Finally Home! And a not so quick recap…

Originally published at Kickin’ the new Kuh-nowledge. You can comment here or there.

I left the house on February 19th, early in the morning on my weekly Chicago commute. However, that week was different. On Thursday, I had a flight out of O’Hare to Washington, D.C. So instead of coming home as I usually do on Thursdays, I flew out.

The trip was mostly for work, though I did get some fun in when I could (more on that later). The main work thing I was traveling for was what we call the National Technical Conference. It’s a hoity toity title for 3 days jam packed with information and training for the tech support contacts out in the “field” (where field means anywhere other than the HQ). At any rate, I arrived in D.C. in the early afternoon, picked up the rental and drove out to Tyson’s Corner (where the company HQ is located… the company being USA Today, of course).

I was the first to arrive, and my job for Thursday and Friday was to make sure that everyone was on task and to fill any holes in the agenda. Fortunately, everyone seemed to be OK, and I only had to make sure some logistical loose ends were tied up.

Saturday night was fun, I went out dancing with some colleagues. We called it “girls” night out since I was the only “boy”. We ended up in D.C. at a place called Rumors. The music sucked, but it was fun to dance anyway.

Sunday night was the beginning of the conference. My group hosts and coordinates the whole thing so it was basically game on from that point until conference end on Wednesday. The whole thing went without a hitch. Much more smoothly than last year when we had to juggle the schedule the entire time.

Thursday was the day of the 8 hour meeting. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for hammering things out and getting consensus, but it took all day to get very little accomplished. Friday was more of the same, but we resolved most things and left with some tasks. We wrapped things up around 3:00 which normally would mean I could catch a 5:00 pm flight, but instead it meant that I was driving across town for some fun.

And by fun, I mean D&D eXPerience. It’s an annual convention that happens around the end of Feb in D.C. (and as one of the planners of the technical conference, you know it’s no coincidence that both events happen around the same time). At any rate I arrived just in time for a D&D Miniatures event featuring the new rules (DDM OP Presents). It went a little long, but I still had fun.

That night, I hung out with some of the Georgia crew. Clint, Shayne, Brandon and Mark. Then Sara Girard, a WotC staffer (who was only slightly tipsy) walked over to us and started talking 4e (that is 4th edition, the forthcoming edition of D&D). We chatted for a bit until Katie Page from the PR firm that represents WotC came over and begged us all to join them and Scott Rouse at Mackeys.

We all hemmed and hawed because Saturday morning was the time of our main event (the D&D Miniatures Limited Championship). They eventually wore our resolve down and we decided to make the trek to Mackeys. Once there Clint and I played darts while the rest of the crew sat and talked. Clint sucks almost as much as I do at darts (heck, he’s worse).

I had a creamy Guinness, which was the only reason I went to Mackey’s in the first place and listened in on the conversation between the WotC staffers and the Georgia crew. Thankfully Mackey’s closed pretty early so we were able to head back to the hotel and get enough sleep before the Championships.

Now… onto the main event.

I’ve been playing D&D since around 1981. Part of the reason I’m still playing D&D is because of the D&D Miniatures game that came out a few years ago. It’s basically the 3rd edition D&D combat rules distilled into a skirmish level miniatures game. Now that the D&D game is moving to a 4th edition, the D&D Miniatures game is moving on to a 2nd edition that will reflect the changes wrought by the new edition of D&D.

In the meantime, we have this last Championship under the 1.0 rules. This is the Limited Championship… Limited simply means that instead of building the warband/army that you want, you’re limited by whatever randomly comes in two booster packs. Each booster pack has 8 randomized miniatures out of a set of 60.

Now that you know the basics, here’s what transpired. I opened my two boosters and found two of the premier pieces in the set (Elf Conjurer and Fire Archon). Unfortunately, those two were the only “great” pieces I had to work with. The rest were good, but not great. In the end, my warband was slightly above average. Not bad, but not great either.

Despite some small problems with my warband, I was able to pull to a 3-0 start in the tournament. Each match was pretty tough, but I was able to hang on and beat my opponents on points.

In the fourth round I faced Bas Hamer, a Dutch player, and a member of the Colluders Team (more of an informal team than many of the others). At any rate, Bas had an obviously superior warband, but I think I gave him a scare when early in the match I caused his Cyclops to rout. Fortunately for Bas, it didn’t run off the board (which would prove my downfall later in the game). I played about as perfectly as I could (though I freely admit I made some big placement mistakes near the end). Bas came back from the early scare I gave him and soundly trounced me.

After the fourth round, we take a small break, and we also get an opportunity to create new warbands with two fresh boosters. This is meant to equalize the “luck” factor of getting two really weak boosters at the start of the tournament. I grabbed a quick lunch with Jesse Dean (my good friend from back home in Orlando). When we returned it was all business as we prepared for the final four rounds of the tournament.

My second set of boosters weren’t nearly as good as my first set. This time around I had one of the premier pieces in the set (Eternal Blade), but the rest of my pull was mediocre at best. I faced Shayne Lindeman in the 5th round. I still hadn’t decided how to play the band, and Shayne had a vastly superior set of figures. I made the kind of mistakes a first time player makes. The kind of mistakes you shouldn’t make at a Championship. I also had horrid dice luck. At one point Shayne (always the gentleman) said, “Man, I feel dirty for beating you like this.” LOL

At this point I was 3-2 overall in the tournament, and I was playing with what I felt was an inferior warband. I had to make the decision of whether I would drop from the tournament or stay in. The reason is that the goal of this part of the tournament is to finish in the top 8. Running the numbers, I realized that the only chance I had at making the top 8 would be to win my last three matches. Oh yeah, I guess I should point out that the top prize for the tournament is $2000, and if I somehow miraculously make the top 8, I would play the following day in a single elimination tourney for that $2000.

Instead of dropping, I told myself that if I would simply play until I had a third loss. Once I had a third loss there would be no chance of making top 8 and therefore no reason to continue playing. Things didn’t quite work out that way, but I didn’t make top 8 either.

Round 6 came along and I faced Mike Dougan. He had an insane warband that included Capricious Copper Dragon, Elf Conjurer and Astral Stalker. I normally wouldn’t talk about the warbands I beat, but this one is significant because any odds maker would choose Mike’s warband to beat mine any day of the week. Mike’s main weakness was that he had a lowly Militia Archer as his commander. If I got a little lucky, I might be able to play the morale check game and beat him that way.

We were playing on the Ratfang Sewer map (which would prove to be vitally important). Using the Eternal Blade’s ability I chose dragon as the type which would confer the extra attack and damage bonus. I moved in on the dragon with a bounding assault at the end of the round resulted in a miss. However, this is where the Eternal Blade shines. With a +8 to initiative, she almost always wins initiative.

I won initiative (as was expected), hit the Dragon twice which was enough for a morale check. Mike rolled a 10. Normally that would have been enough to make the morale check. The Capricious Copper Dragon is level 9 and his commander gives a +2 to the roll. He needs a total of 20, and that would normally net him a 21 (10+9+2). However, the dragon was in a sewer square at the time. Sewer squares give the creature standing in them a -2 to saves, attacks and armor class. With that additional -2, the total was now 19, and the Capricious Copper Dragon routed right off the board. My only route to victory was somehow miraculously working. The match ended with Mike wondering what the heck had just happened. I was wondering the same exact thing.

I won’t give too many more details about my last two matches, except to say this. I outplayed my next opponent in round 7. He made a couple of mistakes and I took advantage of them. My opponent in the 8th round was Pat Lynch, one of the most highly rated players in the world. His warband was better than mine, but the dice gods smiled upon me, and I crushed his warband. I don’t even think he killed one of my pieces.

So, somehow miraculously, I won the rest of my matches. I had a chance to make the top 8. A slim chance, but a chance nevertheless. Vulgar aside… at this point I ran to the bathroom to pinch off a loaf that I had been holding since lunch. I came back in time to hear them announce the last of the top 8, but I wasn’t there to hear if I had made it.

Chris Sparks then walked up to me and handed me half a case of boosters, my prize. At that point it sunk in, I didn’t make top 8. But where did my miraculous comeback place me? 9th. That’s right, 9th place, I didn’t quite make it. The player in 8th place, Robert Hatch was ahead of me on Opponent’s Match Win % by a couple of hundredths of a point. The funny thing is, that I had beaten Robert earlier in the day, but in DDM it doesn’t matter who you beat necessarily. The tiebreaker is how all your opponents fared in the tournament.

Still, it’s the best performance I’ve ever had in a Championship (0-3 drop; 2-4 drop), and I’m definitely proud of that. After this event I should be pretty high up in the overall rankings. I’m currently in the top 100 in the world in Limited. I expect after my 9th place finish that I will be in the top 50 or maybe event top 25. As for Constructed (the format that allows you to build your warband prior to the tournament)… well, let’s just say that my rating is not nearly as good. I’m currently one of the lowest ranked players in the world. LOL

Anyway, after the tournament, I played in the final round of the Community Draft tournament. I walked away with a Nightmare from the prize table. I was pretty happy about that, and on my second pass around the prize table, I picked up a six pack of beer. Yumm!

I put the beer away in my room, and walked back down to the lobby to see what was going on. I found Dwayne Stupack and some other folks chatting. I felt like a bit of douche as I tagged along with Dwayne as he was invited to hang out with Dave Christ and Jason Buhlmann in their room. Even so, douche or not, I decided to go ahead and celebrate my 9th place finish with them. After a few beers and some pleasant conversation, it was time for bed (4:30 AM).

I awoke Sunday morning at 7:56 to the sound of my phone ringing. It was Jesse calling about our 8:00 AM start time for the Living Forgotten Realms adventure Escape from Sembia. I quickly put on some clothes and dragged my tired ass down. Amazingly, I was only a little hung over. I recovered quickly, but there were a couple of guys at our table that made the adventure a lot harder to get through than it needed to be. I was familiar with 4e already so not much was new. There were a couple of things that had evolved slightly, and it was fun trying to figure that out (despite the lack of sleep).

Sunday afternoon was spent with Jesse before his flight. it was nice hanging out with him. I miss Orlando for that. Once I dropped Jesse off, I went back to the hotel. I’m not sure how it happened, but I ended up hanging out with James Blevins. He’s in the Army, and is due to ship out to Iraq in a couple of months. DDXP was his last chance at some fun before going. We had a couple of beers and dinner, and then called it a night.

Monday morning was the flight back to Chicago. Tuesday was back to my normal schedule of working in the office. By the way, Tuesday was also our 2nd wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, we spent it apart, but not for long. Tuesday night, I played in Jordan’s D&D game (I’m new to the group, but they’ve been great in welcoming me in). Jordan and Jonathan from that group had also made it to DDXP, so it was fun recounting some of the new 4e goodness with them.

Liz came up Wednesday night via train… which was something like 3 hours late. I picked her up, and we spent a little bit of time together before nodding off. Thursday, I went in to work, and then came back to pick Liz up and take her downtown. We ate lunch at El Llano, a Colombian restaurant on Lincoln, down the street from Martyr’s. I had the big plate of lamb, and Liz had the enormous plate of Red Snapper. Excellent, and I will return soon.

After lunch, Liz and I hung out and did the husband and wife driving around Chicago thing. It was just nice to be around her after having been away for two weeks. I dropped her off at the hotel that was next to her conference (she was really up for a conference, not to see me… but I’ll take the seeing when I can get). Anyway, I dropped her off and made my way home to Urbana where I said hello to the animals, and then blissfully, thankfully fell asleep in my own bed.