Last year, De Bellis Columbus was its own "stand alone" convention, and drew 3 dozen DBMers and just about 20 DBA players. This year, we decided to host it within another show as a kind of "convention within a convention." Buckeye Game Fest -- staged each Fall by the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society -- had offered us space, within reason, so we decided to stage it there. And since Buckeye Game Fest runs four days, we expanded the De Bellis Columbus to run Thursday through Sunday, as well.
DBC 2005 featured five tournaments over four days. On Thursday evening, a new Matched Pairs tourney, The Gauntlet, drew 6 players. On Friday afternoon, the 15mm Book I/II Open had 8 participants, while the Book III/IV drew six the evening. Saturday's Big Battle DBA Tourney had 8 participants, while Hordes of the Things on Sunday drew five. Obviously, attendence levels were down from last year, but we'd been hard pressed to find tables for all the games if we'd stayed the same.
The
winner of first-ever running of The Gauntlet (designed by David Zecchini,
but GMed by Tom Graves when Zeke couldn't attend) was the player who came
the furthest to attend: John Lawitzke. The Michigan resident went a perfect
4-0. John was also named Overall De Bellis Columbus Champion, and given
a classy, engraved plaque by the Buckeye Game Fest folks.
Tom Graves repeated last year's triumph in the Book I/II Tournament with his Mithridatic army. There were no undefeated players among the field of eight, since we were playing four rounds. Tom edged out John Loy and Kim Young on points, who also finished 3-1.
We shortened the Book III/IV Tournament to three rounds, as Eric Luczaj's Hindu Indians had decidedly trampled the field, 3-0, and the players were game for an early night's rest for the next morning's Big Battle tournament.
The BBDBA event was also labeled the 4th Annual HMGS Great Lakes BBDBA Tourney, and was NOT divided into Early and Later Brackets this year, as we had an even 8 players. Jeff Fletcher, who joined the tourney when his 25mm DBM event was cancelled, squeaked out a win by going 2-0-1. His tie was against John Lawitzke, who also finished 2-0-1. Jeff was ahead signifcantly in their game, and since it'd already run 3 hours, I was forced to call it on time (awarding a "Winning Draw" to Jeff and "Losing Draw" to John. When Jeff went on to defeat Keith Finn in the final round (in another marathon game), he was declared the tourney winner. See my note below about a possible solution to long games.
Without further ado, here are the final results of the tournaments:
The Gauntlet* Note: We allowed some unofficial allies to be fielded so that we could assemble a few extra armies, as we took in players from the cancelled DBM Tournament.
The problem of game length arose a few times over the course of De Bellis Columbus. I know everyone has their particular style of play, but slow, deliberate players can create havoc for a tournament director. I have always hated simply walking up to a game and saying "Time's Up." My buddy Steve Smith uses an egg timer, and when it goes off, you're done. I don't want to do that, either. So -- to go off on a tangent here -- I think I will begin a new thing for my tournaments next year. When it reaches 10 minutes before time expires, I will implement Timed Turns. Each player will receive 30 seconds PER PIP ROLLED to do their moves. Roll a six, and you get 3 minutes. Roll a one, and you have half a minute. When that's up, you're done moving -- go to shooting, then melee. In BBDBA, I'll start it 15 minutes out. I'd be interested in hearing your comments, as I feel rounds that run overly long are unfair to players waiting to begin their next game, or those who have other events scheduled later that day (or even would like a break to get lunch or dinner).