It was the Whitsun Bank Holiday and so I was expecting a middling turnover compared to last month's pre-release. I myself had been tempted to go for a long gaming weekend at Kublacon in Oakland but decided that the Finchley event came first. There were 15 of us and that was just as well that there weren't more as the rooms were being redecorated and we had to improvise around the furniture available in the Buffalo's Lodge room. Some of the tables were low and John Davis did a fine lotus position rather than using a chair when called on to play at one of them . The good news is that they are smartening the place up and the Lodge room was pleasantly bright and airy now. Players ------- Andrew Davidson Arch/Asc/Hand "Tickertape" Andy Holt Fire/Jam "The City is Burning" Arthur Howlin Monarch Callum Finlayson Lotus/Monarch Colin Burton Jammer "Monkey Magic" Dave Martin Asc/Lotus "Taste of Paradise" Ivan Hartley Arch/Mon "Cuddly Toys" John Davis Dra/Hand/Lot "Fist of Legend" Mark Wheelhouse Jammer Richard Waring Jammer "Destroy All Sites" Ron Wheelhouse Ascended "Taking the Pledge" Ryan Keane Dra/Hand "Accidental Heroes" Stephen Biggs Hand/Jam/Mon Steve Bailey Asc/Lotus "Evil Twin of Kings & Things" Yuit Sum Vong Dragon "Tea for Two" Metagame -------- 5 Four Monarchs 5 Jammer 4 Ascended 4 Lotus 3 Dragon 3 Guiding Hand 2 Architects Round 1 ------- Andrew Davidson beat Dave, Stephen Biggs Ryan Keane beat Callum, Ivan, Mark Ron Wheelhouse beat Colin, Richard, Steve Bailey Yuit Sum Vong beat Andy, Arthur, John (on timeout 16 to John's 15) Round 2 ------- Ryan Keane beat Arthur, Dave, Steve Yuit Sum Vong beat Callum, Colin, Stephen Ron Wheelhouse beat Ivan, John Mark Wheelhouse beat Andy, Andrew, Richard Consolation ----------- Colin Burton beat Dave, Ivan, Steve Bailey Stephen Biggs beat Andy, Richard FINAL ----- We had 5 survivors after two rounds. We could have had a 3 player semi-final with the two double-winners getting a bye to the three-player final. Or I could have dropped out to make it a 4-player final. But, it was still early and so a 5-player final seemed right. It was about 5 p.m. and, after conferring, a time-limit of 8 p.m. was set. The order of play was Ryan, Mark, Yuit, myself and Ron. I didn't have a chance to record every play but made some notes each turn, focussing upon what I did that turn. TURN 1 ------ I played Auspicious Termites, Student of the Bear and Art of War. Ron didn't get a foundation character, couldn't attack and so I kept the Art of War - an excellent start for my 208-card deck. TURN 2 ------ I played a Whirlpool of Blood behind the Termites. TURN 3 ------ I played a Family Estate to start a second column. It was quite peaceful and I was happy to build my site structure. TURN 4 ------ Yuit was playing a fast Dragon deck and used a Bandit Hideout after an attack revealed that Ron's front feng shui was a Sunless Sea Ruins. His inability to discard helped to keep him stalled - still no foundation. Yuit then played Suong Xa and attacked Mark. He revealed a Cave Network and a Resistance Squad popped out to intercept Suong Xa. She whipped herself to get Guts and burnt the Cave Network for victory. I played a cheap Liquidators. Now I had three Ascended resources I played a Paper Trail and Competitive Intelligence. I revealed Ryan's City Park and decided to keep Marks' Waterfall sanctuaries face down. Yuit squealed as I both revealed and turned her Sacred Heart Hospital and Ring of Gates. This left Suong Xa with 5 damage - an irresistible target. I decided to leave the coup-de-grace to someone else - I'd done my bit to keep Yuit in check. Ron played a Might of the Elephant as a foundation character! He also played two Cabinet Ministers and one of them stole my Paper Trail. he then asked me if he could take the Hospital - he didn't want to fight my Liquidators. I was non-commital so he played Explosives on the Elephant and attacked. I decided against killing the Elephant as I didn't want to put damage on my Family Estate and joined the attack instead to help guarantee my Art of War prediction. Ron didn't even need to use the Explosives and burnt the Hospital for victory. He didn't dare burn for power as both Ryan and myself had Ascended resource and he was afraid of being bitten. TURN 5 ------ Someone had finished off Suong Xa so Yuit just skirmished with Scrappy Kid. I contemplated playing a Shaolin Sanctuary to develop my power base but I wanted my Paper Trail back. Instead I played The Pledged for free and Man With No Name. The Liquidators then killed one of Ron's Cabinet Ministers while the two new recruits killed the other. Ron now played a Sting of the Scorpion with some vehemence to kill the Scrappy Kid. The topless Sting discovered her maternal instincts instead and changed sides as Yuit played Assassins in Love! This brought the house down though Ron didn't seem too amused. TURN 6 ------ Ryan gave me power by discarding into my Paper Trail but then stole it back with Ki-YAAAH!! Mark still wasn't doing much but Yuit was still rolling - Suong Xa made a Golden Comeback and burnt a second site for victory. I now played a Bull Market and used the power to play both the Shaolin Sanctuary and Adrienne Hart who burnt one of Mark's Waterfall Sanctuaries for victory. It was nice to attack a face-down site, knowing exactly how strong it was. I turned the Man With No Name for a second Hand resource and played Wind on the Mountain to recycle and play the Bull Market again! I used this second infusion of power to play the Queen of the Ice Pagoda. She then sat tight - I wanted to keep her as defense against both attacks and Shadowy Mentors. Everyone else now had ten power from my Bull Markets and the game was about to take off. Ron played Farseeing Rice Grains without resources to get some cards to spend all this power on but Yuit hacked this, cancelling the card cycling but not the toasting, we decided. He then played Man With No Name triggering an auction. I only had two power now but Ryan contemplated stirring things by making Ron bid more. Son Mark tipped us off though by talking of Hostile Takeover and Ryan got cold feet. I took this threat seriously too but decided to keep Ron honest by bidding two. Sure enough, he did have the Hostile Takeover and used it to steal my money. I realised later that I could have cancelled this with Confucian Stability but I'm not sure that this would have been a good use of it. I expected to be generating lots more power myself. And, as it happened, Ron couldn't do much with all his power and passed. TURN 7 ------ Ryan cashed in some of his new-found prosperity by playing the Golden Gunman who burnt Yuit's Ring of Gates for victory. Mark then played Titanium Johnson who already had 5 toughness from the burnt-for-victory sites (Yuit 2, Me 1, Ron 1, Ryan 1) and so had little trouble in seizing the Sunless Sea Ruins from Ron. He was happy to control this site as he was declining to discard into my Paper Trail anyway. Yuit now played Ting Ting and burnt her third site for victory. Ron had an exposed Temple of the Angry Spirits and this looked the closest thing to a soft target. Adrienne Hart and the Queen both attacked it. Ron softened up Adrienne with an interceptor and then the Angry Spirits smoked her before I burnt them for victory. I played my third Bull Market and a second Paper Trail. A Killing Rain followed and I then played more Auspicious Termites face down. I like this site in a game like this as it can't be burnt for victory. Ron now chased Yuit and myself by burning his second site for victory - this was my Whirlpool of Blood. TURN 8 ------ Ryan attacked me too with the Golden Gunman. Finding that he'd taken my Termites, he smoked them rather than leave them hanging for someone else to take. Mark took two of the Bandit Hideouts which Yuit had put into play and which were moving around now. He then played a MegaTank on Titanium Johnson to give him Toughness 10! He couldn't decide whether Yuit and I were the biggest threat though so I suggested that he just stay on defense to cover us both and this he did. I was wanting to play for time as I was not yet ready to win. I subsequently smoked the MegaTank with Realpolitik. I don't have detailed notes but Mark continued to be the only player besides me who was spending all the power I was pumping into the game. His main strategy was to play Apes of Wrath and pump them up by making attacks with weenie characters with cheap states like Motorcycle. The Apes continued to get angrier and angrier but never actually did much. I'm not sure what Yuit did next but she may have had trouble making a winning attack as it was becoming hard to find a front row feng shui site to take. Ryan had one but it was the frustrating Puzzle Garden. I cycled some cards with Farseeing Rice Grains then played another Killing rain and a Turtle Island. I then played the White Ninja who made doubly sure of the Puzzle Garden and burnt it for victory - no-one wanted to stop me as this was not a winning attack. I had one feng shui site and 3 burnt for victory - neck and neck with Yuit. Ron tried to kill my Queen with Cry of the Forgotten Ancestor but I used my Confucian Stability to cancel that - I was glad I hadn't used it on the Hostile Takeover now. He then made a determined attempt to win using lots of stealthy attackers. This looked dangerous and I decided to find out early if he was holding a Roar of the Beast. I played a Scroll for a Suicide Mission which smoked the target - my Turtle Island. TURN 9 ------ Ryan attacked a feng shui site of Ron's with the Golden Gunman and made it his second burnt it for victory. He had more plans but the site was Mourning Tree and so that was it for that turn. Mark and Yuit marked time as they couldn't defeat the table to make a winning attack. I positioned myself for the win by using the White Ninja to take Kar Fai's Crib from Ryan and by playing the Orange Senshi Chamber. Ron made some inconsequential attack while I was distracted and the Art of War started on its second lap of the table as I lost it again. TURN 10 ------- We were into the third and final hour of the game now and the game looked somewhat deadlocked with myself and Yuit as the front-runners if it went to a tie-break. There was still a fair amount of action though and the kibitzers had to be shushed as they chipped in with suggestions too. But, now I had the Orange Senshi Chamber, I was confident that my deck was about to explode. I had four faction resources (Ascended, Hand, Monarch and Dragon) and so drew 10 cards. I then played Farseeing Rice Grains to swap 5 of these and then played it again to swap another 4. After all this, I had the Architect resources that I needed for the big finish. I played a CDCA Scientist and an Arcanowave Researcher, cycled some cards with Scrolls, Winds and Rice Grains and then dropped a Neutron Bomb. This didn't quite clear the table as the Golden Gunman had Fortune of the Turtle and Yuit had The Prof too. I didn't want to take any chances so I used recycled Scrolls to draw Curtains of Fullness out of the deck and emptied everyone's hand. This flushed out another couple of characters as cards like Golden Comeback were played. All sites had been revealed by Killing Rain and so I was sure that there weren't any denial sites lurking out there. I now played a Golden Candle Society, gave it Sucker Rounds to give it 30+ fighting from Ron's big stash of power and they could not now be stopped from taking Mark's Sunless Sea Ruins for the win. This was a timely result as we were now about 15 minutes away from the time limit that we thought we wouldn't need at the outset. People rushed off home to get their dinner while Yuit, Ivan and I cleared up and then returned home for some celebratory soup, pizza, beer and fruit salad - a fine cocktail of my favourite foods. So, congratulations to me. I opened a few Return to the Netherworld boosters as a treat but decided that my notional prize was a copy of the Players' Guide for Vampire: The Eternal Struggle which Ryan had kindly added to a big shipment of Shadowfist cards that his wife Hadley had brought back from Boston. This is a nicely bound hard-cover tied with evil black ribbons and looks cool, even if the content is dated and for the wrong game. And I have a real incentive to fill out report forms for the new ratings now. There's points to be won and what do points mean? Points mean prizes! FINAL ----- Andrew Davidson beat Ron, Ryan, Mark, Yuit Thanks to everyone who came and I hope to see you all again in June. Andrew

------------------------------------