My October and November were up in the air and I didn't know when I would be available (waiting for the birth of my first granddaughter), so I took advantage of her volunteering to help, and asked Kara Brown to step in to organize this.

It is a bit hard for me to let go of control, but she did a great job, getting some fantastic prize support as well as picking out some really cool awards.  All the prizes were raffled off as door prizes, though a couple were set up as a charity raffle.

The winners got awards of course, and gift cards back to the store ($50 for overall, $25 for the other three awards)

But enough of me.  Kara graciously (ok, with a little bit of arm twisting on my part) offered to do a write up of the tournament - so with the first ever guest post here, I'll let Kara take over (in italics - the picture comments are mine).

So here I am on my last day of vacation in New Orleans and I realize that I never wrote the Gem City Massacre article that I said I would. The week after the event was finals week for me at the college and I had lots of finals to give and grading to finish, so things were put off. Surely I would have time during my vacation trip the next week to do an article. Then there was New Orleans on my first visit. There were so many beignets, etoufee, jambalaya, sights, history, fun. Mistakes were made. There was no article. So as our visit draws to a close I sent my family out to retrieve more beignets, of course! And here is the write up for the third annual Gem City Massacre!

Saturday December 2nd was the 3rd annual Gem City Massacre Kings of War tournament. It was held near Dayton, OH at Epic Loot in Centerville, OH. Last year we moved venues hoping to be able to grow the tournament, and were successful. This year we stayed with the winning combination and went from 15 to 18 players. The event had been sold out at 24 players for quite a while, but real life often gets in the way of fun and we lost a couple of players by gameday. 

Our 18 players were a diverse and talented lot. At least half were US Masters players last year, and several who were not are going to Masters this year. Competition was light hearted, very fun, but fierce. The atmosphere was simply outstanding and I thank every single player for making it one of the most fun events I’ve attended this year. Players came in from Indianapolis, West Virginia, Kentucky and all over Ohio! 

I was also fortunate to have my wife Amy there to help run the event. She took care of a lot of the nuts and bolts behind the scenes. She also did some of the great video interviews with some of our celebrity players. Thanks Amy! Mike Carter was also extremely helpful helping me run my first KoW tournament. It must be in his nature to organize events. Mike ended up playing as our ringer, but paid for the event to play as a registered player. A good thing too based on the final results.

We did a couple of unique things for this event. Being the holidays we wanted to embrace the season. We had a charity raffle for a few of the higher profile prizes. We ended up making an almost $150 donation to the Dayton Food bank! For a smaller event this was great. Gamers are generous! Thanks to Wartime Hobbies with help getting the raffle prizes!

We also tried an in game token gathering rule that gave players an opportunity to earn an additional door prize entry for each gathered token at the end of the game. These gift tokens were placed around the board and could be gathered as normal, no unit encumbrance though. Did I mention they were made of chocolate and whomever picked them up got to eat them? 

Of course being the holidays we had presents! The door prize drawing had so many prizes that everyone went home with something. Thank you to Mantic and Ohio War Kings for the amazing prize support!

And there were cookies, because holidays. And cookies.

Getting set up the night before the tournament.

Round 1 is on

That fat ugly bald guy just keeps showing up in the pictures

Eric Reiss from Cleveland, check his list against Mike Carter

Dan Payne looks away as Kyle Przlenski poses for the camera.

Eric and that guy again

Bradley Dunlop reaches for a mini while Felix Castro scratches his beard - Steve Malone plays Joe Cottrell in the background

Jason Mooreman and Jesse Cornwell check out the game next to them with Christopher Booth and Erich Trowbridge

Christopher Booth moves up

Kimberly Lederer against Jon Carter

Chris Chrzanowski vs Dave Frank

Matt Temple plays Tim Bowie (who just stepped out of frame)

Round 2, and Tim Bowie faces off against Jon Carter.  Jon has never won (EVER) against Tim, but at least this time got a draw.  Felix and Erich play behind them.

Kyle and Jason - two of our celebrities (Kyle does the Master Crafted youtube videos, and Jason is on the Rule Committee for Kings of War!)

Chris Booth v Matt Temple, and Daniel Payne v Dave Frank

Chris v Jesse, and Joe v Kimberly

Jesse giving the big thumbs up

That guy yet again squeeking out a tie against Steve, with Brad and Eric on the table next to them.

I guess the other game is more interesting.

Round 3

Dan waits for Jon to get back to the table.

Matt v Bradley, with Eric v Felix next to them

Kyle v Steve, and Joe v Chris

Erich carrying his army to the table

That guy yet again, facing off against Tim (and wondering why Jon has such a hard time with him), Erich and Jesse deploy next to them 

The entire crew (L-R) Matt, Jon, Steve, Dan, Chris B, Kyle, Jason, Joe, Chris C, Dave, a fat bald head, Jesse, Erich, Felix, Kimberly, Eric, Bradley and Tim

 The final standings were super close. Unlike many events, there was no pull ahead winner. We had to use attrition as a tie breaker for best general. Everyone played some amazing games. The competition was fierce. I honestly didn’t know who won each award until we entered the final round information and let it calculate.  

Jon Carter - Overall Champion

Mike Carter - Best General

Tim Bowie - Best Sportsman

Joe Cottrell - Best Appearance

Gem City Massacre 2017

Final

Place	Name	Total	Awards
1	Jon Carter	119	Overall Champion
2	Mike Carter	117	Best General
3	Erich Trowbridge	116
4	Jesse Cornwell	115
5	Kyle Przelenski	103
6	Stephen Malone	101
7	Eric Reiss	97
8	Felix Castro	95
9	Kimberly Lederer	94
10	Christopher Booth	94
11	Daniel Payne	93
12	Matthew Temple	90
13	Timothy Bowie	87	Best Sportsman
14	Joe Cottrell	83	Best Appearance
15	David Scott Frank III	80
16	Jason Moorman	77
17	Chris Chrzanowski	75
18	Bradley Dunlop	59	Dice Hate Me

Full results are up on warscore, and you can check out the previous years results here and here.

Thank  you very much to Kara and Amy for putting on such a great event, and we all are looking forward to next year!

Because it is all fun and games . . .