1991: Steve Rareshide, VA
1992: Kevin Quirk, PA

Brian Sutton, MD
1993

Chuck Kaplan, IL
1994

Steve Koleszar, VA
1995, 2001

Ben Foy, VA
1996

Dave Finberg, MA
1997, 2003

Jung Yeah, MA
1998

David des Jardins, CA
1999, 2005

Rich Atwater, WA
2000

Ed Rothenheber, MD
2002

Note Akihisa Tabei's headwear - an Avaloncon cap from his last visit back in 1997 -- a year before WBC was born.	The finalists battle it out for supremacy in a battle of four former champs.

This year we played 42 games. 30 of these were 4-player games (including the four semi-finals and the Final) and 12 were 3-player games for a total of 156 game seats. Last year we had 138 game seats. This is about a 13% increase. The number of participants increased about 18% over last year.

This suggests that the current format is working ok and we don't need to switch to MSME at this time. The two-hour dead time seemed to work well. It is long enough to make sure we get a game going at the 4-hour start increments, but not so long that people who finish in the dead time get grumpy about having to wait to start another game.

The other event in our future is the Titan rerelease being done by Valley Games Inc. If it comes out early enough, I'll take a look at any rule changes they make and discuss with some people if we want to switch to their rules, play some games under each set or continue using the current rules. I'll want to make that decision before the end of February so I can include it in my event preview. My expectation is that the release won't occur early enough to use any rule changes for 2008. However, I do expect there to be discussion at the event if the game is published before or at WBC in 2008.

We had four players attend from Japan. Ted and Alex Lange are living there temporarily. Akihisa Tabei last attended in 1997. He brought Masahide Hisanaga "Hide" Shinjuku-Ku with him. Hide was very impressed by the WBC and was planning on trying to set up a similar event back in Japan. He was also hoping to bring some of his Titan students along with him next year. Hopefully that will take place as WBC continues to attract players worldwide.

As usual, some unusual things happened during the event. Ted Lange's titan survived 25 dice needing 4 or better (only three hits out of six needed) while eliminating Peter Gurneau's titan. David Platnick ended up winning a game with his titan the only character left in the game. In one of the semi-final games, three players (Bob Masso, Aaron Fuegi and Jason Ley) all had two warlocks at the same time.

I have some notes from two of the semi-final games.

In semifinal 1 Joe Harrison blocked Tom Johnston and neither player recovered from this. Tom did get a chance to kill Dan Strock, but rolled less than the 5 he needed to reach him. Dan played conservatively and did not risk teleporting near some weaker titans inorder to pressure them. Tom withdrew at a point that allowed Dan's serpent stack to kill Brian Sutton's dragon stack. Brian had a number of 1/3 shots at a hydra but was never able to get one. Brian tried a couple of desperate attacks incuding two trolls, two rangers and two wyverns against two wyverns, warlock, gorgon and a 9-die titan, but his miracle didn't happen. However, it made for a raucous game.

in semi-final 2 Akihisa Tabei attacked David desJardins with an angel, four rangers, and two cyclops against a 6-die titan, warlock, two minotaurs, two lions and a gargoyle and David ended up with titan, unicorn, two minotaurs and an angel. Rich Atwater attacked Michael Pustilnik with an nngel, hydra, two griffons and four rangers against an angel, gorgon, three cyclops and a ranger in the brush and Michael survived with a ranger. This was after things started off well for Rich in the battle. Rich withdrew rather than face a titan, unicorn, two warbears and two rangers being attacked by two angels, four rangers and a lion. Akihisa attacked Michael with a 6-die titan, warlock, two rangers and three gorgons against an 8-die titan, hydra, two griffons and three rangers in the desert and they mutualled. This left David as the winner.

This was the first year that all players in the Final were past champions. Titan remains very much a game for those who have earned their stirrups with all six laurelists adding to pre-existing totals. Aaron provided me with some notes on the Final:

No one was eliminated from the game early. David desJardins moved into the lead when he was able to catch Dan Strock's angel stack and end up with a killer stack that included his titan and two angels. Aaron got a giant in his titan stack and David Finberg got a hydra in his. desJardins then was able to chase Finberg's using tower teleport to move to a tower tto the left of Finberg. Finberg made a split where he pretty much had to roll a 1 to survive and did. David then rolled another 6 and switched to chasing Aaron.

Aaron got helped a bit when desJardins went for a small chance to kill Aaron's titan with a secondary stack that ended up making Aaron's titan stack a little better. desJardins wouldn't have made this attack if he had correctly remembered the contents of Finberg's angel stack as he wouldn't have needed to weaken Aaron's titan stack. On desJardin's next turn he needed a 4 or better to reach Aaron's titan stack and got it. Unfortunately he didn't also attack Finberg's angel stack which would have given him an angel to summon into the battle. So desJardins' attack was 9-die titan, two angels, two rangers and two gorgons versus a 9-die titan, angel, giant, two rangers and two warbears in the marsh without an angel to summon. Both players rolled low in the battle, but Aaron won with just his titan and an angel earned for the
points for winning the battle.

Finberg now had hydras in his titan stack and another stack with a serpent. Aaron rolled a 1 on his next turn to get into a tower and get an ogre so that he could start recruiting again. Two turns after that he rolled a 6 and recruited a warlock while starting to chase Dan's titan. Dan was able to split and escape while picking up a recruit, so Aaron switched back to recruiting and filled out his titan stack with another ogre and two trolls in short order. At that point Dan gambled on sitting in a marsh which was a good place to be for recruiting on his next turn. But Aaron picked that turn to roll a 6 and teleported to him. Aaron got about 150 points for eliminating Dan.

Aaron and Finberg continued recruiting for a while until Finberg had five hydras in his titan stack and had another stack with two serpents. While Aaron had gotten to two wyverns in his titan stack and had an outside stack with a serpent. At this point Finberg had Aaron's titan stack trapped between his titan and his angel stacks with only a couple of blockers to slow the serpent stack down. Just after the last blocker was eliminated, Aaron rolled a 6 which allowed him to teleport away.

Finberg was able to start up the chase again shortly. Aaron needed to split blockers from his angel stack to protect both his titan stack (which now had a hydra) and his outside angel. Again he rolled a 6 at a key time to let his angel stack escape while his titan stack was able to kill off a dragon stack in a plain below a mountain.

Finberg then made a good roll to threaten Aaron's titan stack and the latter followed up with a 1 which was the only roll which didn't escape. A couple of turns later Aaron was forced to attack Finberg.

The final battle was a 15-die titan, hydra, two warlocks, two wyverns and a troll (with an angel available to summon) against an 8-die titan, five hydras and a lion in the plains. (The lion was the result of an illegal recruit, but when this was discovered, removing it would have helped Finberg, so he was forced to keep it.) After some extreme luck in both directions Aaron won the battle, the game and the championship.