Powers Patriarch Stops Son's Repat with Bene Gesserit Prediction!

We continue to make adjustments to the Gale Force Nine edition of the game to strive toward two main objectives: Good balance among all 6 base factions in competitive tournament play, and faster-playing, more dynamic games. This year saw three main changes:

1. The addition of a 7th stronghold on the board. We continue to count the Shield Wall as the 6th stronghold after the 1st worm appears, and now Cielago Depression counts as a 7th stronghold after the 3rd worm appears. This really seemed to open up the game considerably, forcing even the most conservative veterans to play more aggressively and dynamically
2. The removal of the Guild default victory condition. Now the official winner after 10 full turns of play is the alliance (or solo faction) controlling the most strongholds. The Guild’s advantage is now that he wins any ties in that calculation. This forces the Guild to play as a full competitor rather than automatically favoring a stalemating strategy.
3. Finally, the Fremen’s bonus alliance power (allowing his ally to recover spice spent for battle support) to make it a little easier to understand over last year’s version. We hoped that this, combined with the 7th stronghold somewhat favoring Fremen control, would make them more competitive.

All of the new house rules were accepted well – virtually no concerns from any of the players (except for possibly considering making the 7th stronghold enter a bit later and most of the games did indeed seem to yield earlier wins with more dynamic play.

Average duration of qualifying games came in at 5.4 turns in 4.0 hours, which is a full turn fewer than last year, the new lowest on record. The downside is the average minutes per turn was up to a new record of 44 minutes per turn (vs. 41 last year). However, all but 2 qualifying games (25%) ended with a player victory, as opposed to a 50% adjudication rate last year. I count that as a success.

We had a total of 10 alliance wins and one Bene Gesserit prediction victory (congratulations to Phil Barcafer, after a long absence, for calling and manipulating a decisive Atreides/Fremen victory in turn 4 to steal the win). Excluding the final, Bene Gesserit and Guild were tied for the most wins (all “real” wins for the Guild here!), followed by Harkonnen, then Emperor, with Fremen and Atreides bringing up the rear. This was a big fall for Atreides, but they are perhaps the swingiest faction. Atreides had a stretch of few wins back in the 2008-2013 timeframe, but they’ve been riding high for most of the time since then. Sadly, the Fremen are no strangers to the bottom. Despite the extra alliance power buff and the 7th stronghold location (a sand space in the deep desert) being selected partly to favor them, they couldn’t find mark again this year. Props to newcomer Ronan Soni for achieving the only victory with them this year, and to Lee Proctor for at least getting an adjudicated Fremen victory.

Including adjudicated games, we had a nice spread of different alliance wins, with 8 of the possible 15 alliance pairs represented. Only Guild/Harkonnen and Guild/Bene Gesserit repeated victories, essentially proving that the Guild is at least as capable at fighting for victories as any other faction. The higher number of BG victories was definitely dependent on the fact that all qualifying games were 6-player games. The BG are normally the excluded faction for 5-player games, of which there were none this year.

At the end of the day, I absolutely expect to keep the new house rules next year. They seemed to be a full success. I may be looking at further adjusting Fremen alliance abilities to make them more attractive, and I may be shortening qualifying Heat games further to make sure they all finish, which should be reasonably fair now without the Guild default victory condition.

Unfortunately, one finalist and the 1st alternate failed to show, which put 2nd alternate Tegan Powers in the 6th chair. Amazingly, this meant that the 3 Powers family members, patriarch Michael, son Aidan, and daughter Tegan, all returned to the final for the second year in a row. (I shudder to think about what their family Dune games are like!)

The factions for the Final were chosen in order of qualification:

1. Aidan Powers chose Harkonnen, saying “I always win with Harkonnen!” (insert foreshadowing music here)
2. Jay Buckwalter picked Atreides
3. Michael Powers took Bene Gesserit
4. Jay Boring selected Emperor
5. Bill Dyer chose Fremen (not picked last for a change)
6. Tegan Powers got the Guild.

We were playing the same new house rules in the Final as in the qualifying Heats. Hoping for a faster game, the players agreed to finish in the scheduled time limit (as opposed to unanimously deciding to allow it to extend if it ran long).

The game started off slowly, and spice poor, one spice blow was lost to the storm on turn 1 and for several turns after that. Bad luck.

In turn 1, the Emperor offered a bounty on Harkonnen heads, which was gladly taken up by the Fremen when Harkonnen tried to grab the one available spice blow. Fremen wound up the only getting the early spice.

Then, possible catastrophe! in turn 2, three worms came up in a row, putting all 7 strongholds into play virtually immediately. (There’s about a 15% chance of this happening.) Would this be the shortest final ever?

Alliances were made, Fremen/Emperor and BG/Harkonnen, but Guild and Atreides remained unallied. Fremen filled his hand with battle cards and Emperor had the Lasgun. After movement, there were three possible win attempts contending on the board, the two alliances, and the solo Guild. But ultimately, no one quite had the strength to make it happen this early. Atreides stopped the Guild in Arrakeen (even though it was looking really good for the Guild), and the two alliances managed to stop each other after multiple clashes.

No worm on turn 3, no alliance changes. Most notably, Harkonnen drew a Karama card and swapped hands with the Fremen. As would be expected, this set the Fremen back considerably. The BG/Harkonnen alliance recovered and drove again for a win, but the rest of the table was able to stop them, despite Harkonnen’s card advantage.

Another nexus in turn 4 saw Emperor dump the Fremen to ally with Atreides, while the BG/Harkonnen alliance stayed together and the Fremen and Guild allied. As it turns out, the Guild/Fremen alliance were able to muster a decent attempt at a win even after being underestimated, contending against a simultaneous Emperor/Atreides attempt. Guild won both of her battles, but Fremen lost one of his, falling just one token short. Atreides correctly realized that he had to dial away all of his own tokens in the battle to prevent Guild/Fremen from winning, even though that put an end to the Emperor/Atreides attempt as well. A great play.

In turn 5, there was no worm and alliances had to remain in place. The BG/Harkonnen and Emperor/Atreides alliances both put in somewhat weak attempts to win, but again the table was able to coordinate sufficiently to stop both. By this point, losses are becoming significant – the tanks are full of leaders and tokens. Anything can happen in these situations when forces are dwindling.

At the nexus in turn 6, Harkonnen/Atreides ally, Emperor switches to BG, and the Guild and Fremen remain allied as the leftovers. The Harkonnen/Atreides alliance tries to win again, but they are stopped. The Guild picked up a Karama during bidding but didn’t need to use it to stop the win, which becomes important in turn 7.

Another nexus in turn 7, and the Guild and Harkonnen ally, realizing they are in the driver’s seat – they both had good hands and knew where most of the cards lay, and the other factions are running out of options. The Atreides/Fremen and Emperor/BG alliance formed in response. Guild/Harkonnen go all out, fighting for all 7 strongholds. The Guild won both of her battles, and after losing to Atreides, Harkonnen had 3 battles against the BG. If Harkonnen (brother Aidan) wins all 3 battles, he will win 1st place. If he wins only two of them, the Guild (sister Tegan) will get the plaque. But meanwhile, the BG (Father Michael) seems to be selecting the order of the three battles oddly (more foreshadowing music.) Harkonnen wins one battle, then the second (with the help of the Guild’s Karama from turn 6 to cancel the Voice), and then the third as well! It looks like Aidan wins! But wait! He played the captured Chani as his leader, and Chani is the BG’s traitor, so he actually loses the third battle, and it looks like Tegan wins! But wait! Michael tosses out his prediction card to show “Harkonnen, turn 7th! In a dramatic double-twist in turn 7, the BG wins a rare prediction victory! (I told you I’d shudder to see what the Dune games are like at the Powers’ house!)

So, congratulations to Michael Powers for his first glorious Dune championship, ruthlessly stealing it from his reigning champion son and his undoubtedly-soon-to-be champion daughter. This was really a pretty spectacular and well-fought game (and it ended in under 8 hours to boot). Thank you to all the players!