a pox on multi-player ...
Twenty-six would be rulers of Europe showed up at Salon CD
Wednesday afternoon for the first two-player NW2 tournament.
This translated into 13 games of the 1812 scenario. Sadly we
had not allowed enough time for setting up the game so completing
the preliminary rounds in two hours apiece was to prove to be
challenging. Something to change for next year, however once
random seating was established and the games set up the play
began. The 1812 scenario came as a surprise to many players but
all the comments were favorable including suggestions that this
is the most balanced of all the scenarios available for any of
the card driven games.
The first round left 12 players (one player deciding not to
continue) and we decided to play 1812 again in order to reduce
setup time. The original plan was to move onto the 1813 scenario.
Play of the last two games ran late (apologies to the arriving
Lost Cities players) but the game situations were very
tight and this rookie GM (coward that he is) didn't want to call
a game as close as these were.
The six players who qualified for the semi-finals now had
a choice to make. Should they play three two player semi-finals
and a three-player final or vice versa? All games would be campaign
games. One factor pushing for the three-player final was the
award level for the tournament allowed for three plaques. so
the players decided on the two-player semi-final option. The
pairings were then made randomly with Richard Beyma vs Jason
White, Chris Byrd vs Phil Bradley and Nick Frydas vs Roy
Gibson.
The semi-finals illustrated the difficulty of playing the
Campaign Game in a tournament setting with Richard winning in
one turn, Chris taking two turns and Roy three turns and 6 hours
to qualify for the final. Most pairings were decided by player
choice with little bidding required to decide sides.
In the three-way final sides were randomly decided with Roy
playing the French, Chris Austria/Russia and Richard the British.
The final fought out Saturday afternoon was a wild three-turn
game that had a Danish invasion of Russia, Britain conquered
on turn 2 and the remaining Coalition battling it out with a
powerful France on turn 3. In the end however the French prevailed.
Had the game gone a fourth turn the outcome may well have been
different.
I hope everyone enjoyed the contest and is looking forward
to another go next year.
Roy Gibson is the master of all
he surveys: a new NW2 crowm and deluxe Napoleonic Wars
mounted amd enlarged map.
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