Americans Harald Henning, Ken Gutermuth Oierce Ostrander and John Dextraze attempt to break the Canadian monopoly ...	... but in the end, French Canadians like Nathalie Malenfant took the Age of Steam title north for the seventh straight year.

The first heat consisted of six 4-player games using four different maps. The Rust Belt map that comes with the game proved to be the most popular choice with three games. In one of them, Pierce Ostrander defeated defending champion, Marc-André Imbeault, in what would be the closest game of the year with a 5-point victory. The second had three-time champion Martin Sasseville defeat John Karr by the largest margin of the tournament (39 points). The third Rust Belt game saw two-time champion Pierre Paquet win over Michael Holmquist. The only non-Canadian champion, Richard Irving, prevailed on the England map to advance to the semi-final round. Phil White punched his semi-final ticket on the Germany map while Mario Veillette did the deed on the America map.

The second heat generated four more 4-player games. Two used the Rust Belt map with Imbeault and Craig Moffit qualifying. The Western US map made a winner out of Ben Stephenson while the India board did the trick for Harald Henning. These ten qualifiers minus Moffitt, who opted for other adventures, created a two-game semi-final using the South Africa map. The top two from each game would advance.

The 5-player game delivered Veillette to the promised land once again, with Ostrander sending home former champions Sasseville and Irving along with Stephenson in a tight battle for second place. In the 4-player game, Imbeault kept his title defense alive and Paquet took the last seat away from Henning and White.

The Final would be decided on the Rust Belt map. As has been the case the last few years, there were few goods delivered in the first turn, making income scarce and giving players opportunities to hamper their opponents. Loan strategy differed with players taking from one to three loans. Pierce preempted any bidding war for turn order by bidding 6 at the outset, leaving the others to pass in turn. The players then proceeded to build in roughly the same area of the board with Marc-André using the first build ability to build track from Evansville to Cincinnati via Indianapolis and also made a spur in Indianapolis toward Terra Haute and Chicago. Pierce used the Urbanization action to upgrade Terra Haute with tile G and built track from Evansville to Terra Haute to Chicago. Mario then built a different connection between Evansville and Terra Haute and went to St. Louis from Terra Haute. Finally, Pierre built track from Cincinnati to Wheeling through the town in Lexington. This left everybody's track connected with Pierre having some freedom on the eastern portion of the map while everyone else remained congested in the Midwest. Finally, in the Deliver Goods phase of the turn, everyone had built track in ways that required at least a 2-locomotive to make any deliveries so while everyone else had to improve their locomotive with the first move goods action, Mario took advantage. He gained with the locomotive option in the select action phase by taking the only good in Evansville that could be delivered to either Chicago or St. Louis, leaving Pierce with no option for income and leaving him in a world of hurt for cash.

Turn 2 saw Pierce issue four additional shares to try to overcome his poor cash and income position while the rest of the players issued either one or two shares. Since players were fiscally responsible in issuing shares on this turn, the turn order bids were still low as Pierce started the bidding at 1, Mario followed with a 2 bid, Pierre passed to go last and Marc-André also passed for the third turn order. Pierce then bid 3 and Mario passed giving Pierce the first position in turn order again. The most interesting item from the Select Actions phase was that Mario chose the Locomotive action to increase to a 4-level locomotive by the start of the second turn. Marc-André spread his builds out this turn to give him future flexibility and built from Indianapolis to Terra Haute, from Chicago toward Memphis City and from Cincinnati toward Fort Wayne. Pierre then used urbanization to put the yellow new city tile in Lexington and built track from Evansville to Lexington. Mario built from St. Louis to Des Moines. Pierre built the connection from Wheeling to Pittsburgh, built northeast out of Cincinnati and built from Detroit toward Toledo to also spread his track. The Deliver Goods Phase saw each of the players increase his locomotive size with one of the two actions and complete either a 2-income (Marc-André) or 3-income delivery (everybody else) to gain income. Net incomes for the turn ranged from a $4 loss for Marc-André and Pierre to an $8 loss for Pierce.

Because of the large net losses and the lack of loans taken on the second turn, Turn 3 saw Pierce issue another four shares, Mario and Marc-André issue three and Pierre two. The bidding for turn order was more hotly contested as Marc-André took the bid for $8, Mario paid $7 to go second, Pierce's $6 bid forced him to pay $3 to go third and Pierre saved his money. In the Build Track phase, Pierre used the First Build action to complete the link from Detroit to Cincinnati through Toledo, Marc-André had taken the Urbanization action and put new city tile C in Memphis, then built from Memphis to Cincinnati through Fort Wayne and also built from Cincinnati to Lexington. Mario started work on links from Des Moines toward Rock Island and Terra Haute toward Springfield while Pierce built a link from Lexington to Wheeling. The Deliver Goods phase saw all but Mario use one of their two delivery chances to increase their locomotives and there were a couple of 4-link deliveries made, but nothing earth shattering. Marc-André had a net loss of $4 in the income phase which he couldn't cover and so suffered a $1 reduction in his income level. Meanwhile, Pierce decided to use his second ability to deliver goods to increase his locomotive to level 5, which left him with income of only $7 and a net loss of $10 that caused him to take a $2 reduction in his income level.

Since players were still losing at least $4 in the income phase, cash was really tight coming into Turn 4 so there were a lot of shares issues. Mario and Pierre both issued four shares and Marc-André issued three. Pierce also issued three shares, which brought him to his limit of 15 shares at the midway point. There wasn't much bidding for turn order and Pierre won the bid for $3. The Build Track phase consisted of Pierre building from Detroit toToronto, Marc-André urbanizing Grand Rapids with city tile H and building from Memphis to Grand Rapids. Pierce built a link from Wheeling to Pittsburgh and Mario completed links from Terra Haute to St. Louis through Springfield and from Des Moines to Springfield. The goods delivery ramped up as Pierce completed two 5-link deliveries, one of which gave $1 income to Mario so he got an increase of $9 in income. Pierre also gained $9 in income from his two runs, Marc-André gained $7 and Mario made $6 on his two deliveries in addition to the $1 from Pierce. This turn saw the first player get out of the red as Pierre broke even in income versus expenses and jumped out to a $2 lead in income over Mario. Meanwhile Pierce was still in trouble with a net loss of $6.

Everyone but Pierce, who had maxed out his credit limit, issued additional shares on Turn 5 to gain cash. The bidding was a case of the "haves" and "have-nots" this turn as Marc-André won the bid at $8 over Pierre at $7 while both Mario and Pierce passed. In the Build Track Phase, Marc-André completed a link from Detroit to Grand Rapids, Pierre urbanized Buffalo with city tile F and built the link from Toronto to Pittsburgh through Buffalo and Mario built a link from Des Moines to Kansas City. Pierce didn't build any track this turn because of a lack of cash. Since everyone had a level-5 locomotive at this time, the deliveries started to get big as Pierre had two 5-link deliveries, Marc-André and Mario managed to make one 5-link and one 4-link delivery for themselves and Pierce could only manage to make a 4-link and a 3-link delivery. At the income phase, Marc-André had income of $21 and a net income of $3, Pierre had $25/$8, Mario had $22 in income and a net income of $3 while Pierce's income of $19 still resulted in a net loss of $1.

Marc-André issued two more shares to max his credit limit on Turn 6. Pierre then issued two more shares for cash and Mario issued the last share he could issue to reach the maximum loan limit. Once again only Pierre and Marc-André bid for turn order with Pierre winning the bid at $5. By winning the turn order, Pierre chose the locomotive action to become the first player with a level-6 locomotive. Pierre made a build from Toledo to Grand Rapids, Marc-André urbanized LaCroix with city tile A and built from Chicago to Minneapolis through LaCroix. Pierce didn't build any track again. Mario completed a link from Chicago to Springfield and then started on a link from Minneapolis to Des Moines building one track out of each location. Pierre made two deliveries for $6 income each and Marc-André did his maximum with two deliveries for $5 in income each. Pierce could only manage a $2 and a $3 delivery on his turns and Mario completed a $4 delivery and then a 5-link delivery with $1 of the income going to Pierce. At the income phase, Pierre had a $6 income lead on his closest competitor with his income at $33 and a net income of $13. Pierce finally managed to get into the black with an income of $23 and a net income of $3.

Since only Pierre was able to issue shares and he didn't need additional cash, there were no shares issued on Turn 7. Marc-André won the bid for Turn Order at $3 while Pierre's bid of $1 got him second since Mario and Pierce still passed. Marc-André increased his locomotive to level 6 with his action. Mario chose to build first and built from Minneapolis to Duluth and completed the link he started last turn from Minneapolis to Des Moines. Marc-André also built a link from Minneapolis to Duluth on this turn. Pierre used urbanization to improve Cleveland with city tile D and built from Pittsburgh to Cleveland and a couple of other tracks for the future. Pierce finally had a little cash so he built a track out of Chicago toward Milwaukee. Both Marc-André and Pierre managed to make two deliveries of $6 each, Mario completed two deliveries of $5 each which was the maximum he could do given his train and Pierce made a delivery for $4 and a delivery for $2 with his turns. Net incomes for the turn were over $12 for all of the players except Pierce, who did manage to make $5.

Turn 8 also had no shares issued. The bid for Turn Order was fierce with Pierre winning it for $8, Marc-André paid $7 to go second, Pierce paid $3 to go third after his bid of $6 and Mario's bid of $4 still left him last in Turn Order but meant that he didn't pay anything. Pierce managed to get the Locomotive action so he could run a level-6 train, leaving Mario still with the level 5 that he had reached on Turn 2. All built additional links that didn't improve their networks but did generate points. Pierre managed two more $6 income deliveries; Marc-André made deliveries for $6 and $5 with his two turns; Pierce made a 6-link delivery with Pierre getting $1 of the income from the delivery and could only manage a $3 delivery for his second turn and Mario made two 5-link deliveries with the first giving him all $5 in income and the second giving Marc-André $1 of income.

At the end, Pierre had $38 in income, 14 shares issued and 26 track segments for a score of 98 points and his third title - all in this tournament as we exported the seventh straight AOS shield to Quebec. Marc-André was second with 81 points from $33 in income, 15 shares and 27 track segments. Mario had 72 points from $29 income, 15 shares and 30 track segments. Pierce rode out the storm and survived his early cash problems with a greater appreciation for French Canadian railmen to finish with 43 points from $25 income, 15 shares and a meager 13 track segments.

Attendance dropped to a new low this year and the GM is looking for ways to rectify that. If you have any suggestions, please contact me at the link below and I will take the suggestions into consideration. I will again be limiting the number of tracks available in each heat as I have done for the past three years. If you have a track that you really would like to see included, please let me know by July 15, 2012. I hope to be making my final selections by that time, although I will have started considering which tracks to include much earlier than that.