Folks
Apologies for not posting to the board during the tournament. I had some issues getting my laptop on the hotel network, and it was just too much typing to do from my phone. I was also busy, as I was able to get 4 games in during the 3 day period, which was really nice.
We were able to obtain the room at the lovely Hilton Garden Inn on Thursday afternoon and several players showed up early to get a warm up game in advance of the Tourney.
The tourney started on Friday morning and we made up a bracket of 24 players broken down into six groups of four players each. We spread out the top seeds to each of the groups. At the end of 2 rounds, the six undefeated players were - Ray Wolosyn, Doug Sheppard, Dave Stephens, Jeremy Maciejewski, Rick Carter and myself.
The round 3 matches began on Saturrday morning. Dave Stephens had the French in J183 - A Real Barn Burner and defeated Ray Wolosyn's Germans. Doug Sheppard had the Chinese in StL12 - What Doesn't Kill You, and defeated Rick Carter's IJA forces. Jeremy Maciejewski and I also played that StL12, with me attacking as the Chinese. StL12 is from the Chinese-Burma-India Historical Magazine release a few years ago by the St Louis club and is a great scenario. Jeremy won our game on the last CC roll where he needed a six to eliminate a Chines HS.
With 3 undefeated players, we made the decision to introduce the spoiler into the mix. Ray Wolosyn agreed to be the spoiler and Doug Sheppard graciously agreed to play Ray taking the Germans in BFP114 - Engineering Defeat. It was a tough match, but Ray's Poles prevailed. This eliminated Doug from the Tourney and meant that the winner of the Dave Stephens - Jeremy Maciejewski match would be the winner of the Tourney. That honor went to Dave as his Germans beat Jeremy's Americans in AP116 - Mook Point.
Dave took home first place - which was $40 of cold hard cash along with a nice set of dice from Battle School. Doug, Jeremy and Ray each took home a $15 gift certificate from Gamer's Armory and a set of Battle School dice.
We also had two 3-round mini tournaments which started on Saturday morning and finished on Sunday. In the final match for Mini-A, John Dober was victorious over Jeremy Busby in AP118 - Wise's War. Jon had the Americans and Jeremy had the Germans. In the final match for Mini-B, Phil Palmer defeated Dave Reenstra in ASL187 - Morgan's Stand. Phil had the Americans and Dave had the Germans. John and Phil each won a $25 gift certificate, one from Gamer's Armory and the other from Bounding Fire Productions.
A final prize, which was a $25 gift certificate to RitterKrieg, was awarded to Scott Hasson. Of the players that were not in contention for the main tourney and were not in a final of the mini tourney, Scott had the highest score when calculating his wins and adding a bonus based upon the number of wins of the players that he defeated.
In addition to the gaming, we also had a nice raffle table with some great prizes. As was mentioned in an earlier post, one of these prizes was a beautiful printed map of the City of Rees which is the setting for the recent Operation Turnscrew CG developed by Tom Morin and released by the Bunker crew. Tom gave me permission to have this printed and include a copy of the CG in the raffle and I want to thank him and the Bunker guys for that. I also want to thank our other sponsors (see below) for dontating scenario packs and other ASL material to the raffle. The raffle also included gift certificates for complimentary admission to several upcoming tourneys including - ASLOK 2017, NY State Championship (Albany), Bitter Ender 2018, Texas Team Tournament 2018 and of course Spreading Blaze 2018. Thanks to the folks who organize those events for their generosity.
Overall, I think a good time was had by all and I look forward to holding this event again next year. We grew from 14 players last year to 23 this year and I hope we can grow again next year.
Spreading Blaze 2017 Sponsors
Battle School Dice
Bounding Fire Productions
Bunker Crew
Evan Sherry (Schwerepunkt)
The Gamer's Armory
KC ASL Club
Lone Canuck Publising
MMP
RitterKrieg
St Louis ASL Club
Regards,
Gary Bartlett