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Tournament 7th January 2006 - Middlesbrough Gamers Club
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| NewYear … new venue. Thanks to the sponsorship of Paul McGarrell and Games World store and the support of Middlesbrough Gamers Club we were able to start of the New Year with a 300 point Heroclix event at a new place. Thanks to the lures provided by a very successful New Guy Night programme the event saw a record-breaking 11 players compete for the coveted Sir Pietro Maximoff LEs. | A decent turnout for the first Heroclix event at Middlesbrough Gamers Club |
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| Some things never change though. Despite having to make a redraw as one of the Score cards had been omitted initially Ste D and Ste H were drawn together for the first Swiss Round pairing. Ste Date’s Batman™ themed team overcame Ste Hunt’s “Many Heads of Hydra” strike force due to a miscalculation of the timing effects of poison. Ok so when I say overcame, I actually mean massacred. Other highlights of the first round saw tournament newcomer Paul Atherton easily disposes of fellow debutant Anthony Prior’s versatile Marvel team with another wipeout. Paul’s team consisted of Rookie Demon™, Rookie Doomsday™ and Veteran Doctor Strange™ but he made up for the small numbers with some very big hits. Parry Cooke had built a team full of outwit with 2 Lobster Johnson™'s, Joker™, Black Panther™, Huntress™ and Kong™ with Happy Hogun. Another convincing victory here against James Pattison’s blade/claws/fangs brigade, or should that be ‘outwitted blade/claws/fangs brigade’? Craig Woolnough started well, gaining a solid victory with a mostly Armor Wars based team against Martin’s Blockbuster™ lead “Yami Disciples”. The team was lead by Blockbuster™ as Blockbuster Video is Martin’s place or work. I am still trying to decide if this is a good thing, a funny thing, a commendable thing, or a really very sad thing. I thing readers should make up their own minds and delete as appropriate. | Some of the newer players get to grips with the tournament environment |
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| James Phoenix and Parry’s brother Liam seemed to have forgotten that the aim of the game is to KO your opponent’s figures as a 40 minute battle resulted in just Rookie Cannonball™ hitting the canvass. What were you guy’s doing, linedancing? Finally Philip Gubba was stuck with the first round bye by virtue of a late arrival. On the plus side this meant he had a 100% victory record as it was his first event too. | In the museum ... admiring the dinosaur skeleton specimens... not fighting much |
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| As Swiss Round 2 kicked off we even had a few spectators on the scene, or as I prefer to think of them, future participants. Paul Atherton’s reward for a convincing first round win was a 40 minute holiday in Gotham City and a Batman™ theme team as an escort. The experience and guile of Ste Date’s “Bat Dudes” proved way too much for Paul and despite giving some helpful suggestions on tactics Ste obliterated Paul’s three clix in well under the allotted time. So Paul had one total wipe-out win and one total wipe-out loss. Ste Hunt, always the gentlemen, kindly volunteered a Bye for round two so that all of the new guys were guaranteed a game. If he didn’t win so often I would have given him the Fellowship Award for this very kindly gesture. | Ste Hunt not only takes a bye but does impromptu impressions of the Mad Thinker™ to keep the players entertained ... or does he just look like that? |
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| Back in the fighting world Liam had just about remembered the difference between Heroclix and linedancing and scored a win against Martin’s video rental team. Liam’s greater experience won out but Martin was by no means hammered as he took out 175 points worth of Liam’s force despite losing his entire team. Philip got a second round draw against James Phoenix and seemed to enjoy the experience despite coming second in the two-horse race. He did take a few opponents out (I believe it was Wasp™, Spider-man™ and Moon Knight™– see my clix are cursed even when I am not using them). Parry continued his impressive form taking out Craig’s motley crew with his death by outwit monstrosity. Seeing this against Batman™ and Nightwing™ could be fun – not for Parry though as we will see. Anthony Prior recovered from his first round loss by beating James Phoenix. The might of Annihilus leading to the doom of Moon Knight once again and this time the entire rest of his team joined him in his state of unconsciousness |
I wonder if Blockbuster fancy renting out Heroclix??? |
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| By the third round Ste Date’s two comprehensive victories had all but booked him into the final. The question of who would join him was far from settled with it being a very tight jam for the next few placings. Not only was it all coming down to the last game, chances were it would come down to who got big points. As hinted at earlier, Parry’s early success lead him to a showdown with Gotham™’s finest and it was all a bit much for the outwitters to take. Following in the footsteps of Dave Smith at an earlier event, Parry’s map choice was not well thought through as he went for the one-steps access building outdoor map. Despite the attempted ‘less than divine intervention’ of Judge Duck's Ouija Board Map impressions, Ste choose the side with steps access and it all went horribly wrong for poor Parry. On the plus side Ste will never again be able to bemoan Mr. Hunt’s rooftop sniping antics as he not only copied them, but rewrote the book on them. In fairness Parry had had the good sense to use the Disbanded feat which would have made the Bat friends easy pickings on a more open map so Ste was just redressing this balance. Also I have sworn never to mention the orange-yellow dairy based product in his presence so he got off very lightly (I did feel the employed tactics were ‘highly competitive’ though). After a spot of bush camping Parry took the bait of Batman™ and Spoiler™ waving at him from the roof edge and moved in something other than his bystanders. Parry did try, but it all looked a bit too much like the Charge of the Light Brigade to me as his team were slaughtered as they charged against the face of hopeless odds. Eventually he decided to back off and save some points, but alas the damage was well and truly done by then. Ste’s worst point haul of the day was still seeing him into the final with three wins and a massive points haul. |
"I hate that rooftop" not the 1st or last time we shall here that phrase
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| Elsewhere Paul Atherton’s see-saw team got another wipe-out without loss against Liam, clocking up a very impressive 1118 points (even more impressive as it was all scored in 2 games). Philip achieved a real win by taking apart Anthony and scoring 1115 points. It would have been interesting to see what Philip would have achieved if he had been able to get to the event on time to play in the first round. James Phoenix was unlucky not to reach the final due to losing to Craig in the third round, but he had ensured a more than respectable first tournament placing with first and second round wins. It was a very close game too with only 32 points between winner and loser. Craig may not of qualified for the final today (again) but at least he can now boast that he has taken down a Phoenix with a 300 point team … even if it was a James Phoenix! Stephen Hunt’s Hydra came good late on with a resounding thumping of Martin’s Blockbuster™ lead squad. Martin, might I suggest you apply for a job at ‘Icons™ Veteran Superman™ with Dumpster & Sons Trading Company’. Just kidding! Martin kept his chin up throughout and was a great sport. Thanks to Ste’s generosity in taking a bye early his points total didn’t compete with the other 2-1 result players so his event was over. Mighty sporting of you though old chap. |
Everyone concentrating hard. The event was a great success!. Roll on Thursday! |
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| By the very slenderest of margins Paul Atherton edged the second seat in the final with only 3 points separating second place from third. Although he was obviously placed to make the final, he wasn’t really looking forward to facing the Dark Knight and his mates again and felt his chances were about as slim and an anorexic bulimic gnat on a diet. Just to add to his misery, thanks to Ste trying to take it easy in an earlier round, the only Battlefield Condition he had remaining was Deep Shadows! New to the game, Paul didn’t have any Battlefield Conditions. Ste pleaded with Judge Duck to allow him to forgo the application of Deep Shadows, but alas following official guidelines Duck enforced its use not wishing to set a precedent for future events. Paul predicted the final would only take twenty minutes and his prediction proved closer than the final itself as 17 minutes later Batman™ had lead his “Dudes” to a significant number of points to nil win. Still with a smile on his face Paul was awarded the Fellowship prize as he had taken part with a great spirit and taken humiliating defeat with the same enthusiasm as striking victory. It was somewhat difficult to believe that the tournament had seen him win two games by wiping out the opposition and losing no figures and two defeats in which he had lost everything and killed nothing. I don’t think that can have happened too often in the course of Heroclix Approved Play. Speaking of unlikely occurrences, Ste Date managed to got through the entire 4 rounds and lose only a Robin™ (E) throughout. That’s pretty darn impressive in my opinion. |
The Tournament Winner Ste Date (left) and Fellowship Winner Paul Atherton |
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The Final placings were
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Craig tries his mind-reading trick, whilst Parry's hunger overcomes him and he feels the need to begin to eat his own fingers. Get a burger man! |
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| I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who took part today, especially the new guys who all took to the game brilliantly, and made 2006 start off with a real buzz. With the new venue and a stream of new players it looks like Heroclix on Teesside could be about to really take off. Lets all work together to make sure it does. Congratulations to Steve for Winning and Paul for his Fellowship Award and to everyone one else for giving it a go … I hope you’ll all be coming back for more. |
"Bat Dudes" on the way to a resounding victory in the final |
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