La Dixie 2024 est le 38e Opus d'un des plus ancienne Competition FtF d'amerique du nord

by David Hood

For the 38th time (whew) I hosted a bunch of Diplomacy players and other board gamers for a weekend of fun in Chapel Hill, North Carolina over Memorial Day weekend 2024. For I believe the first time in those 38 years, we shared the venue with a martial arts competition. Which was pretty awesome, although elevators shared between folk who figuratively stab each other in the back and those with ACTUAL swords and spears slung over their backs was quite an experience.

We had a large number of Thursday arrivals this year, which meant a lot of non-Dip gaming both that night and all day on Friday. Chris Barfield and Alex Ronke helped me with airport runs those two days, which I appreciate very much. Games I saw played on Thursday night included Space Base, Terraforming Mars, Here I Stand, Sushi Go, and that perennial Dixiecon favorite Outpost. (Seriously, I think Outpost has been played at least twice at every Dixiecon since the early 90s. And in the old days when our group used to travel to Cons in my conversion van, Outpost was the game of choice to play during VanCon because I could play it while driving.)

I have to pause here and talk a little about Keith Worstell, known online as Stitches, who has become an integral part of the Dixiecon experience in just his third appearance. Keith is a Diplomacy variant enthusiast, among other things, so Thursday night he ran a game of his two-player Civil War game for two interested Dippers. He also created the Diplomacy sets we used for Dixiecon this year, featuring large mats and pieces along with color-coordinated order pads and pens for each of the seven Great Powers. Those of you who caught the DBN coverage already saw how awesome these sets were, and of course those you attended got to experience Keith’s sets first-hand. Many thanks to Keith!

Friday during-the-day was for socializing, eating, and me picking up more folk from train stations and airports. There was also a great deal of gaming throughout Friday right up to shortly before the first Dip Round was to start at 6pm. Titles played included Dune Imperium (which would see more play throughout the weekend) as well as Chess, Dominion, Crisis 1914, Puerto Rico, Clans of Caledonia, and Castles of Burgundy.

The Keith Worstell Sets in Use

As the official start of the Diplomacy round approached it was time for me to don my seersucker suit for the traditional opening festivities. Oddly this year we had no awards from past years to announce, so after some introductory comments and a photo of all those who had chosen to wear the correct attire for Seersucker Round, it was time for the main event to begin with four boards of eager Dippers ready to go. The games at Dixiecon this year were all named for regions of North Carolina, so let’s focus for Round 1 on the game called Outer Banks. This one went late into the next morning at the Russia of Randy Lawrence-Hurt eventually pushed for the solo against Tim Crosby’s England, Liam’s Stokes’ Germany and Jack Craig’s Italy. Due to EG conflict towards the end and some misorders, Randy almost took 18 but fell just short - and then after Dave Maletsky took over the 1-center Italian position as a replacement player, the players finally decided to end on a 2-way for Tim and Randy because Liam had (according to Tim) promised such a result if Tim would cooperate on stopping the Russian solo. Quite a start to the tournament, and that 17-center two-way result being out there likely changed the trajectory of several other games throughout the weekend as sharp players knew they would be chasing Randy’s score in order to win the tourney.

David Miller – Golden Blade Winner and 2nd Place

The Iron Man tournament is for all the games we play other than Dip throughout the weekend, and it was also in full swing on Friday night. Games included Cascadia, Outpost, Pan Am, Puerto Rico, Broom Service, Thurn and Taxis, and a mammoth game of Railways of the World using both Americas maps and four physical tables pushed together to make enough room for the six players involved. It was…a lot.

Saturday morning saw four more Diplomacy games, which also doubled at the Team Tournament. Taking center stage during this round is the game called The Triangle, which featured David Miller’s Russia and Todd Craig’s Italy taking their Wintergreen alliance all the way to the very rare 17-17 two-way draw. While we have seen this old-school result in several virtual games during the pandemic period, I could not tell you the last time I saw one in a face-to-face event. Obviously, the spectre of Randy’s 17-center finish the night before was looming large here. Also of note was the Unifour game, in which the players really could not get anything going towards a legitimate finish under Dixiecon scoring and had to settle for the awful 6-way draw result. Rony Mordvinov’s 10-center Austria in this game just could not get him a score to keep him in contention after two rounds of place, much to his chagrin after a nice Round 1 performance.

Iron Man action during the day on Saturday saw some new games played, including Lords of Baseball, Ark Nova, and Princes of Florence along with more Dune Imperium. After the traditional BBQ dinner in the late afternoon, it was time on Saturday night for more open gaming along with play of one of Alex Ronke’s Diplomacy variants. Some new names to the list of games played included Robo Rally, Magic the Gathering, Ticchu and Splendor - with old Dixiecon standard Here I Stand also seeing a second play.

Iron Man gaming continued on Sunday morning, with games of Power Grid, Titan, and Twilight Struggle adding to the games played, along with additional boards of games like Ark Nova which had already seen a lot of play. For the Iron Man event in general, 39 boards of 27 different games were played over the weekend, which was fun for all concerned. Longtime Dixiecon attendee Bruce Duewer took the prize again this year, with former Iron Man GM Dan Mathias taking second.

Going into Round Three of the Diplomacy tournament, there were several players in contention with two-way draws in the bag from previous rounds. Which of these contenders would take the 2024 championship? Answer: none-of-em. Instead, Karthik Konath achieved the very rare timed-round solo as Austria in the Crystal Coast game, beating out David Miller who achieved his second two-way of the tournament in game Blue Ridge as Germany. Peter Yeargin and Jason Bennett rounded out the action with their own two-way draw in the Great Smokies game, parlaying that into third and fourth finishes overall in the Dip tournament. A very dynamic end to an amazing event on the Diplomacy side.

After congratulating Karthik for his second Dixiecon win and bidding farewell to those players leaving after the awards ceremony, it was off to eat for all those players staying for more gaming Sunday night. And yes, there was a LOT of that. I counted games of TransEuropa, Campaign Trail, Push, Distilled, Ark Nova, Welcome To, and another Dixiecon standard of old, the train game 1830. But the highlight of Sunday night gaming has really become the board of Escape from Colditz, as various allied POWs tried to get past Nazi guard David Miller much to the delight of everyone involved. I think Tom Kobrin hiding many of David’s best cards in his pocket may have helped the Allied cause, possibly.

Thanks to all for attending this year’s Dixiecon! I had a blast, hope everyone else did also. I was particularly happy to see nine faces new to the event, and look forward to seeing everyone back in Chapel Hill next