Sperling Wins The Race In Space!

The 2023 Space Base event was full of surprises. None bigger than the impressive crowd that lined up on the last Saturday of WBC 2023 to play this little gem of a game. The first heat had 99 players and the second followed suit with 85 which led to a grand total of over 122 unique players which almost doubled the turnout the year before. While I’d like to chalk it up to my impressive GMing skills, I think the fact that the Settlers event was scheduled for earlier in the week this year leaving a lot of players with open time on Saturday. No matter how it happened, I’m thrilled it did and the good times being had by all made it a great success.

While I was a little nervous that 32 players won a game during the heats and that because the player limit for the Semifinal was going to result in some unfortunate tie-breaker die rolls. Luckily, only 26 appeared for the Semifinal round and thanks to a very generous gesture by our Convention Director to step aside, we had our 25 Semifinalists set.

The Semifinal saw bit of everything. Including a blowout win for Alex Schlosser (45 points with 2nd place only at 21) as well as a very tight game that resulted in Brian Sutton squeaking out a win over Glean Pearce (who earned the 6th place laurels) 47 to 45.

Alex and Brian were joined in the Fina by Lumin Sperling, Lee Mewshaw, and Erik Schlosser. Lumin and Erik were the only players to keep four of their initial cards, including Lumin putting a card in the 11 slot right out of the gate. Erik focused on the low numbers while the other four started out with the mid-range (5-9) numbers.

Brian started the game by starting to build up a tower in the 8-slot and Lumin followed up immediately after by doing the same on his board. Alex starting his focus on the 7-slot. Lee had the surprise of the opening round by selecting a 2-cost card while having 11 Energy available. However, getting a card in the 8-slot was Lee’s priority, and that was the only 8-slot card available.

The next couple of rounds saw standard build-ups around the table. Alex focused on the 7-slot and got a couple of early VP’s thanks to back-to-back 7 rolls by other players. Erik bought the first Level 3 ship. Lee maintained her focus on adding ships to her board that scored VP’s.

Round 5 finally saw some payoff for Brian and Lumin as an 8 was rolled three times in a row. Brian, however, decided to return the favor to Alex by rolling a 7. Lumin used the Energy gained from those rolls of 8 to acquire the first colony of the game (10 VP’s in the 8-slot). Alex had gained the ship that enables him to make each opponent lose 3 VP’s while also building his tower in the 7-slot to five (5!) cards).

Lumin and Alex were pulling away from the others by Round 7. Lumin added the 9 VP Colony and Alex was able to get the 6VP one. Alex triggered the -3VP effect once again (which resulted in Erik, Alex’s own father, being dropped to 0VP’s). However, Erik quickly jumped back thanks to some large payouts. He was able to grab the 14VP colony and quickly scored another 7VP’s thanks to other players’ die rolls. All the while, Alex continued to hope for others to roll a 7, but the dice just didn’t seem to want to cooperate (when do they ever want to, right)?

In the last round, Alex was begging Lumin for a 7, but Lumin decided to help himself more by rolling an 8 which enabled him to get the 13VP colony to put him over the 40VP mark. By the time, the Round was over, Lumin had reached an impressive total of 50VP’s (even after Alex hit the others with another -3VP play).

Congratulations to Lumin Sperling for winning the 2023 Space Base event. Alex Schlosser came in 2nd with 39 VPs. Lee was next with 32 and Erik and Brian ended at 22VP’s each (with Erik winning the tie-breaker).

Thanks to everyone who played. I look forward to another overflowing crowd in 2024!