The turnout this year for the ATC Emperor of Great Lakes campaign tournament was well beyond what I had hoped or planned for. Twenty people showed up to play. It was a good group, including everyone from beginners to the most experienced players in the area. I believe eight were true beginners, playing their first competition then or in Dennis Frank's Saturday Open. The other 12 were all veteran players who needed little help or direction.

My outline on how to run it this years was built around 12 players. We used 32"x32" boards for this event, with set up being 10" deep and 6" from the sides. Another new twist was that the "Strategic" attacking players added 3 to their aggression rolls for determining setup. This was to keep a player with a 0 aggression from continually getting to set terrain. Other than that, I had planned on five rounds, as in last year's competition.

Well, with 20 players, I was thinking on my feet on how to get it done easily. And after I had gotten the first round started, I knew there was no way we were going to get in five rounds and be able to play the same as last year. First, more than half of the first round games were teaching games, and all were going to run long. The last of the teaching games lasted more than an hour and a half. It was time well spent, though, introducing the game and helping beginners to learn. (Side note of thanks to the players for being willing to teach the game, and for at least two players who switched their games so they could --thanks again!) The second round, with the pauses for help from me, Mike Demana, Dennis Frank and others, ended up going well over an hour. This was to be expected and is in no way a gripe -- just an explanation of how I ended up going three rounds instead of the give I'd planned.

Here is a short version of the tournament format. In the beginning, the Earth was created...oh, I did say short version, didn't I? I randomly split the players into Odds and Evens, with #1 and #2 rolling off to see who would get the advantage of attacking first. Odds won. First round saw many good battles and some very surprising ones. Second round the Evens got to try and get revenge, if they had not become vassals of their first round attacker. If they had become a vassal, their Lord chose their attack for them. For the third round, I made my major change in format from last year. There would be no stripping of vassals from empires. This was the only way I could see of getting a winner out of the tournament this year, it proved to be true.

So Odd empires and Odd independents were the attackers in this round. One nation rebelled against his empire and the rest tried to enlarge their holdings. Only one came out on top with the largest Empire. The next largest was two behind and only one ahead of three others. If I had allowed stripping of vassals in the 3rd round, I could have had a 5-way tie for the title.

Our new emperor is Ted Bender (3-0), who someone said was in his first weekend of competition. Second was David Zecchini (2-1), and third was last year's winner, Dick Keyel (2-1). The other players were Gary Overmyer (3-0), Chuck Suder (2-1), Sage Boggs (1-2), Sean Winterrowd (1-2), Steve Smith (1-2), Jason Stelzer (2-1), Mike Williams (2-1), Tim Ryan (2-1), Alan Winterrowd (1-2), John Lawitzke (0-3), Mike Demana (2-1), Bud Hunter (2-1), Heidi Bender (0-3), Bob Boggs (1-2), John Martin (1-2), Jack Shaw (1-2), and Dennis Frank (1-2). First and second were determined by number of vassals controlled, while third went to the independent with the best record.

First place gets their name on the Emperor of Great Lakes Trophy Sword and a painted Spartan Army. Second and third won one year memberships to Great Lakes. Thanks to the board members who liked and supported my idea on this. I think the format which does not stress straight wins but also some political thinking has been fun, hopefully it will bring back all those who played this year and some more new ones next year. We had four pairs of relatives playing this weekend, too, which I think is worth noting.

I worked out some of the kinks in the system from last year and found/added a few more, hopefully to be worked out by next year. I have been given a few ideas and have a few of my own to both speed up and streamline play for next year. The Theme for next year will be Classical Greek (Hint: That was why the Spartans were the prize). The armies that will be allowed are listed below. Greek Classical 600BC to 146BC (118 armies): Book I: 6c, 7cd, 14e, 35cd, 36, 43ab, 47, 48, 50, 52abcdefghi, 53, 54, 55abcde, 56ab, 57ab, 58, 59, 60abc, 61ab, 62, 63. Book II: 1, 2, 3, 5abcdefghi, 6, 7, 8abc, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16abcd, 17, 18abcde, 19abcd, 20abc, 22af, 23abc, 24, 25, 26, 27ab, 28b, 30ab, 31abcdefghij, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36ab, 37, 39abc, 40, 43, 44.