Duel of the Fates - April 8, 2017

Geonosis Arena

A nice combination of veterans and newer Duelers gathered Saturday evening for the third annual Duel of the Fates, a lighthearted romp of friendship and strategy, where players conducted themselves with honor and civility.

Two minor characters were dead before
Rob remembered to take the opening picture.

Psych!  IT WAS A BLOODBATH!!!

Jonathan, playing for the ill Ian, drew the number one chair.  His friends crossed their fingers in hopes he would pick Han Solo for the third game in a row.  He didn't!  But he did pick Boba Fett, meaning for the seventh time in his eleven Duels (64%), he chose a bottom three character!  Worst luck ever!!!  He also picked Geonosis for the board.

Things started quickly as Joel/Luke took out Rob/Emperor's Royal Guard for the first character death of the game.  The other Royal Guard retaliated against Nathan/Mace's Clone Trooper as the Light and Dark sides appeared to hold solid, six versus six.  But Joel decided to flip when his Leia attacked JD's Chewbacca, sending the board into chaos.  JD responded by...flipping too???  That's right - he used his Bowcaster on a completely stunned Austin/Anakin and commenced a Heroic Retreat.  Just a few turns later Kaleb/Vader Wrathed Ani to his gut-wrenching twelfth place finish.  Brutal!

Darth Maul, going down in a blaze of glory.

It appeared the Dark Side was going to mop the floor with the remaining Light characters when Jonathan/Boba decided to pop a Thermal Detonator on the front row of the Dark Side, mainly hitting Liz/Dooku and Samuel/Maul.  They were stunned, as was most of the alliance.  Nathan/Mace, already taking damage from the Emperor's Force Lightning, saw an opportunity to drop a combo Whirlwind/Wisdom for an additional four points of damage on the two.  It was an insane turn of events for Liz and Samuel.  Darth Maul began clawing for a higher finish, so he gutted Liz with an Athletic Surge and used the movement to drop Sith Speeds on Mace.  Poor Liz didn't survive and finished eleventh, a new career low.

Daniel/Obi-Wan, who many on the Dark Side assumed was loyal to the Light, had actually been trying to flip the entire game, so he too took a shot on Mace/Nathan, as Nathan threw his hands in the air wondering how this Duel had gotten so crazy.  Jonathan's Greedo eventually used his Desperate Shot and survived, sending Nathan home in tenth, which is also the third straight tenth place finish for Mace Windu.  He's fallen from the number two ranked character to number four in that span.

I wish JD realizing he was about to die
didn't make for such great pics, but they
really do!

At this point Samuel/Maul was running on fumes.  He helped ensure two characters died before he did, but a shot from Stephen/Yoda's Clone Trooper did him in at ninth place.  It was a stunning realization for the poor young Dueler, who had only ever finished in third place before.  There's no guarantee of success in a 12-Way Duel!

There were eight Duelers left at this point, the remaining Dark Side group on one end of the board and Daniel's Obi-Wan on the other.  Folks were trying to figure out who should die next, and JD decided to play with the spirit of his character by shooting first.  In this case, he had his Han Solo start gunning at Jonathan's Boba Fett.  JD hoped to turn everyone else against him too, but his lobbying backfired when all he heard was crickets in return.  Joel ended his day in eighth place, but not before JD was gracious enough to pose for a not-quite-but-almost homicidal grin in the picture to the right.

That brought it to seven Duelers, and at that point the game was flying by.  But that speed came to a grinding halt thanks to Daniel's Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Despite his calls for new alliances and willingness to help beat up others, his six foes on the board united to take him down.  So Daniel did the only thing he could do - he played Force Balance, making everyone discard their premium hands to start over with three.  That easily added another 45 minutes to the game, especially because he was hiding behind the Geonosis columns, making it hard to deliver long distance attacks.  Kaleb/Darth Vader finally Wrathed him off the board in seventh place.

With six to go Jonathan/Boba tried to flip the board against Rob/Emperor, who had been loyal to Jonathan the entire game because he felt so guilty about their interactions at the Imperial March.  Rob outmaneuvered him and got the folks scared about Boba's unused Kyber Dart.  Boba was soon dead, with the final blow coming once again from Kaleb/Vader.

Father vs. Son, beard vs. beard,
HRC vs. HRC

 Rob thought he could get Jango/Grant, Stephen/Yoda, and Luke/Joel to focus their attention on Kaleb/Vader, who was full bar health with Darth Vader AND both of his Storm Troopers, Luke and Jango decided the Emperor was the bigger threat and focused their attacks on him instead.  Leia shot him to a fifth place finish, one spot higher from Rob than he got with the Emperor last month.  #consistency

That left four, including Stephen's Yoda, who flew so far under the radar during the whole game most folks thought he had disappeared.  But his three opponents decided to coordinate their attacks on the little green Jedi, and despite a valiant effort, Stephen logged out in fourth place.  Jango was next to go after that, as neither Joel nor Kaleb wanted a shooter moving around the board...and that's when it was revealed that those two had been in an alliance for most of the game!  Vader tallied his fifth major character kill of the game and Grant went out in third...bringing his Dueling average back to an even 5.0.

So the final two was a fantastic pairing - Darth Vader vs. Luke Skywalker!  Joel was a bit more injured while Vader was rolling strong.  But Luke started to whittle down Vader's health as both exchanged blows like I Will Not Fight You and Your Skills Are Not Complete.  Soon they both had to re-card.  Leia was dead, bringing Luke's Justice cards into play, while Vader was desperate to grab his All Too Easy.  Neither character ran that far away from the other in their desperate attempts to end the game.  But Vader was able to outlast Luke, as Joel had too many Leia cards in his hand with no Luke defense.  Kaleb, in just his third career Duel, was the big winner!!!  And Darth Vader reties Obi-Wan Kenobi for the most career character victories at six!

Easily our most disturbing trophy.

The final order of finish:

12.  Austin/Anakin
11.  Liz/Dooku
10.  Nathan/Mace
9.  Samuel/Maul
8.  JD/Han
7.  Daniel/Obi-Wan
6.  Jonathan/Boba
5.  Rob/Emperor
4.  Stephen/Yoda
3.  Grant/Jango
2.  Joel/Luke
1.  Kaleb/Vader

Congrats again to Kaleb!!!  Winning in just his third Duel - he's in rare air with that kind of achievement and he's the only active amateur Dueler with a victory.

Stay tuned for our last Duel of the year - SAY IT AIN'T SO! - our annual May the 4th Be With You Duel!  That will be on May 4th at 1PM.  Invites will go out for that in a couple of weeks.

Thanks again to all who played and who keep our Duels league alive!