Drums Along the Maumee 2007Okay, so once again this year, my buddy Steve Smith talked me into going up to Drums a day early. He and Steve Verdoliva would be arriving in Toledo Thursday night, so I extended our room by a day and decided to join them. I met Doug Johnson of the Colby Street Irregulars at Fort Meigs -- an excellent, reconstructed 1812 fort in the Toledo area -- to attend a lecture at 7:30 pm. The speaker was talking about the 1812 Naval Battle of Lake Champlain, and contrasting its strategic importance to that of the more famous victory of Commodore Perry at the Battle of Lake Erie. Definitely interesting, and an impressive turnout of several dozen folks. Afterwards, Doug and I joined the rest of the Colbys at the designated hangout, Ralphie's (kind of a BW3/Roosters style wings restaurant/bar. Good turnout here, as well, though Steve and Steve did not arrive from Chicago till about midnight.
Friday dawned and the convention started in earnest. It was kind of a strange Drums for me, I felt very unmotivated to enter events. There were plenty of cool looking games, as usual, but I ended up actually getting in just one per day. The one on Friday turned out to be a blast. Steve, Steve and I signed up for Doug Johnson's Clash of the Kaiju "Godzilla" game. Each player controls a monster, and proceeds to stomp a city that Doug has constructed while fighting off the attacks of the other monsters. Doug's worked out a great system for this, and even though my dice rolling was abominable, I had a blast. As a matter of fact, of the field of more than a dozen monsters, it came down to me (Orga -- never heard of him, either), Steve Smith (the Smog Monster) and Steve Verdoliva (Godzilla). Needless to say, Godzilla kicked our butts!
Afterwards, Mike Stelzer and the three of
us formed an "advance party" to Ralphie's. Our mission was to
call the first official meeting of the Great Lakes Drinking Club to order,
which we did in fine fashion. We were joined by the stalwarts from the Olde
Worlde Warriors, led by David Thompson and Marc Moralez, who are always
an absolute pleasure to spend time with. The Colbys and various other Great
Lakes members showed, and we naturally closed down the bar, as usual.
Saturday was the DBA Tournament, preceded by the DBA School taught by John Lawitzke. John has been doing an excellent job running his Bring & Battles (always preceded by a School to encourage beginners) all across Michgan and in Toledo. He saw his payoff at Drums, this year, as we nearly doubled the number of participants we'd had attend a Drums Tourney. John attracted 22 players from all across the region. It was great to meet new folks, like Michael Porter representing the NOWS DBA folks in Cleveland, Dan Joyce and friends from Lima, and so on. I played my Early Bedouin Midianite army, which is always an exciting army to play. I won two of my first three games, racking up quite the number of element kills...so many, in fact, it put me in 4th place going into the final round. That meant I had to play Steve Smith, whose Trojans are my Midianite's worst nightmare. My camels have a hard time dealing with heavy foot army, and 9 of Steve's 12 elements could be Spear or Blades. It was short, brutal and ugly. Oh, and yes, I did also lost my first game to a 9-year-old...but hey! Us DBA "experts" excel at teaching newcomers how to beat us!!!
After dinner, I broke out my small box of
stuff I'd brought to sell in the flea market. Thanks to everyone who made
purchases. It gave me enough money to dart over and buy two DBA armies worth
of figs from Alternative Armies to give away as prizes in the tournaments
I'm running at Origins. A special thanks to Matt Gilford of Alternative
Armies who drove all the way from the East Coast to attend the con as a
Dealer. I had a great time chatting with Rich Smethurst, whose huge flea
market table was next to mine. Rich is genuinely one of the nicest guys
in Great Lakes...and gaming in general!
We closed the evening at...guess where? Ralphie's, of course! Honestly, I enjoy conventions as much for the camraderie as for the gaming. And it was a blast to spend the weekend with Steve and Steve, plus all my other friends in Great Lakes. When we got back to the room, the three of us laughed so hard at the various things said and done over the weekend our sides hurt.
On the way home on Sunday, though, I'd planned a little detour. Michael Porter and his friends in the Cleveland area have been hosting monthly DBA days at a store called Gamers Haven. That Sunday would be their meeting, so I took the hour and 45 minute detour to Cleveland to meet them. It was a light turnout, with only Jim Kasper, Carl Sheu and his son, Carl, Jr. Nevertheless, I had a good time and got in three games of DBA. Carl Jr. is a very clever DBA player and schnookered me big time in the start of our game. I battled back from the two elements down he put me right away, and ended up winning, but he exacted a quick revenge in our rematch. His artillery shot my general on bound 3 while our battlelines were still manuevering towards each other. I rolled a "1," laughed and told him that if he rolled a "6" that the game was over. A six came up, and I was treated to the Pre Teen Victory Dance, which was fun to watch and enjoy along with him.
So, DBA-wise, it was definitely a weekend of being humbled by children! Nevertheless, I had a great weekend of gaming and meeting folks, so felt I was really rolling sixes in the end....
