Thanks. Good to play you, though more like you beat me like a drum.

I was admiring the photos of the Russian Tournament, a pretty cool idea to have a personalised leader as a prize!

I welcome everyone with great gratitude!

Open Tournament 2019 for me was quite successful tournament. And... My special thanks to Leonid/LeonardoAngelo ( www.commandsandcolors.net/ancients/forum...iew=user&userid=1374 }) for his ability to motivate people to sign up for riots (for the tournament on C&C: Ancients).

Of course, I thank Mark for organizing and coordinating all our games. This is a big deal in a small such area games, and all the more in a small area wargames.
I really appreciate this work.

Mark, without your energy and time, this wouldn't have happened. My respect.

My thanks and my partners on games. I was incredibly lucky with geography.

I played an Australian.
With a Bulgarian from Spain.
Russian from St. Petersburg, which personally know about 10 years.
Bukhara from Uzbekistan.
A pole from Brussels who speaks 5 languages besides Polish.
An American from Kentucky.
And, finally, the American from Rhode Island.

They were good games. And smart. And fun. And with luck. And with abusive swearing - Oh, not fate... mother give birth to me back...

Thanks Mark, Tomek, Maxim, Shavkat, Stanislav, Joe, Travis.


It was a good cycle for me.
Thanks, comrades!

Play games.
To Rome! To Alex!

P.S. Here is the link to our small face-to-face tournament 15th Wooden Alex on 06 oct 2019.

vk.com/event161872904

taliapharaoh (Goth) 6 banners, 18 blocks lost

BrentS (Roman) 4 banners, 31 blocks lost

A very enjoyable and stressful match (knowing I had lost more blocks last game despite winning 6-5...) against an always skillful and gracious opponent. As in the first game, Brent had me on the ropes but didn't get the timely dice. His strategy of moving his units away from the Warriors on the Gothic right was well executed and foiled some early plans I had to test the Roman left. The Goths were able to catch up with the left edge of the Roman lines and take out an LB and MI, but this was quickly negated the next turn when Brent struck back and dispatched a W with an attached leader. The game seemed to settle into a siege-like mentality for the next few turns, as I attempted to both stalk two one-block light units that had just survived the initial skirmish with a MC on the Roman left, and race my exposed 3 units on the Gothic left to safety behind the laagers.

At this point, I would have bet all the gold booty in the Gothic camp that this one would be decided in a battle in the laagers, but once again they played no part in the battle. I was unable to get the units compact enough to safely protect them, and in desperation played a Sparty card only to fail miserably on the roll. After some back and forth battling in the center which evened the score at 4-4, the shrewd Roman commander then pressed forward on my aforementioned exposed left side which seemed to spell disaster for the Goths, due to the fact that I was struggling to properly bring units to bear against the Roman advance.

However, immediately after uttering to my opponent that it was "gonna take a miracle" for me to win this match, the Gothic gods responded with all the fortune I could have hoped for. The Roman attack stalled due to a no-hit dice roll, and the Gothic dice were superb as I was able to use a combination of full strength W, MI, and MC on the following turn to eliminate two Roman Aux to claim the victory.

In summation, I had great cards and solid dice, which helped offset a bad Sparty roll, a leader casualty, and the excellent planning and execution by Brent. This scenario was much more enjoyable than I thought it would be, and offered many more variables than I could have imagined when I found out it was to be used for the finals.

OT Finals total:

BrentS - 9 banners, 56 blocks lost
taliapharaoh - 12 banners, 47 blocks lost

Thanks to Brent for a great match, and also to Mark for all the coordinating and organizing.

(logfile was interrupted twice, Brent has posted above....)

All done and dusted. I'm just posting to congratulate Travis on an heroic and well deserved tournament victory. Extremely well played throughout and particularly in the final, despite the distraction of my internet dropout and disrupted play. I'll leave it to the victor report the match.

I've also appended the log for the second game......unfortunately it has a unit overlay glitch that makes the thrilling culmination of the battle nonsensical but it's the only complete one we have.

Thanks Mark for organising the tournament and to everyone who played. Great fun as always. See you all on the battlefield next year.

OT Finals Game 1 Logfile: *** slight glitch on the movement of a pivotal Roman AUX***

Game 1

taliapharaoh (Roman): 6 banners, 29 blocks lost

BrentS (Goth): 5 banners, 25 blocks lost

The laagers never came into play throughout the game, as the Goths opened the game with steady pressure on the Roman left, but couldn't quite get all the rolls they needed despite excellent planning and execution. The Romans were able to take out a leader and two Ws with a counterattack and DTS card and push the Gothic marauders back to the hills. "Brentigern" was able to rally his forces and counter-punch with a heroic MC which took out a Roman cav unit and disrupted the Roman right as the action moved to the center. The Gothic medium infantry came close to victory as they just escaped a DT move against two isolated Aux units outside the laager that would have ended the match, and then the full weight of the Gothic center was thrown against the Roman line which crumbled and was swept away at this pivotal moment of the battle. With the Roman infantry in full-on disorganized retreat, and the Goths preparing their final assault, a final desperate of another DT card allowed three Roman light units to score just enough hits on a Goth MI to take the final banner. A Pyrrhic Roman victory for sure.