|
15 Years at AvalonCon/WBC
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
This was I believe my 14th year attending the World Boardgaming Championships (first couple of years I went it was still AvalonCon). Amazingly, I just looked back on a report written by fellow MIT SGS alum Chuck from the 97 AvalonCon (my first) and all 6 of us mentioned in it are still going basically every year.
This also happens to be my first GeekList.
-
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
Its 6PM on Tuesday and time for my annual Atlantic Storm game. I like the game, although not by any means a favorite, but am certainly not great at it and always just play the one round, win or lose (usually the later). This time around I was horribly losing until I rolled a 6 which netted me 14 points from a ton of spoils out of a multi-round battle. This left me in contention throughout but a Storms at the end went unluckily for me and ended up giving Rob W. the well-deserved win.
-
-
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
I had missed the Queen's Gambit heat and so had to decide between Ra and learning and playing Automobile, a relatively new Martin Wallace design. I went to the _excellent_ demo Greg put on and decided that although I would have a much better chance to win in Ra than a pretty complex economic game I had never played, who cares and I'd likely have more fun with Automobile.
Surprisingly, my inexperience didn't hurt me nearly as much as I expected given the excellent rules explanation at the demo and how mathematical the game is. I definitely made some first play mistakes but still ended up winning my table pretty comfortably in a really fun game. This leaped up to be my favorite of Martin's designs although will have to play again to see if it stays up there; missed the Semifinal here due to conflicts.
-
-
3.
Board Game: Titan
[Average Rating:7.08 Overall Rank:317]
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
Titan is THE event I attend WBC for, due to its incredible depth and the strength of the field it always draws. For some of the German games, I often feel the level of competition in many of my home games is as high or higher than it is even at the semifinals at WBC. For the older Avalon Hill games and some others, though, the level of play at WBC is just incredible, given the much greater variety of players including for Titan several players who come from Japan each of the last several years primarily just to play this one game.
Titan also happens to be divided into two events, one for two player games and one for primarily four player games. I play in both but here will talk just about the two player event. I ended up playing 5 games and none were super-quick Warlock or similar games. The hardest game by far for me was my third round against Art W. He made a very smart 5 on 6 attack (with Angel call) against my Titan Behx2 stack, really just to weaken it but at the cost of a minor stack for him. However, the dice greatly favored him and I had to seriously risk my Titan, despite having fought the battle really just to win with a couple pieces and not trying to save both Behemoths or something crazy like that. He got to a point where he had to choose between very likely killing my Titan (think he expected to get 7.66 hits on my 6 Titan) or pretty definitely stripping me. As I said at the time, I don't know which decision was right but he for sure did what I would have done and went for the win. He ended up needing to get 1 hit with his Lion and not getting it and I went from being ready to congratulate him to being back in the game. The game ended up going for a good while but I was finally able to beat his Titan in a close battle which he almost manaaged to survive in a similar way to how I had but it was not to be.
I then played Brian S. in the semifinal where I made an aggressive early 6 on 7 attack with my Titan Wlo on a lord stack of his which turned out to be his Angel, making the battle a much harder one on me. I gave him a risky chance on my Titan which he took and died right away and so I ended up winning the battle easily. My Angel stack then fought his Titan in a battle which favored me but which he had really no choice but to fight and I won.
I played Sean in the final where things were fairly even until Sean made a huge mental mistake and split off the wrong two pieces from his Titan stack. If he had noticed it right away, I probably would have let him take it back but he didn't notice until the next turn and that is just too late to consider reversing it. This split sometimes wouldn't hurt so much but in this case just turned out to immediately be incredibly costly, with a sequence of rolls for both of us that was just painful for him. He finally got a good roll to pick up a Ranger under a tower and seemed like maybe he would recover when I immediately rolled a 6 to teleport my Angel Guardian stack into the tower by him and take another Guardian. Soon after I was able to teleport again to completely block his Titan and pretty much force him to make an awful attack on Ang Gua Gua Ran Ran Lio and, with no surprise, lose giving me the game and plaque. I was doing well enough in this game with my Angel and a split off that was Min Min that I might very well have won comfortably without the split mistake but still, it made a huge difference and I was sorry for Sean and not the best way to win the event.
This was also my team game for MIT SGS so nice to score some team points for us.
-
-
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
Another of my favorite games but one that I don't play much of outside of the game or three a year at WBC. In this heat I was matched against Jeff C., a matchup of two two-time winners of the event, and two players relatively new to the game. This was an incredibly low-scoring game and was basically a battle between Jeff and I throughout, including him making a very good early attack on my Green leader, and a later Disaster fight where both of us used both of our Disaster tiles. I managed to squeak out a 4-5-X-X win to his 4-4-X-X despite never having my Red leader on the board and only getting one Treasure. I unfortunately didn't get to play in the Semis due to a conflict with the multiplayer Titan event.
-
-
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
One copy of this newest Dominion expansion was in almost constant play in Cafe Jay. I unfortunately only managed to squeeze in half of one game so more time will tell but my first reaction to this was less positive than to any of the prior expansions for some reason. However, we basically had a lot of treasure+ cards and not many interesting actions so may very well like it better on further play.
-
-
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
This is one of a series of late night, high luck, mostly dice game, very popular tournaments at WBC with continuous single eliminiation play until a winner is found. I won my first several games to make the semifinals against Andy L. and Jane Doe (don't know her real name) and then my dice turned on me. I went first but by turn 7 or so I still had no markers at all on the board and really hadn't been at a point where I would even consider stopping in that time. By this time Andy had closed one column and Jane two. Suddenly my luck turned and I closed a column and then the next turn finished a 2nd column and had 5s one away as well. Jane only needed one more column but her best shot was two 4s on a very closed down board. Rolling for the win with only two mediocre numbers made no sense to me and I stopped but Jane was then able to get her 4s and make the final.
-
-
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
Just as I was heading to bed, Daniel grabbed me to explain Indonesia to him and his friends, who had been trying to learn from the rules (with the FAQ and a nice turn summary) and had been having a nightmare doing so and finally bailed on it. We had talked about the game earlier so he knew I liked it and, despite being tired, I was happy to help teach this great game. I wasn't going to play but we walked through all the elements of a turn and the events which can happen (Mergers, age change, city growth, etc...) and they played through about half the first age. We then all went to bed but I was happy to learn they played two games of it later in the week.
-
-
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
I didn't play in this but mention it because I was incredibly happy when my usual roommate Michael stuck it out and won the tournament. Michael has been coming to this event for at least as long as I have but this was his first tournament win. This is not at all because he isn't good enough; he very much is and always has been at various different war games. However, the tournament atmosphere usually stresses him out and he, many years, doesn't play a single tournament game, instead playing long and pre-scheduled open gaming war games with friends. This obviously very much works for him but I was still really happy to see him win a tournament. My current roommate also won again at PanzerBlitz which was nice.
-
-
9.
Board Game: Tichu
[Average Rating:7.73 Overall Rank:36]
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
This is not a tournament at WBC (I many years ago offered to run it but the Board rejected it, due to it being a partnership game and a card game) but I always get in a bunch of Open Gaming games of it with the Titan folks, most of whom I originally taught various numbers of years ago. Had several very good games during the course of the week.
-
-
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
Many years ago I played in the WBC MoV tournament and got just destroyed and decided I just wasn't good enough for the high level of play here. Since then I have played more and no longer think that the case and this is a game I love so I decided to play a heat despite knowing I wouldn't play in the semfinial. Roderick wanted to try GM Richard Irving's homemade expansion and since I didn't care about winning I volunteered to try it to to get a game of it going. Even with Rich we still only had 3, but there ended up being 3 player games this round so it worked out fine and then at the last minute we had a fourth join us anyway. With this expansion, there is no equipment other than new ships available to buy at the start of the game. However, there are now more relics available and whenever a relic is found, it becomes possible for the other players to buy cheap reverse-engineered knock off versions of them for money and half a hold space.
I started well, discovering a system, and buying a Rock Video with the IOU. On my turn two, though, I made the fateful decision to not go and sell it in the Cloud and instead try to hit relics and more IOUs. Unfortunately I had a series of just terrible rolls trying to navigate the cloud and wasted like three vital early turns to absolutely no benefit, a start there was just no way I was going to recover from against this level of competition. In the meantime, Rich went off exploring MUCH more successfully ending up getting a Blue Drive Relic (new relic in expansion), Red Drive Relic, and Extra Hold Relic (new in expansion) and just running away with the game. With his Clipper he now had Transport capacity and could get nearly anywhere he wanted in the game with 4 dice and skipping the two most common colors of dots in the game. His drives also made a Shield almost completely unnecessary since he could skip two thirds of the raster dots. Amazingly I managed to eke out third place over Roderick but Rich was WAY ahead of everyone. Fun game though and glad to try the expansion. I was also really happy to get for $1 from Rich a new set of IOU counters as my copy is missing one which has been annoying.
-
-
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
For whatever reason, of the tournaments I haven't won, I'd like to win this one the most but find enough luck in it that don't see how Rob has done as well as he has consistently (won all three WBC tournaments there have been of it including beating me in the final the first year - a year I actually think I might have been the best player at the table but he got Colony Ship-> Lost Species Ark World and basically ran away with the game despite my best efforts - he now plays far more than me and at this point I am pretty sure he is better than me by a fair margin).
This year in the heat they were giving people the option of playing with the base set or with the first two expansions. I knew the base set games would have the beginners and be easier to win but still chose the expansion game. We were playing two games and if I couldn't win either, I felt I didn't deserve to advance, and I just find games with the expansions more fun. Played a strong table and lost the first game but won the second fairly easily to advance.
In the Quarterfinal, I got a strong Military Tableau and ended up winning comfortably. In the Semifinal I had a choice of Rebel Cantina or Old Earth, neither with anything to go with it and chose Rebel Cantina. This ended up being just a HORRIBLE game for me (I scored 16 I believe to the other players like 34 and 37) as I tried to Explore repeatedly to no avail and ended up basically just putting down almost random cards (the only card I put down that was of any value was the Blue production world that trades like a Green) and knew I had lost very early. I eventually ended up doing a Produce->Trade cycle that I got some benefit out of but mostly helped the winner, which I regret but it still was the best move for me. Unfortunately, this was not a good example of a Race game. The game had two very strong players and one ok player. This third player had Damaged Alien Factory and I believe NEVER chose Produce the whole game (also hurting my Rebel Cantina). Despite this and several other pretty obvious mistakes, she won the game as the third player had a amazing Develop engine (Investment Credits followed by Gal Fed by like turn 3) but couldn't draw any good Develops to take advantage of her discounts.
Also played a bunch of games (mix of BoW and non-) with Dave and others on the side at various times.
-
-
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
Another of the late night dice games and one of my favorites but for some reason, although I generally do very well at home, I don't think I have ever won my first round game at WBC. For this tournament, you can play with whoever you want in the first round and I ended up playing with Chuck, Michael, Bob and two ladies I don't know. Bob ended up winning pretty easily but had no interest in advancing, just having wanted to knock us bums out of the tournament
 . Pablo arrived and beer was broken out and we decided to play another game for fun that came down to three of us with one die at the end before I was knocked out. Can't remember who won but two really fun games.
-
-
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
Bob had gotten knocked out early in the second game so gone and grabbed more beer and Show Manager which we five stuck around and played until like 2AM, me explaining it to the couple people new to it. Had a blast of a game (Clear!) where I was putting on the New York Ballet last and had a pretty good show but was sure I would win if I could get a 4 point actor for my last spot and knew would be close if I got a matching but lesser actor. There was still a 5 for my spot in the deck but I took the 3 I knew I could get rather than risking going for it. Well, we added up the scores and I was one point behind Bob.
-
-
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
The all-luck but fun to play late-night Friday dice game. I first played last year and was back this year. Played in a group with Paul B, Andy L, and his daughter. I was over par and the best in our group was -4, not making the -7 cut to advance to the final 4. Our neighbor group had much better results including a -7 from Sean to advance.
-
-
15.
Board Game: Titan
[Average Rating:7.08 Overall Rank:317]
Aaron Fuegi
United States
Framingham
MA
-
The multiplayer semifinal as always was Saturday at 9AM. I ended up matched up against Dan Strock, Bob Masso, and Akihisa Tabei, the sometimes almost crazily aggressive (in Titan play that is) Japanese player. I had a poor start recruiting but all of us hung around as Dan got a recuiting edge with Wbex2 in his Titan stack and Dragon in his Angel stack. The most significant turn of the game came when Aki, after I failed to roll a 5 to kill his Angel stack, attacked Dan's Titan stack 5 on 6 with this Angel stack. Both Dan and I were quite surprised at the attack but it turned out to be an excellent decision as he was still at risk from my stack and Dan's stack had 3 trolls that were really ineffective in the Brush against Aki's Rangers and Lions and Aki won the battle relatively comfortably. This hugely changed the game as now there was no recruiting threat. I then split and rolled a 1 to pick up a Warlock in a tower near to Aki's Titan. Aki made the VERY odd move of splitting his Titan in order to kill a two stack directly beneath this tower and blatantly invite me to attack his known Titan 6 on 6 with an Angel call. Unfortunately Bob had a 6 stack right behind that was junky but I was nervous could kill what would remain from my beating Aki. I probably still would have attacked except I rolled a 6 that let me aggressivly go after Bob's Titan and decided that was the better option. Bob wisely split and ran but got stuck in the Jungle with a mediocre non-native 4 stack and I then took a Gorgon right under him. The next turn I rolled low and so could only attack him with this weak 5 Green stack but I also put a much stronger Green stack right under him. He realized that even if he won he was screwed and so we ended up just making a deal where I won but lost all of my pieces but the weakest one. Bob as usual had tons of stacks so this win was enough to push me from 60 some points to over 400 and get Titan teleport and soon picked up an Archangel and at this point we were basically just waiting for me to roll a 6. In the meantime Aki had gotten quite lucky and strengthened his Titan stack significantly. This still made porting on him when I did get the 6 the easy decision. He set up well forward in the Brush and I had tons of options for how I wanted to fight the battle but decided on a very aggressive immediate engagement with him with my Archangel and Gorgon on his 9 pt Titan. I rolled poorly and he rolled well and so I had to adjust in the second round to a somewhat slower fight but I did end up winning in the end.
This set up a final of four incredibly strong players: David des Jardins, Brian Sutton, Rich Atwater, and me (AREA rankings 1, 3, 8 and 2 respectively). Unfortunately, the Final turned out to be a slow and not that interesting game. I got the first Ranger but then only recruited 4 the entire game (all in my Angel stack) and never had any meaningful stacks other than my starting ones. My best split off the entire game was OgrX3, Trox2, Min and my Angel stack had a lone Gargoyle in it basically the whole game. My Angel stack got me a couple hundred points before it died. This left just my Titan stack which got to Gia Gia but then couldn't roll a 3 or a 6 for an eternity to try to get a Colossus and so just sat in a tower as I sacrificed my other small stacks to try to avoid (and eventually fail to avoid) being in move compulsion. Basically I did almost nothing the entire game, fighting only one battle of any siginificance and that one over almost before it started. Meanwhile Rich had Dragonx2 in his Angel stack but his Titan got trapped and he decided to withdraw from the game rather that sit and give his points to Brian or move and give his points to David. Despite that no player had been actually killed and that there weren't many battles, Brian and David kept accumulating points and both got to over 600. David was in a tower and rolled a 6. The only stacks on the board not his (and his weren't great - had one Hydx2 stack) were my Titan8 GiaX2, Unix2, Wlo, Wbe and Brian's Titan12 Ang Wlo Ran Ran Cyc (could have this a bit wrong). David thought, I think correctly, that he couldn't beat me so his choice was to basically do nothing or attack Brian 7 on 6 with an Angel call but with worse pieces and a high likelihood of a mutual of 12 point Titans. He went for the attack and rolls at the start hugely went Brian's way. They then turned and it very much looked like a mutual. David tried to make a deal with Brian to get him to concede rather than roll for the mutual but Brian decided to take the roll and got the mutual, giving me a pretty unsatisfactory win. Probably though a better result than not rolling and me conceding because I wasn't up for playing a game with only having one stack against David's 10+ with it already being 2 AM and how slow David plays. If we had continued, it would have been a case of me using less than 1/100 of the time he would take for what could end up being hours more of game and there was just no way I was up for that when needed to get up and check out and drive home later that morning. Also thanks to Michael for unsolicitedly bringing me a beer towards the end of this.
This gave me the wins in both Titan events, something achieved once before by David I believe, but in two pretty unsatisfying finals. I do think I played well in both tournaments and made no glaring errors, while definitely many others did, but would have wished for better last games. The earlier round games were pretty much all quite satisfying though.
Chatted with people for another hour and then to bed to get up at 10:30 and say my goodbyes and drive home. Thanks as usual to all the GMs but as always especially to Bruno who just does an amazing job with Titan and gives up basically his entire week to GMing, allowing him to play in basically only the 2 player event (which thanks to Rich for running), a dedication I incredibly admire but would not be willing to duplicate year after year.
-
-
|
|
|
