sword of rome [Updated October 2007]  

	2007 WBC Report   2008 Status: pending December Membership Trial Vote
Marty Sample, NH 2007 Champion Offsite links:	Event History 2005    John Wetherell     36 2006     Bill Dyer     16 2007    Marty Sample     13	Laurels Rank Name From Last Total 1. John Wetherell PA 05 40 2. Bill Dyer IL 06 30 3. Mark Hinkle NH 07 25 4. Nick Anner NY 05 24 5. Frank McNally MA 06 18 6. Bob Woodson NV 05 16 7. Marty Sample NH 07 13 8. Brian Mountford CA 06 9 9. Mike Hennessy NY 05 8 10. Larry Burman GA 07 6 11. Melvin Casselberry PA 06 6 12. Nick Klercker NY 07 4 13. Derek Miller VA 05 4 14. Kirk Harris MD 07 3 15. Tom Drueding MA 07 2
2007 Laurelists Larry Burman, TN 2nd Nick Klerckrer, NY 3rd Kirk Harris, MD 4th Tom Drueding, MA 5th Mark Hinkle, NH 6th Past Champions John Wetherell, PA 2005 Bill Dyer, IL 2006 After a crowded debut two years ago, Swod of Rome games were scarce.  In a crowded field for CDWs, Sword of Rome attendance fell again. From Feast to Famine ... This year's tournament dropped down to only 13 people playing four games over a space of two days. In an attempt to revive the flagging attendance I will experiment with having multiple heats next year with the four best players advancing to the Final. Hopefully having a choice of multiple start times will attract more players. Players again bid support to determine the order in which players picked the power they would play. The average bid dropped from 0.55 last year to 0.49 this year, with a high bid of 1 which seems to indicate most players think the game is balanced. Unlike previous years, the Greeks were chosen first in every game played, the Romans were the second most popular choice, followed by the Gauls and Etruscan/Samnites. Ironically, of the four games played, the Gauls won three times while Etruscan/Samnites won the other. No one wanted to play them, but they won all the games. None of the optional rules were used from the 1.4 version of the living rules and the average length of a game stayed steady at around five hours. I would like all players that participated in the tournament, either this year or last year, to give me feedback on the format. Would a change to a two-or three-heat format with the four best players advancing to a Final increase your chances of entering the tournament next year? I had 13 players for the first round so I do appreciate the players being flexible enough to have one table of five players and two tables of four players. Once again I had the luxury of not having to adjudicate a single game and all my rulings were handled gracefully. The fifth player game was interesting in that Larry Burman brought out the Dictator during Turn 2, but he served Rome well as Rome ended the game tied with the Gauls at 11 VPs. The players in the Final have my unending gratitude as the game was completed in 2.5 hours with zero rule questions. And they say this GM stuff is hard  It was apparent that every victory point was going to be contested when during the first turn ten, yes ten; Neutral Power Activates cards were played to add CU to the non-player powers. At the end of the first turn, before reinforcements, the T-Gauls had eight CU, the Volscii had eight CU, and Carthage had nine CU. The entire game was a tightly contested affair with no player having more than seven or less than five VPs through the first five turns. During the last turn Marty Sample's Gauls gained two VPs at the expense of the Etruscans to win his first Sword of Rome plaque. Marty has probably played more games of Sword of Rome than anyone except me so it was nice to see him finally break through and win the tournament. Hopefully Sword of Rome will be voted back into the mix next year allowing him an opportunity to defend his title.
GM      Wray Ferrell [3rd year]   112 Carrousel Lane, Cary, NC 27513    wferrell1@nc.rr.com   919-244-9765