Reposted from ConsimWorld:
I ran the Empire Builder Series tournament starting Tuesday. I had a good game of British Rails going, but stalled at the end and took second. The tournament drew 43 overall, which is about the same as last year. The new format (swiss double elimination - you have to win two games to get to the finals) seemed to work.

I tried a heat of Atlantic Storm Wednesday morning and lost pretty badly. Followed by running the next round of EPB when I again got out to a great start in Eurorails before getting stuck in England with Gales and took another second. Played a heat of Carcassone and won with 114 points. Went on to lose in the first round of Union Pacific.

After that I looked for Mark McLaughlin to talk about the web site and found him at the giant Napoleonic Wars table. I ended up taking over for the Russian player and had two large army groups on a parallel advance through Prussia and attacked Napoleon with a combined Russian/Prussian force. Napoleon brought in another nearby army group by interception and I played "To The Guns" to bring in the nearby Russian/Austrian/Danish force. After one round of battle I played "To The Death" to extend the battle another round. Almost 100 total dice were rolled and Napoleon was left with only a couple generals. My favorite moment of the con.

Thursday started with the third round of EPB that produced the last three of five finalists. I played Iron Dragon with my wife Jamie and Rob Stribula and got trounced. I then went to run Carabande Junior and had 18 participants. Most of the kids were very good (with a few minor exceptions) and we ran four races at each of two tables. Much thanks to Jeff Ribiero who came in to assist. Congrats to Alex Henning for her victory. I then found a pickup game of The Napoleonic Wars and played until after midnight. My wife had gone home by then, so I found Jason Roach in the Empires in Arms room and got a ride home from him after observing for a bit.

Friday started with my team game (my first time on a team) of RoboRally in the garden room (where Jamie was playing in the Adv Civ Final). The first round was brutal and lasted the full four hours. I usualy play the game as a race with occasional conflict. In this game when I was the first to get to the third flag most of the other players (on the instigation of last year's champion Jeff Ribiero) went to the fourth flag with one even archiving on it so that he would pop up in front of me when he died. After many rounds of fighting, I shut down on a conveyor and then went around the board to get to the final flag.

The finals followed with a pretty competative board. About halfway through (with me in around fourth place) I told the GM that I would prefer to end at 5 so I could make another tournament. I feel like a bit of a clod now for doing so, but after that draining first round with no break I really wanted to get to something else. I promise I wont do that next year. I ended up in second place after the clear leader hit the fourth flag (I was glad because the tie breaker on a time limit game would have given me the win if he hadn't and I had asked for the time limit). Second place gave me my first WBC plaque ever.

After that it was Down in Flames where I started by teaching a friend to beat me in the game followed by being trounced by someone else. Saturday was Settlers where I tied for second in a very long 10-9-9-9 game. I won the next one with both the Army and Road cards. And the third tied for second where I would have won in the next roll of the dice. After being knocked out, I went to the demo of Guerilla and took second in the first round to the GM who declared he was ineligible to advance. I went on to take second in the final (so close!) and decided I really liked the game and hope to play next year.

Sunday was the Empire Builder final which had to be called for time. I'm either going to try to keep the final to four players in the future or I'll have to put the game on a clock. Jim Yerkey ended up defending his title and taking the big train poster donated by Jake Jacoby. While the game was going on, Jamie and I learned Settlers of Neurenburg with a couple other gamers. A game of Call My Bluff while Jamie was playing Citadelles finished out the con for me.

Can't wait till next year!

Rich Shipley
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