Once a gain a fun time was had during the bidding section of the auction. To make it a little different from the last I one I auctioned off the figures starting with LEs, then Uniques, then Veterans, Experienced, Rookies and finally the cards, rather than by point cost as I had done previously. Some interesting and fun bidding took place as some players looked out for great game pieces and tried to track down the Outwitters and Perplexers, some players bid on the models they wanted for their collections and Paul Crosby bid on anything noone else was bidding on to end the auction with over 800 points worth of figures! Not bad for £5.

The randomly designated first round Swiss match ups throw up a few interesting head to heads and so it was that at about 12.15 the real action started.

Liam had a real bad day today. He had to play both David and Dale and lost both of these matches collecting only 233 points in the process. He had taken a decent mix of figures, lead by Silver Surfer with a Lazarous pit (whatever next) and also including Mystique, Lobster Johnson, Meggan, Joker, Jinx and a Mary Jane Watson bystander. Could things get any worse for poor Liam after the first two rounds? Unfortunately it could! Liam's last match was against the also winless Martin Teece. Martin struck a little vein of form for the last game and whilst Liam continued to struggle. Someone had to end the day with a 0 - 3 record and today it was Liam. Well played though, your efforts were still rewarded as you came a very close second in the Fellowship vote so picked up a couple of LEs. Worth playing still? Sadly "The Mix" didn't come together with as a great recipie for you today.

Wensley (Dale) de Andrade was another play with a pretty tough selection of games today. Dale's "So Where's Spidey" started off their swiss pairings by being randomly drawn against Ste Date. Hyperion, Beetle (x2), Dr. Otto Octavious, Electro, Tomoe and Typhoid Mary matched numbers exactly with Ste Date's team and there was only one point in the build totals with Dale on 398 and Ste on 399. That's pretty much where the close matching ended as Ste went on a one man anti-cheese campaign and look to destroy Dale's chances of walking home with a Dark Phoenix. He was pretty efficient at it and won by a fairly hefy margin. Dale's second match was somewhat less taxing as he saw himself drawn against Liam Cooke, who had also suffered a heavy first round loss. Dales picked himslef back up well as he scored a mightly 716 points, but this just heaped extra sadness and woe on Liam. Having recoreded to decent position with his annhiliation of Parry, Dale may have been somewhat dismayed to see his third match throw up a battle against the undeafeted and often triumphant Ste Hunt. Oh dear, maybe you should have taken it a little easier on Liam?As is often the case when these two meet up, Anti-Cheese campaigner No. 1 offered no mercy and destroyed Dale losing only 75 points along the way. Dale's scant hopes were dashed. But on the plus side, Dale tells us his cheese wielding days are over and we can look forward to seeing him play some cool themed teams ... that should be interesting.

Simon Swinbank was hunting for Mystics in the auction, but there weren't too mant to be found. His fielded team "Brotherhood of the Auction All Stars" possibly the best named team of the day, consisted of Tim Drake, Eclipso, Blob, Saurian Trooper, Avalanche, Sunspot and Sprite and they started with a bang. Drawn against Martin Teece for his first game, Simon made a great start by obliterating Martin's team and hopes in one fould swoop as he took the game and stormed into round two with 718 points. Simon's second match was a somewhat tought test as he came up against an on form Parry Cook. Parry took the game at a canter suffering the loss of only John Walker as he did so. Simon completed his efforts in the swiss rounds with a game against Peter Davies. With an outside chance of reaching the final for either player if he won Simon was up for the match, but unfortunately for him Peter was too and Simon couldn't match Peter for raw power and his team toppled one by one. It was a tight match, very tight in fact, but one that Peter ultimately won. Simon ended with a 1 - 2 record but a big point haul of 113, around as good as some of the players who went 2 - 1.

Paul "building a hoard of cheap figures" Crosby certainly entered the biggest team of the day numerically speaking when he handed in "11 Men In A Box", for a few moments we thought he might struggle to fit them all on the team sheet in fact. With a line up consisting of nothing over the 69 points of Mole Man, he certainly had plenty of Matermind fodder with the crew of Skullbuster, Trapster, Electro, Ashleigh, Arashi, Kabuki, Stix, Kabuku (R rather than the earlier E) and two different versions of R Elektra. A mouthful and a handful if ever I saw one. Paul came up against Stephen Hunt for his first game and immediately lined his team up outside the doors of the building Ste had started in. Not being lured into the trap, Ste picked his moment to attack and spent a fair amount of time stalking his prey and waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The patient and tactical approach paid off for Ste as he scored a points victory as time was called. Next to face the screaminh hoard of rabble was Alec Barrett. Alec's force was far from overwhelmed by the superior numbers and the vastly improved play style and tactics helped Alec to take down his opponent, though again Paul managed to easilly avoid complete whitewash thanks to his force size. The last of the three swiss rounds throw Paul's managarie against Patto's monkey powered clix. Paul finally managed to achieve a win for the day, but not surprisingly it was once again on points as all his matches had run until the Wizkids timer had sounded.

Martin Teece seems to have got into the habbit of winning big or losing big and ignoring everything in between. His auction contruction today "My Second Auction Yippie Double Figures" wasnt going to turn this tide either. Abbey Chase, Felix Faust, Jona Hex, Judge Mortis (Damage Shield), Jade and Dr. Mid-Nite (Flashbang) added up to an exact 400 points, the only player today who could achieve this ... a shame it wasn't the numbers round on Countdown eh? Martin drew Simon Swinbank for his first round match and he went for the heavy defeat in this one. Scoring only 81 points of KOs Martin had a very poor start, but there were still two rounds to go at least. Well if the first round was bad, round two was worse. Playing against Peter Davies, Martin might of expected a close game with Peter being one of the more fun players and certainly not a competitve player. Or so we all thought! Peter beat Martin by a whitewash to improve his chances on the day and condemn Martin to a last game against Liam with one of the two guaranteed to end on 0 - 3. Martin finally found some form for this last game as he scored 711 points and destroyed Liam's team and his record. You see what I mean, big win or big loss ... nothing in between.

Parry Cooke went for a few big bids on the auction and something of a Marvel team too. His "The Warriors" only had 4 figures in it and could only come up to 335 points, way short of the 400 point build total allowed due to the high bids he put in for the figures he wanted. Iron Man, Ant Man, John Walker and Jessica Jones made up his short on numbers but potentially quite effective force. His first game was against Peter Davies and he managed to inflict Peter's only loss of the day and he did it in some style too. His second game, where he took on Simon Swinbank was almost equally impressive as he once again won with a big score to be top of the charts after the two rounds. Unfortunately, Parry mave have done a little too weel. A few less points may have seen him avoid David Hansell in his third game and an early miss against Owlman needing only a seven follwowed by some ill considered pushing saw his small squad surrounded and outnumbered. Parry picked up an extra 100 points but couldn't quite collect the third win that would have seen him through to the firey final. Close, but no cigar.

Alec Barrett mustered up 394 points of squad into his "Thrown Together" team. THis was another numerically big squad hosting Mockingbird (x2, one with Heightened Reflexes), Silver Samurai, Spoiler, Lobster Johnson, Wizard, Stix, Techno and Marrow. It was a big of a rollercoaster day for Alec as he first lost at the hands of Patto, then won against Paul Crosby before finally losing to Ste Date. His final record of 1 - 2 was at least joined by a very healthy score of over 1000 points. The tactic of throwing figures at his opponent with TK ended up being a little hitty missy without any other backup plan. Still not a bad haul of figures from the auction should have made the day wothwhile in itself.

Peter Davis must have had one of his best, if not the best, event of his playing career today. Firstly he got some cool figures that he really wanted from the auction. Iron Man, Charcoal, Owlman and Crimson Avenger made up his 390 point four character army who originally went under the name "The 4 Amegos". After an inauspicious opening bout against Parry which saw him and his LE/Unique brigade lose without scoring a single point he changed his team name to "We Die Laughing" (and to be fair they had). The name change seemed to spur his clix into better things as his second match against Martin saw him reverse the earlier whitewash to a similar outcome in his favour and he soared from 0 points to 790. His final game in the swiss pairings saw him take on Simon Swinbank. This match was certainly closer than either of his previous matches and he managed to push his guys to victory, helped by the fact he had discovered the nature of the CSA Team Ability between rounds. The second win gave Peter a very respectable 2 - 1 with 1242 points and helped him to a fourth place finish. This was a great result for him, but as you will read below - his day was to get even better!

Ste Date entered today's battle arena with his "Trash My Kang!" lead by the man himself Kang. Kang's supporting cast were Drax (Drax as a supporting character?), Nighthawk, Nocturrne, Trapster, Night Thrasher and Destiny ... hang on a moment, didn't you supply me with the Destiny in the first place? Ste was excited to play Wensley (Dale) in his first match and wasn't taking any prisoners against the heir to the throne of cheese for 2006. Ste won without breaking a sweat as he scored a memorable win. True to form from the past 14 months, the two Ste's had to play each other and the scores they collected in round one saw them paired for the second round match. In a somewhat one-sided affair Meestair Hunt collected a rare whitewash against Ste D (were you actually trying?) and his poinst total remained static. For his last trick Ste Date sat opposite Alec and he resumed his winning streak, albeit a winning streak of one. Alec's team was good, but his lesser experience was telling and he succumbed to Ste'd bigger point figures as they won out in the war of attrition. The main thing ... Ste enjoyed his games. That's what it's all about.

James 'Patto' Pattison managed to build a team without any dragons (didn't really have a great deal of choice on that one) but also he managed to avoid the use of the word Dragon in his team name ... whatever next? "Monkey!!" referred to his Super Apes: Igor chimpanzee who he was very proud to field. Monkeying around with Igor were Magdelena, Yukio (x2) Dr. Mid-Nite, and Valkyrie (x2). Patto's randomly drawn first round opponent was Alec. He made a mighty impressive start by disposing of Alec's TK'ing squad and scoring an early win. Things didn't quite go to plan from that point forward though. Second up for Patto was David Hansell apparently hell bent on winning a Phoenix and trying to steamroller all opposition to do so. Patto was submerged in the tide of outwit and couldn't surface until his force was destroyed. Pattos final match was a more evenly matched skirmish against Paul Crosby's hoard of cheap cost clix. Patto came close to the win, but ultimately just didn't get enough KOs to see him to victory. Would you believe that this one went the distance!

Ste Hunt was taking it east again today. Taking it easy obviously means winning without trying for him! His assembled motle crew went by the name of "Evil Twins" and the evil twins of this title were none other than two Experienced Blockbusters won as a single lot in a mid stage lull of the auction. The baldy boys were assisted in their attempts at world domination by Guardian, Judge Fire (the man really has an obsession with using Judge Fire in these events) and Echo Echo Echo (couldn't resist). The Evil Twins started their afternoon rampage against Paul Crosby and showed patience and tactics to awaits a good opportunity to strike in the foyer of the shopping mall. Time was called with many figures from both teams still on the board, but Hunt was the winner by a fair number of points. Hunt's second game saw him whitewash Ste Date so we best quickly gloss over that. For his bow out of the swiss rounds, Ste took a good chunk out of Dale's self esteem with a good old fashioned reet good hammering to see him end top of the table and ease (or maybe that should be ooze) into the final on 2071 points.

Last of the protagonists in todays grand melee was the ever more popular David Hansell. David had a great team name as "Super Monkey Team Outwit Force Go!!!" highlighted both his space ape/monkey usage and his reliance on the Outwit power to get the job done. Antman, Owlman (what no Batman or Hawkman), Black Mask, Super Ape Igor, Paladin, Azrael, Deathlok and Space Phantom bystander made up David impressive line up. First lamb to the slaughter to face Ming the Merciless (actually that's a little harsh, Ming doesn't gloat over his victories quite as much) was Liam Cooke. David won this one convincingly and apparently Igor "the monkey" killed the Silver Surfer twice. I know this because David shouted it through the crowded room whilst he was still playing. Come on David have a bit of thought for your opponent mate. Next up for David was Patto. Patto faired less well than Liam had and only managed to bring about the demise of Antman before his entire team fell to David's Outwit related plans. Third victim of the day and pretty depressed about it too was Parry hoping to take revenge of David's earlier annhilation of brother Liam. Actually he probably couldn't care less about that, he usually tries to thrash him himself. David completed his hat trick of beatings as Parry went down to a very similar result and score as his brother had two rounds earlier and Parry's hopes of making the final were dashed. If only he could have rolled that early seven and hit Owlman.

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Dale tucks into a chip butty as he takes on Liam in his second round match. Behind them Peter starts to give Martin a thrashing

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Ste Date shows the true spirit of Fellowship in Boro during his match with Alec. Alec appears to be oblivious as he concentrates on his next move. Peter is in the forground beating Simon Swinbank to finsih 2 - 1

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Parry Cooke takes on David Hansell in a nailbiting third round tie to decide who will make the final. Parry loses out and loses his nails too!

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Martin looses focus on his game and my camera just loses focus. I think it may be time for a new digital camera soon, this one sucks!

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The final sees Ste Hunt battle David Hansell in Central Park. Now that one would be a definate Pay Per View experience!

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Liam was also awarded a couple of LEs from the Prize pool for coming a very close second on the Fellowship vote. A great evenet and a great way to end it. After all Heroclix is a game and first and foremost we should all remember that games are about FUN! Play games ... have fun!

Many, many thanks from all the Teesside crew to Anup Dave at Topps (Wizkids) for suppling some really cool prizes for today's event in recognition of the growth of our little community. Hopefully you will be able to come and visit us for an event sometime and meet some of the players.

The beautiful Dark Phoenix Heroclix was reward for winner and Fellowship today ... nice!

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