Other Awards:

And, new this year, in honor of one of our own who passed away of a heart attack earlier this year, we're awarding the Bill Van Meer "No Guts, No Glory" trophy. The trophy wasn't finished at the time of the tourney, and its our intent that it will have the winner's name inscribed and be passed on each year. But the first winner is Clayton Queen, for his enthusiastic, aggressive play, and his sportsmanship.

Congratulations to all the winners, and everyone who played was a winner. Players were awarded 10 points for every win, and one point for every game any of their opponents won during the weekend. We were provided a set of playtest scenarios from Schwererpunkt for use in the tourney. This is a win-win relationship. We get new scenarios for our tourney, and Schwererpunkt gets a playtest report compiled by the tourney director. This works especially if the scenarios are late in their development process (i.e. they are fairly well balanced, and have now glaring flaws). It also helps a great deal that Schwererpunkt does a great job with their scenarios.

On the Down Side: The tourney moved back to Memorial Day weekend, and it didn't help us. Our attendance was down from 40 last year to 28 this year. The Northwest Historical Miniatures Historical Gaming Society guys like having the tourney on the long weekend, but some of our guys have family commitments and can't make it. We also lost one player to a back injury, some had to work, etc. The only other "down" note was that the room was a touch too warm. The hotel adjusted the air conditioning several times, but I couldn't tell that it made a bit of difference.

On the Up Side: Joshua Ross showed up from somewhere in Oregon at his first tourney and placed 9th out of 27. I'm guessing that Joshua is about 14 or 15, and we didn't have a "junior" bracket for competition. Not too bad at all for a first time. (Heck, I haven't finished in the top third of ANY tourney I've attended!) We also had a number of new players show up, and that is ALWAYS good news.

Larry and Diane Spangler ( dispang@earthlink.net ) showed up with a 3-D set of Deluxe ASL maps and miniatures. OK, they only had two maps, but they are working on the others. The maps were gorgeous, and we played part of a scenario as a "demo" game in the main game room with the Miniatures gamers. This attracted a lot of attention, and the timing was great. Larry and Diane appeared minutes before I was scheduled to run the demo, and it added a lot to the impact. Thanks!

In the evening, some of us played a "hero" game - where every player takes a hero and runs around the map recovering weapons and killing each other. And, there was at least one game of "Circus Minimus" late on Saturday. It's a great multi player fun - in fact, the more the merrier.

If you've never been to a tournament, you simply HAVE to go. Its always fun, and you will make new friends - and find new players.