Gary Phillips teaches Peter Eldridge to cross the pond to fight us colonials.	Robert Grainger and Richard Bliss exchange volleys during the swiss rounds.

The debut of CCA's Napoleonic cousin ran from 9 AM Wednesday morning till 8:45 that evening. My first stint as a GM owes a considerable debt to veteran Andy Lewis who lent a much appreciated hand. The players were placed into pods of four (plus one pod of six since the players refused to co-operate by showing up in even multiples of four) for a round-robin affair fighting the same battle against three other opponents.

The five pod winners plus the next three highest runner-ups advanced to single elimination play; each round introducing a new battle. The elimination rounds were alotted 1.5 hours per game, and in most cases this was sufficient. One semi-final had to be adjudicated for time - ending in a draw that was resolved by tie-breaker. The loser accepted the decision graciously, but requested some mods to the tie-breaker rules that we will probably include for 2012.

Several rules questions and clarifications were posed. All were answered satisfactorily from the rulebook. We will also work on using shorter scenarios and cutting game time to 1.25 hours per game. Had more players appeared, we would have played a multi-game second round that would have pushed the end time closer to midnight. For purely selfish reasons I do not wish to stay on duty that long.

Square blocks, tall blocks, wide blocks ... such diversity.	So this is how the finalists resolved it.