tie for first in one game between Bryan Collars and Rolinda Collinson.

The advanced province setup was used on the 'moon' side of the board in the semi-finals. With the advanced province setup, players have some control over where their initial armies start the game. Nine ambitious samurai warlords vied for control of Japan during the semi-final on Friday night. The group split into two games, one with five players and one with four. At the end of two bloody years, John Faella emerged victorious in the 4-player game with 61 points. Scott Pfeiffer finished second in this game, 6 points behind to also punch his ticket tor the Final. Third in the game was Bill Beckman, 19 points behind the winner. In the 5-player game Craig Moffit sliced, diced and built his way to victory with 53 points. Ted Mullally finished a solid second, only 8 points behind to also advance. Bryan Collars was third 25 points behind the winner to garner 6th place laurels.

The finalists met on Saturday night to determine who would unify Japan under their benevolent (at least to them) rule with the advanced province setup on the 'sun' side of the board. During the province selection, the players staked out their 'slices' of Japan.

Craig secured a position in the northeast corner of the board, John established himself in the southern part of the middle of Japan, Scott dominated the western part of the mainland and much of the southwest island, and Ted set up in the middle western part of Japan. Everyone managed to to stay fairly consolidated except for a few isolated provinces. In the initial 'seeding' of the tower, Scott was the unluckiest with no cubes staying in the tower, while John fared the best with three cubes taking up residence therein.

In the Spring of Year 1, Ted took Hoki from Craig for 'first blood'. This province gave Ted connection between all his provinces, however Craig managed to tax the province before losing it. At the end of the first season, only four buildings were built, John with two, Scott and Ted one each, and Craig none.

In the Summer of Year 1, Ted attempted to harvest rice from his newly gained province of Hoki, and the peasants successfully rose up in revolt to put the province in neutral hands.

The Fall of Year 1 is the last season before the first scoring, so typically games see a lot of building and big conflicts then. One significant battle occurred when John pushed four armies to attack Ted in Mino. Ted had one army there plus an additional one for bidding for the defense special action. The battle ended up in a tie, with the province devastated and the castle Ted had built that season destroyed and scoring for no one. Ted and John were involved in the other big battle this season with Ted pushing eight armies into Omi against John's nine. John survived the attack with two armies remaining.

In the Winter of Year 1, there were no peasant revolts as the players all harvested enough to feed their people.

At the end of the year, John held the lead with 25 points, followed by Scott with 24, Craig 23, and Ted 11. John's points consisted of nine provinces, seven buildings, and building majority presence in three regions. Scott had ten provinces, five buildings, dominating presence in one region and strong presence in another. Craig had 11 provinces, five buildings, dominating presence in one region, and minor presence in another. Ted, obviously getting pummeled, had only seven provinces, three buildings, and minor presence in one region. Scott had at this point cemented control of the west side of the board, Craig controlled the east and middle north provinces, John controlled the south, and Ted was caught smack dab in the middle of them.

In the Spring of Year 2, Ted bid for the '+1 army when attacking' special power, revealing his intention to take on some of the co-leaders this season. Ted launched another big attack into John's building rich Omi, this time with an 11 to 8 army advantage. However, the cube tower was not kind, as John survived the attack with some peasant help with a three-army advantage. Ted was successful in taking over a province from Craig. The other significant event was John's decision not to take the 'spend two gold for three armies' action. This may have weakened John's defenses later in the game, while the gold spent on buildings made him more of a target.

At the beginning of the summer of Year 2, Scott and Craig had no shared borders anywhere. The most noteworthy event was Ted launching a third huge attack into Omi, this time with a 11 to 9 army advantage. Again, the cube tower is kind to John and he retains control with only one army.

In the Fall of Year 2, the last season before the end of the game, Scott harvested rice from Awa-Boso. This was interesting in that this province was in the southeast corner in the board, far from Scott's western power base. Scott managed to retain possession of it the entire game, and collected harvests from it in every season. It started the game with five armies and peasant revolts in response to the constant flogging for more rice had whittled that number down to one, but Scott was able to hang onto it. Ted finally got some luck in his attacks, but it was far too little, too late. He won one large battle vs. Scott, and in his fourth attempt to claim Omi from John, he finally succeeded.

The winter of Year 2 was not as kind. Scott lost a province with two buildings to peasant revolt. Ted and John also lost provinces with buildings, while Craig went unscathed.

In the final reckoning, Ted managed to outscore John in Year 2, but still resided in the rear with only 31 points (six provinces, eight buildings, building domination of one region). John finished third with 41 points (five provinces, seven buildings, strong building presence in one region) and Scott finished second with 50 points (ten provinces, eight buildings, domination of one region and minor presence in another.) Craig won his third game of the tournament to be declared the Shogun of Japan with 60 points. Craig led all the players with 13 provinces, 12 buildings, and building presence domination in two regions for a convincing win in all the scoring aspects.

Congratulations to Craig for his victory. I want to thank assistant GM, Mark Guttag, for guiding this rookie GM, and generating materials that made the job much, much easier. I think the attendance numbers were a bit short for the event to make the Century, so I urge everyone that has read this far to vote for Shogun to return as a tournament in 2008.