Great
Lakes Area Great
Lakes Area 
Story and Photos by John Lawitke (originally appeared in The Herald #71)
We had eight participants which made for a good three round tournament. The usual camaraderie, good sportsmanship, and overriding drive to have fun above all else (which I have come to expect at any HMGS-GL/GLADBAG event) was definitely present. Mike Demana debuted his latest addition to his enemies of New Kingdom Egypt project: The Midianites (I/6c Early Bedouin list). This was a gorgeous piece of eye candy. Hopefully Mike will put up some pictures somewhere online. Speaking of eye candy, Dave Zecchini's Ptolemaics were also something to behold. Actually, we had tons of eye candy out and playing on the boards.
Uwe Eickert thought the tournament started later than it did. So, his first game, which was against Mike, started a bit late and had to be called on time. Hence, the "draw" result, which I've posted below in the results table. Kermit Kincaid attended the "DBA School" which I ran just before the tournament. His showing was even stronger than the results table indicates. His final game was a very close 3-4 loss to Mike Stelzer. At the end of the game, Kermit had a couple knights one move away from Mike Stelzer's camp. A win in this game could have resulted in Kermit taking second place in his first tournament.
Drums #7 was the usual 11 on a scale of 1 to 10. The Colbys put on a terrific convention. I took over running the DBA tournament at Drums this year, after low player turn out had resulted a changing of the guard. In addition to running a tournament, I had the goal of also providing DBA education in the hope of growing the local DBA population for future events.
On Friday night, I set a triple size DBA teaching game. A few modifications from standard Big Battle were made: No reorganizing of commands; Individual PIP rolls for each command; No C-in-C (individual commands would demoralize but one C-in-C would not end the game). The sides were Nubians (I/3) vs. Early Libyan (I/7b) -- a light army vs. another light army, which gives many +2 vs. +2, +1, or 0 melees. This results in a quick, bloody, action-filled game which should get anyone excited about the game. I ended up with three players -- two were newbies and one had previously played once in Bob Beattie's historical DBA-variant games. After teaching, the actual game took about 90 minutes to reach a decision. A fun time was had by all.
On Saturday morning, prior to the tournament, I ran the DBA School. Three students attended. A big thank you to Jason Stelzer who showed up to assist me in teaching. In line with my mission to grow the local DBA community, I had a special prize at the tournament for the newbie who did best. The prize was a copy of the rules. However, to not leave them to wallow through the rulebook as written, I wrote the URLs of several useful Web locations inside the front cover. I have another one of these setting on my shelf for the ATC 2006 DBA Open.
At next year's Drums, I will be finding a word other than "tournament" for my 2nd Annual Drums DBA Open. I have noticed that the word tournament seems to discourage newbies from leaping in and giving it a go. The word makes people think "serious competition" -- gotta be good to play, or "the winning matters, or "Oh, is there a national ranking system?" We need to get the newbies past this thinking and to realize that it is all about the playing and having fun.
The net result of Drums 7: Six people were taught DBA and one tournament was run.
Final Standings in the 1st Annual Drums Along the Maumee DBA Open
Dave Zecchini, II/20 Ptolemaic, 3-0, 69 points
Uwe Eickert, II/32 Later Carthaginian, 2-0-1, 50 points
Jason Stelzer, IV/74 Free Company, 2-1, 44 points
Kermit Kincaid, III/51 Norman, 1-2, 27 points
Mike Demana, I/6c Midianite (Early Bedouin), 1-1-1, 26 points
Jack Shaw, I/24a Hittite Empire, 1-2, 26 points
Mike Stelzer, IV/13a Medieval German, 1-2, 24 points
Heidi Bender, II/33 Polybian Roman, 0-3, 6 points
