age of renaissance   

Updated 11/15/2011
2011 WBC Report  

 2012 Status: pending 2012 GM commitment
Harald Henning, CT
2011 Champion

Links

  Warhorse Simulations
Enlightenment Announcement Laurels 

WBC Event History
1996    Mike May        30
1997    George Sauer      106
1998    Mark Giddings     124
1999    Ewan McNay     115
2000    Ewan McNay       81
2001   Rich Curtin     80
2002   Ken Gutermuth      65
2003   Ewan McNay      47
2004   Steve Simmons      42
2005   Mark Smith      36
2006   Jeff Mullet      29
2007   Kevin Sudy      33
2008   Jeff Mullet      24
2009   Ted Simmons      23
2010   Doug Galullo      26
2011   Harald Henning      33

Enlightenment Event History
1998    Bill Crenshaw       31
1999    James Pei       30
2000    Tom Taaffe       41
2001   Bill Crenshaw     34
2002   John Coussis      36
2003   Chris Byrd      34
2004   Jeff Mullet      31
2005   Bill Crenshaw     25
2006    Jeff Mullet      30
2007    Ken Gutermuth     19
2008   Steve Simmons      31
2009    Ken Gutermuth      27
2010   Terry Coleman       25

PBeM Event History
2001    Tom Taaffe        32
2002    Bill Crenshaw        57
2003    Jason Levine       57
2004    Arthur Field       63
2006    Harald Henning       43
2008    Mark Neale       48
2010    Carl Damcke       44
 Laurels

 Rank  Name              From  Last  Total
   1.  Jeff Mullet        OH    11    396
   2.  Bill Crenshaw      VA    10    331
   3.  Ken Gutermuth      NC    10    276
   4.  Ewan McNay         CT    10    271
   5.  Harald Henning     CT    11    237
   6.  Chris Byrd         CT    07    186
   7.  Steve Simmons      NJ    08    185
   8.  Carl Damcke        IL    10    170
   9.  Mark Smith         KY    10    145
  10.  Kevin Sudy         VA    09    138
  11.  Tom Browne         PA    10    126
  12.  Arthur Field       SC    09     93
  13.  Tedd Mullally      NJ    10     91
  14.  Ted Simmons        NJ    09     87
  15.  John Coussis       IL    05     84
  16.  Tom Taaffe         VA    01     82
  17.  Brett Mingo        MD    05     76
  18.  Terry Coleman      CA    10     72
  19.  Doug Galullo       MD    11     60
  20.  Mark Neale         RI    08     60
  21.  Jason Levine       NY    05     60
  22.  Jim Jordan         MD    01     60
  23.  Rich Curtin        NY    01     60
  24.  James Pei          TX    99     60
  25.  Rodd Polsky        PA    09     53
  26.  Stephen Koehler    NC    01     48
  27.  Marty Hoff         TX    01     42
  28.  Nick Henning       CT    11     39
  29.  Eric Eshleman      PA    09     36
  30.  Lyman Moquin       DC    02     36
  31.  Nicholas Anner     NY    00     36
  32.  Doug Mercer        MD    11     30
  33.  David Hood         NC    10     30
  34.  Sean Whitaker      bc    06     30
  35.  Peter Staab        PA    02     30
  36.  Greg Stripes       VA    10     28
  37.  Rob Kircher        MA    02     27
  38.  Eric Hupin         qc    05     24
  39.  Marvin Birnbaum    NY    01     24
  40.  Eric Wrobel        VA    09     23
  41.  Mark Frueh         IL    08     20
  42.  Pierre LeBoeuf     MD    05     20
  43.  Ed Lathioor        on    05     18
  44.  Jim Stanard        MD    02     18
  45.  Charles Hickok     PA    02     18
  46.  Robin Barbehenn    MD    99     18
  47.  Winton Lemoine     CA    10     15
  48.  Chris Trimmer      TX    07     12
  49.  Sean McCulloch     OH    03     12
  50.  George Sauer       OH    02     12
  51.  Andrew Cummins     uk    01     12
  52.  Don Greenwood      MD    99     12
  53.  Kurt Miller        PA    11     11
  54.  Kevin Wojtaszczyk  NY    02     11
  55.  Phil Watkins       MN    10     10
  56.  George Young       VT    06      8
  57.  Jeff Ridenour      CA    05      8
  58.  Eugene Hourany     CA    09      6
  59.  John Boyd          TX    06      6
  60.  Olin Hentz         CT    00      6
  61.  Dan Leader         MA    10      5
  62.  Chris Kessel       OR    02      5
  63.  Nicole Kaiyan      au    06      4
  64.  Crawford Lopez     VA    01      2

2011 Laurelists                                             Repeating Laurelists

Douglas Mercer, MD
2nd

Jeff Mullet, OH
3rd

Nick Henning, DC
4th

Doug Galullo, MD
5th

Kurt Miller, PA
6th

Past Winners

Mike May, NY
1996

George Sauer, OH
1997

Mark Giddings, NY
1998

Ewan McNay, CT
1999-2000, 2003

Rich Curtin, NY
2001

Ken Gutermuth, TX
2002

Steve Simmons, NJ
2004

Mark Smith,KY
2005

Jeff Mullet, OH
2006, 2008

Kevin Sudy, VA
2007

Ted Simmons, NJ
2009

Doug Galullo, MD
2010

Harald Henning, CT
2011
   

Usual suspects Jeff Mullet, Tedd Mulally, Chris Trimmer and Mark Smith enlighten newcomer Sean Bryan.

John Corrado, defending champ Doug Galullo, Doug Mercer, Greg Crowe and Deb Anderson contest a rare 6-player game.

newly enlightened ...

The event finally stopped its steady decline in attendance as a result of the change to Pre-Con in 2010 and actually reversed that trend this year with its first back-to-back increase in 12 years. Three Enlightenment mini-con style heats were held with the best two scores summed to determine the winner. The times were Saturday 11 AM, Saturday 6 PM and Sunday 9 AM. This allowed players interested in other pre-cons to make at least one heat and also gave the option to just come for that weekend instead of the long haul which is the entire WBC week.

The first heat was marred by a setup error. Failing to check the deck in advance, one game started with more than the 29 cards required for Deck 1. Some people got Deck 1 cards when they should have gotten Deck 2 cards and vice verse, but there was no remedy for that. The moral of the story is to 'count the cards' before beginning a long game. This in itself would not have been noteworthy if it did not follow an adjustment where the table had a double deck!! Yes, since AOR is out of print and people may start borrowing from a second set, or auctioning sets off with some defects, it is possible. But when the GM walks by and says 'That deck looks too big, are you sure it is only Deck 1?' you would expect someone to count the cards. Nope, they continued on oblivious to the fact that they had 70 odd Epoch 1 cards. It was only after the fourth Stone card came out that they called the GM to fix it. The decision to restart the game was telling since an hour had been wasted.

Coincidentally, the table I was playing at was also penalized for late play, because I was literally away from the table 30 minutes fixing these other problems. The slow play penalty has been the subject of much discussion. It can cost a winning player dearly in the overall rankings. Yet it serves an important purpose in tournament play where the heats are fixed times. It keeps the players motivated to finish in a reasonable time! This is a strong contributor to the possibility of attending other pre-con events.

The Enlightenment Style itself has a downside. Those who don't do well in either of the first two rounds do not have much incentive to show for the third round which greatly reduces the final round seats. However, that is true for all swiss style events as losses take their toll and send people off to other pursuits. It is an inherent problem of running events where so many other gaming choices abound.

It seems like Venice is having a hard time of late. The boost from an Era 1 Cloth/Wine played favorably does little to offset the weakness of small, desirable dominations. People are trending toward Genoa over Venice because some smart negotiations can give Genoa numerous secondary payouts and a great income base. The trending towards 5-player games has left Hamburg woefully underplayed, and when an inexperienced player is saddled with Hamburg in the rare 6-player contest, the game can deteriorate rapidly, especially for Paris.

Hopefully, the upward attendance trend will continue and Enlightenment will be around for many years to come. But for now, we survive for another year. See you in 2012!!

Jason Levine, Kurt Miller and John Panagotopulos plot strategy as Kurt revisits the last Avalon Hill game for which he did the art.

Nick Henning keeps an eye on his dad and Jason Levine, but Harald takes his first WBC Age of Renaissance title anyway.

 GM     Tedd Mullally  [5th year] NA 
   TMullally5@gmail.com NA

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