Taking a hint from 'Phil G's Book of Heroclix' I brought only three pieces of fruit with me to eat during the event. Although I enjoyed the afore mentioned fruit, eating only an apple, a banana and an organge between 9.00 am and 4.00 pm left me ravenous. The jury's out on this mode of sustenance for now.

Today's feat of Heroclix fun was entitled "The One and Only" (Cue Chesney Hawkes) and allowed only LE and Unique figures to be used with no duplicates. If at any point the same figure occupied the board (one from each team) they would each take 1 click of penetrating damage on completion of each players actions until only one was left (or both were KO'ed). Again it was something different to try and dredge out some unusual figures that don't see the light of day much, and again it seemed to do the job pretty well. My camera died before it managed to take even one photo today so it was the emergency back up plan of mobile phone once more, assuming I can get them emailed to me again, and hoping that it was only battery power that proved fatal for the Fuji photo machine.

Parry tries to get focussed (LOL) in his game against Dale ... remind me to check the camera batteries before I come out next time

Craig Woolnough's optimistically titled "Oh My God Were All Going To Die!!!" was made up of Nu'bia (she of the one arm variety), Danny Ketch, Major Christopher Summers, Jonah Hex and Mystique from Armor Wars, not exactly what you would call a theme team but quietly effective on paper. His first game was against Martin Teece's "Yami Colourful Collection", colourful indeed as it displayed Dan Cassidy, Jessica Drew, Jennifer Lynn Hayden, Skurge and an Oberon Pog. Martin did his best to build a team from his own collection for today and apart from the Pog I made him use had succeeded. Nice to see that someone relatively new to Heroclix can still muster enough Unique and LE figures to meet a 300 point build total, well done Martin. The game may have swung on a double six roll from Martin, alas for him as I was walking past I asked what BFC's had been played and Craig declared Madness and began grinning as I shambled off with Martin snarling at me, great timing again from Judge Duck. Unfortunately, the team Martin created was no match for Craig's heroes, after the Madness reversal and Martin lost out in his first game as the greater experience was also a telling factor.

Parry Cooke had managed to drag himself out of bed, which was more than his brother had been able to achieve today, but could he make the effort worthwhile and pick up a prize? If there was an LE on offer for the most annoying team of the day (let's be fair there was more chance of a beating for this), then Parry would have collected it with his choice of uber-defence characters Flash, Nightcrawler and the Atom supported by Wolverine using the now old hat title of "Catch Me If You Can". First up to face the hideous propect of this super defence cross-universe abomination was Ste Date's "The Brave, The Bold and the Bendy" starring Hal Jordon, Oliver Queen and Ralph Dibney. Oliver Queen didn't survive this bout leading to Ste ruing his selection in favour of The Atom who he was going to use himself. Wolverin also fell early on leaving an intense battle between the hard to hit and the remainder of Ste's boys. Parry managing a critical miss with both Nightcrawler and Flash on Hypersonic Speed attacks didn't exactly help his cause, nor did Flash running away like a girl and then thinking better of it and running back into the fray. After about 20 minutes of cat and mouse between Hal and Ralf and Flash and the Atom, eventually Ste hit and erradicated Parry's hopes of a first round victory. Back to the JLA or Batman Parry?

David Smith's honed specimen for today was titled "Twisted Titans 2 - Titanic Boogallo" and was lead by Red Robin with 4 Eyes, Roy Harper Jr, Jennifer Lynn Hyden and Princess Komandy'r. Dave drew Dale for his first round match and "Dale's Team" (yes that's what is was called" consisted of Owlman, Captain Boomernag, Barbara Ann Minerva and Bruce Wayne. Dale didn't make a very impressive start to the days precedings as he only managed to KO Princess Komandy'r whilst losing his whole squad to Dave's vicious and remorseless attacks. He may have faired a little better if he had targetted Little 4 Eyes, as the Medic made Jennifer Lynn all better again after the opening attack and make he look quite unwell. Worse still he suffered the curse of doomed dice, from which only the very mighty ever recover. Dave's team ended the first round looking like deefinate title challengers again.

Ste sets about humming a hideously altered version of the the Benny Hill Show theme as he chases after Flash and his speedy friends

Master destroys apprentice as David Hansell comes down to earth with a mighty big bump

Fuzzy Craig takes on fuzzy Martin as I wish I had checked my camera bateeries prior to leaving the house

It seemed like it had been a while since the mass influx of new players to Middlesbrough Heroclix Approved Play, but it was that time again, "Battle of the Ste's: Part 407 or so". Looking at the teams as the game began, there appeared to be something of an imbalance as it was nine (well eight and a pog) onto three. The early stages of the game saw Hunt's figures trying to maneouver into position as Hal ran off laughing, a theme that continued throughout much of this match in fact. After much moving and countermoving it became obvious that at some point Hal would have to stand and fight, so he did. With the deadly combination of Stealth, Outwit, Poison and Mastermind on display, Whitney Frost proved invaluable as the MVP of the game and maybe even the day. When Hal stopped running, Hal started being poisoned and it was only a matter of time before Tony Stark's evil wench brigade took down their numerically challenged opposition, Tony himself even chipped in with a couple of hits too.

Martin's quartet (plus pog) took on David Hansell's quartet in their second round match. David's usually stunning shows were somewhat less stunning today, hindered in my opinion by a couple of duff selections in his team creation (never been a fan of Infinity Challenge Unique Cyclops or Juggernaut personally). Atlantis Rising plus Proximity Mines lead to an intriguing looking map made up of water and exploding objects and not a lot else" Martin recovered well from his first round defeat to show that his team had some potential for KO's as well as catwalk fashion shows as he proceded blew chunks out of David's poor average Joe outfit very quickly indeed. It wasn't long before all four of David's clix were dog meat and Martin was looking a little more healthy on 1 - 1. David for the first time in his Approved Play career had lost two consecutive games, in fact it was the first time he had lost two Swiss Round games in any of his five events. Oh well, we all have off days, some of us (i.e. ME) more than others.

Bottom of the pile after round one were Parry Cooke's Hypersonic Nightmare Defence Abominations (and that would have been a much better name that "Catch Me If You Can" in my humble opinion) and "Dale's Team", so this match could also be described as the battle of the "Dull Named Teams". Dale didn't take too long to KO the luckless Wolverine, who with the friends he had made today, may have been walking around with a huge target on his head and 'shoot me' written on his back. Unfortunately it all went down hill from there for Dale as he needed 10 or 11 to hit with every attack and struggled to roll even as high as seven on most attacks. Needless to say, Parry used Hypersonic attacks to pick off Dale little by little in something that looked akin to paralysed and being slowly eaten alive by fire ants (yes I watch CSI). Dale managed to avoid screaming abuse at Parry, which in itself was pretty impressive and noteworthy. However 60 points form the game and indeed 139 points from the event so far was neither impressive or noteworthy and left him 0 - 2 with one game to play to avoid a last place finish.

Its almost clear as Dave takes on Dale and keeps up the excellent record of the venue old guys against the new watch

Some figures fighting some other figures, neither of which can hardly been seen due to poor focus (David's against Martin's in round two I think). Hopefully these rubbish piccies make you all appreciate the quality of the usual pages I make ... I didn't say highy quality notice, just quality!

Table two saw Parry, back in the frame after seeing of Dale earlier in with a chance of a final spot with a mighty big win. Opposite him sat Craig who after his hibernation period has come back sans baseball cap and mop of hair playing like a reverse Samson since he was shorn and playing the Overconfidence BFC to help his cause. Craig didn't fall foul of the "stand still you annoying little freak' factor as his decent attack values and good dice rolls saw Parry wriggle and squirm to the KO'ed sections of his dials, such a shame (leave the Hypersonic Speed alone!). This game saw Craig once more show his big improvement in tactics as he must have been off to Tibet to train with a Master rather than hibernating for three weeks. Daniel Ketch, Jonah Hex (I see you have come round to our way of thinking now on Jonah now eh?) and their amazing friends made Nightcryer, The Flop and Atom-ised look very ordinary and surprisingly enough Wolfmeat also perished at the hands of Craig. In the meantime only Nu'Bia and the good Major went off to snoozy losy land so Craig pulled out a whopping 471 points for the round to jump ahead of Dave and into the final by a meagre 16 points. I actually think Dave was releaved when he discovered this as I could swear I saw him take a sharp blade away from his own wrists as the scores were confirmed.

Table three saw Ste Date take on Mr Angry, I mean Martin (who was becoming very frustrated with his figures and particularly his dice rolls by now) who wasn't looking like the Fellowship Prize interested him today. Calm down man, its only a game! LOL. I didn't see a lot of this game, but from the scorecard it looks like a thriller as Ralph and Hal fell leaving Oliver as the only man standing at the end of the game. That's a turn up for the books as Oli was first down in both other games and Ste was cursing and bemoaning his 'ineffectiveness' up until this point. Ste's win left him with a respectable 2 - 1 record and just under 1000 points. Certainly not his best display ever, but respectable none-the-less. Martin languished towards the bottom end of the table, but wasn't last, still he was disappointed after his good showing in events of late.

The ignominious but inevitable battle to avoid last place was a bit of a shocker this week as the previously very impressive David 'Silver going on Bronze Clix' Hansell took on his buddy Dale de Andrade who also had not stooped this low before to see who could avoid a 0 - 3 record and the rock bottom spot. David may have thought it couldn't get much worse after his first two round losses, but if this was the case he was to be bitterly disappointed with his third round showing. David managed to grapple Dale's Owlman into submission, but that was a brief and in fact the only highlight for him as it all went horribly wrong once more as his willing, but weak, clix were battered into the ground. David ended this event dead last and with a unwelcomed 321 points from his three games and finally got to see what it feels like to be a Heroclix also ran. I'm sure he'll bounce back from this shambles (wink, wink) pretty soon, but its anyone's game next time round as I try out my Auction Event idea for the first time. Dale's avoidance of a third sucessive defeat here managed to scramble him away from bottom spot, but not that far away as he still only came in seventh of the eight players.

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How many Blades/Claws/Fangs in this 'thrown together' team then? Something of a motley looking harem Tony has assembled here too, but then I suppose he is a mechanical Tony isn't he being the LMD version

An interesting and fun game developed as Green Goblin targetted Flash (damn those Hypersonic Speed'ers) and gave him a powerful whach, then in true eveil genious style Dale's Pyro dealt the crucial killer blow to KO him and collect 99 points. The multi-player team was in turmoil now as they pitted their skills against each other rather than their fiersome opponents. It was all a jolly good laugh as the Syndicate lasted far longer than they should have and Goblin and Pyro managed to repeat their double team to take out Flash again! In the in Doc Ock was so joyed by the carnage around him he ran of cackling maniacally to his start area and escaped unscathed. It was almost as if it were planned, for the prize for collecting most points was an Otto Octavious LE. Dale's team scored highest, but were not allowed the prize as they were in fact awarded the Fellowship Prize. That left Martin to collect the Otto for coming second and put a little cheer back into his cheeky chops.

Meanwhile the final raged on. Predictably Hunt's superior numbers, team building skills, knowledge of the game, experience, tactics, dice rolling and grasp of the English language give him a slight edge over his opponent Craig. In fact (more cunning and real quotes to follow) " Truth be told, it was the easiest match of the day" as "The game against Dave was particularly tough". So it was an easy win for Meestair Hunt in the final you see. His girlie ladies totally overwhelmed and outpowered Craig's odd consortium of clix and took away any last shreads of dignity that remained. Ok, I may be laying it on a bit thick there now. The facts of the matter are; Hunt won (his eighty seven zillionth event win to date), Craig lost (horribly and horrendously and humuliatingly and h ... h ... h .. hugely?), Hunt 462 : 132 Woolnough. Game over, please insert coin.

I'm already getting excited about the Auction event this weekend, if it works half as well as I hope it will, then it will be a great days entertainment. Fingers crossed and see you there.

Another use of a library photo again I am afraid, as we here see the HuntCORP Battlesuit on an early test flight as Ste H zooms off with yet another haul of LE Prize Figures. Bah, come back Superman all is forgiven!

The final placings after the Three Swiss Rounds were ...