Birthday Surprise - April 26, 2018

Geonosis Arena/The Ice Planet Hoth

Sith Lordy
Sith Lordy,
Look who's 40!

That's right - Ryan, the most sinister Dueler in the league, celebrated four decades on the third rock from the sun this week, so naturally, we had to hold a surprise Duel!

Well, it was mostly a surprise.  I think he started to figure it out the day of.  Now that we've done this a few times it's getting harder to be clandestine!

Ryan's wife brought Rudy's BBQ and a Star Wars cake, which made the normal pre-game tension a little less severe.  We also had to be beat the clock with this Duel, because most of us had tickets or were trying to get tickets for the opening night of Avengers: Infinity War.  It just proves our nerdery isn't contained to the Star Wars Universe!

It's weird to Duel in the daylight.

Since it was Ryan's birthday we also decided to play on his Hoth board, a replication of the Geonosis arena.  It's a beautiful battlefield.  You practically want to wear mittens while moving your characters around.

Characters and chairs were picked and we were off to the races.  Curtis' Count Dooku stayed loyal to the dark side, so Rob's Luke Skywalker departed the light side to tip the scales.  Ethan's Mace and JD's Obi-Wan tried to hold the line, but Daniel's Boba Fett chucked a thermal detonator that wiped out three Clones and the light side was quickly hurting.  Coleman, playing in his rookie Duel, started moving his Han and Chewie from around the columns...er, snowbank...to move into attack position.  Except...he attacked his own alliance!  Chewie dropped the Bowcaster on Ethan's Mace, and followed up with a three point attack to put Mace in last place for just the second time in 54 league duels.

What if, instead of fighting, we just made
snow angels instead?  Who's in?!?

Ryan/Yoda, Kaleb/Anakin, and JD/Obi had retreated behind the snowbank to make the dark side come marching down and enter a bottleneck to try and damage them.  They figured that would improve their defensive hopes.  It was a good strategy, except Coleman's Han was still back there too.  He popped off two more attacks and JD's Obi-Wan was out in eleventh.  It's been a rough stretch for both JD and Obi.

The remaining light side finally had enough of Han and Coleman was ousted them in tenth.  It was a daring, if not confusing, debut for the rookie.  That left Kaleb and Ryan as the focal points for the dark side to attack.  Unfortunately for the birthday boy, Ryan/Yoda were out in ninth, fittingly killed by Curtis, who was and still is fuming from his own birthday ouster at Ryan's hands last year.

Just as it seemed obvious Kaleb/Anakin would be next to go the dark side started squabbling and called out a possible Ben/Emperor, Rob/Luke, and Grant/Jango alliance.  Rob tried to squash that by attacking Jango, but the rest of the alliance didn't follow suit.  Rob tried to backtrack and point out the equally strong power trio of Nathan/Maul, Curtis/Dooku, and Daniel/Boba, but folks weren't interested in keeping Rob or Luke on the board.  Ben's Imperial Guard killed him in eighth.

That left seven to go, and Jango, who had Rocket Retreated after being attacked by Rob, suddenly found himself surrounded by less-than-friendly allies.  They circled and attacked.  Curtis' Dooku dropped the final shot and Grant's evening was done.  His terrible luck at picking shooters, though, remains strongly intact.

Curtis' paranoia ratcheted up to eleven as he saw his former partners starting to circle.  Before he knew it he was the focus of attack and crashed out in sixth.  That left a final five of Ben/Emperor, Daniel/Boba, Nathan/Maul, Kaleb/Anakin, and Joel/Vader...a (mostly) dark side fight!

Multiple alliances formed and changed, and just as it looked like Kaleb's Anakin might be gaining control, Daniel's Boba Fett dropped an un-defended Kyber Dart that shockingly exited Kaleb from the board.  Don't feel too sorry for him, though, because he's reclaimed the #1 Dueler ranking!

After Daniel's fierce firepower the remaining Duelers turned their attention on him.  Joel's Vader eliminated him in fourth.  Daniel's had quite a nice little run as of late!  And then there were three...

Initially it looked like Nathan/Maul and Ben/Emperor would team against Joel's Vader.  But as they worked Vader's health marker toward zero Ben started addressing Maul.  That forced Nathan into attacking the Emperor instead.  Joel's Vader retreated to the snow bank end of the board while Maul and Emperor duked it out.  Ben played extremely well, including dropping a You Will Die on Vader, but Nathan pulled an Athletic Surge at the exact right time to kill Ben in third place.  Ben continues to rise up the Dueler rankings as he continues to stalk his first victory.

Nathan, damaged from the Emperor, had no choice but to advance towards Vader before Joel re-drew a Throw Debris or Wrath.  He got an attack or two in, but Joel rolled out to confront him.  Despite dropping a Blinding Surge to knock Joel down to two points from dying, he didn't have an adequate enough defense to block Vader's second attack.  Joel won his third career Duel!  And that extends Vader's character lead to nine career wins.  The final order of finish:

12.  Ethan/Mace Windu
11.  JD/Obi-Wan Kenobi
10.  Coleman/Han Solo
9.  Ryan/Yoda
8.  Rob/Luke Skywalker
7.  Grant/Jango Fett
6.  Curtis/Count Dooku
5.  Kaleb/Anakin Skywalker
4.  Daniel/Boba Fett
3.  Ben H./Emperor Palpatine
2.  Nathan/Darth Maul
1.  Joel/Darth Vader

Happy birthday again, Ryan!  Thanks to everyone who came out to play.  Now let's start talking Avengers spoilers...