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, 2009, 2011

Jung Yeah, MA
1998

David des Jardins, CA
1999, 2005

Rich Atwater, WA
2000

Ed Rothenheber, MD
2002

Peg Meacham and Akihisa Tabei	Defending champ Dan Strock, Julie Ehlers and Arthur Wines
Dave Gubbay, Tom Johnston and Jason Ley	Battle in progress.

Playing the Final and semifinals on different days seems to have been an improvement. Having a bit less time to play up to six games in, doesn't seem to have had much affect. There was one person who pretty regularly makes the semifinals who might have with more time, but they were trying to play lots of other stuff and Titan wasn't as high a priority this year.

We seem to be having less late night games. My theory on this is that we aren't getting many new players and us codgers are getting older and staying up past midnight multiple nights a week is becoming less attractive. For next year, I am thinking of shifting things forward an hour. While Titan players aren't known as early risers, I think given the way things are going, we'd be better off having games start at 9 and every four hours, rather than at 10. It might also help attendance by providing an opportunity to play at the start time for all of the other events on Wednesday and Thursday morning.

This year we had 28 preliminary games evenly divided between 3- and 4-player games. We didn't have any 5-player games. Participation was close to last year's but still represented a record low.

Akihisa Tabei again presented old style counter sheets to all of the finalists. Some of them seem to be accumulating a collection of these.

We still have some slow play, and I am still interested in hearing from anyone about experiments with timing for Titan.

In semifinal 1, Julie Ehlers got two minotaurs fairly early, but got trapped in hills behind a green stack in the brush for multiple turns. Tom Johnston got two wyverns in his titan stack. David des Jardins started slowly but then zoomed into the lead with two hydras in both his titan and angel stacks. Dan Strock had two griffons in his titan stack. Just when Julie had gotten under the inner ring with her minotaurs, Tom attacked. Titan, two warlocks, two wyverns and a troll attacked titan, two angels and two minotaurs. Tom summoned his angel and survived with titan, two angels, wyvern and warlock. David later attacked Dan in a desert. Titan, two hydras, two wyverns, cyclops and troll with an outside angel to call attacked titan, hydra, warlock, angel, two griffons and a ranger. Dan recruited another hydra on Turn 4. David rolled poorly early in the battle. Even though he rolled well later, it didn't make up for the earlier poor rolls and Dan survived with titan, two angels and a hydra. Tom couldn't get into a swamp and ended in a tower. Dan teleported into the swamp above the tower. Tom decided this was going to be his best chance to win and attacked with five rangers and two guardians against titan, three hydras, angel and warlock. He got seven hits with two guardian swings on the titan. It was still close, but Tom got a ranger on the titan to do the last hit.

In semifinal 2, both Nick Klercker and Art Wines started with 6s. After a few turns Art had two warlocks and Nick had three. Nick passed on attacking Ed Rothenheber's angel stack. Then Ed attacked Art's three-centaur stack with angel, two rangers, two trolls and a gargoyle. Ed rolled poorly and Art was able to kill a troll and a ranger. The next turn Art attacked the survivors with titan, two gorgons, two lions and two warlocks and got stripped of recruiters, ending up with titan, angel and two warlocks. Art got this stack into a tower and took a gargoyle (there were no warlocks available). Several turns later he attacked Nick's titan (and wyvern, troll, two cyclops and two rangers) in the tundra. The titan got pinned and then killed, giving Art 340 points. After a few turns Art was able to get titan teleport and roll a 6, which he used to attack a stack in a tower. A few turns later, he attacked Peg Meacham's titan stack. It was titan (12), three warlocks, two cyclops and a gorgon, attacking titan, two behemoths, two warlocks and an angel, in a jungle. On Turn 1, Art pinned both behemoths with warlocks. Neither behemoth kills a warlock in one roll, so that both behemoths die before Peg can get a reinforcement, leading to Art winning the battle. Ed then attacked three trolls and a warbear in the tundra and decides to risk his titan. He rolled poorly and his titan was killed.

In semifinal 3, Aaron Fuegi started in tower 1 with ogres with his titan. He rerolled a 5 and ended up with a 4. He decided to take a third ogre in the hills rather than go to the marsh, where Akihisa Tabei would probably have attacked him. On his next turn he should have taken a gargoyle on a 3, but didn't. He then got a troll next to the tower, but Aki got a warlock. He then did a 4/2 split and rolled a 2 to go to the plains. At this point Kevin Hillock put a large stack in a marsh under a tundra. When Aaron rolled a 3, he decided to go to the hills rather than the inner ring and Aki caught him there. Brady Achterberg was eliminated when he split and was stuck in the mountains. Rather then go down and risk Aki killing him, he stayed and Kevin was able to kill him. In the last battle Aki hit eight out of 13 rolls (with a 50% chance) to get a mutual and then won the rolloff to advance.

In semifinal 4, Sean McCulloch was eliminated first when a desert battle went south. Titan (7), warlock, two griffons, lion and two cyclops were attacked by (David Finberg) ranger, warbear, two lions and three centaurs in the desert from the bottom. Sean put his lion outside the cone on the side that it could be reached by a centaur. A centaur attacked the lion and killed it without dying so that an angel could not be summoned. Two lions (and a ranger rangestrike) then killed the griffon in the point of the cone. The titan then came out and fought two centaurs, killing them both. But the retaliation, plus a ranger swing kills the titan. Rich Atwater was doing pretty well as his original angel stack had a dragon and unicorn and his titan stack had a couple of behemoths. He then attacked Steve Koleszar's angel and titan stacks. The first attack was titan(8), two behemoths, two gorgons and a ranger versus angel, two rangers, two gorgons, cyclops and gargoyle. (The gargoyle was recruited after there were no more cyclops to recruit.) Steve went for the titan during the battle, passing on finishing off a 6-hit behemoth. When that failed, Rich won the battle without losing anything or summoning an angel and recruited a serpent. He then killed Steve, attacking titan, angel, ranger, two behemoth and two gorgons with five rangers, cyclops and guardian. Rich was eventually able to finish off David, though both ended the game with titan teleport.

In the Final, both Art Wines and Tom Johnston had titan, warlock, lion, gargoyle and two centaurs on Turn 2. On Turn 4, Tom had a chance to attack Rich Atwater with an angel to call in a safe area, but declined. Akihisa Tabei then had some trouble when his angel stack attacked Art's two trolls in the tundra and one of the trolls hit five times in eight rolls 8 (needing 6s) and then finished off Aki's angel (and a troll). Rich then attacked Aki's titan stack, killed him and got a total of 178 points. In a key battle Rich attacked Art's angel stack (angel, cyclops, gargoyle, two warbears) in a brush. On Turn 2 Rich has killed the angel and cyclops with his giant having taken six out of seven hits. At that point he decided not to summon his angel. He then proceeds to roll poorly and Art killed three pieces, changing the tide of the battle. Rich's remaining trolls were unable to finish off Art's warbear and cyclops and Art won the battle. This was a significant contributing factor to Art getting titan teleport a few turns later. Art got an opportunity to attack Tom's titan stack on a roll of a 5, but was hesitating. Rich, who was not doing well offered to resign if Art killed Tom. So Art decided to make the attack. After nothing unexpected happened in the battle, Rich resigned.

Titan's finest: the dynamic duo of Bruno Wolff and Rich Atwater have a combined 29 years of GM experience at WBC in the game.	GM Bruno Wolff with his finalists. Three are going for their first TTN title. Only Rich Atwater had won previously.