Alec and Simon Fox ponder where to strike in the Prison. Might I suggest the "Corridor of Death" chaps?

gap

gap

gap

gap

New player on the block Dan takes on Simon Swinbank's "A" team with his "B" team and proves that alphabetical categorisation of teams isn't always totally accurate as he thrashed the alleged first team

ap

gap

gap

gap

Twins of evil? Liam loses heart as he feels he cant hurt Magneto with Iron Man or War Machine. You have to remember to factor this into team building Liam or it may happen again and again

ap

gap

Patto, still smiling from his weekend's sucess and clutching a Dark Phoenix for his troubles takes on Ryan

gap

gap

gaop

gap

Two of fthe venues youngsters battle it out in the second round as Matthew takes on and defeats Kieran

Simon Fox seems to have an assortment of Sinister Syndicate glued to his hands these days, and today was no exception. His “Time to Face the Syndicate” team saw Kraven (Stunning Blow and Knockdown) teaming up with Hydro Man and Bullseye (Vendetta) to become the Threatening Three at spot on the 200 point limit. Simon started his assault on a Symbiote LE with a tough game against Alec Barrett. Alec’s Black Bolt inspired squad proved a little to tasty for the triumvirate to make much impact and Simon lost his first bout collecting a lowly 32 points. Things were looking up after the second swiss round for Simon as he recovered some pride and a number of points when he took on Peter Davies in a Low Gravity environment. With a small point bonus for seeing off the White Queen Simon managed to collect 459 points this time round as well as an all important win. Third up was Matthew Cannings taking on the triple terrors in their Inertial Interference Field trapped lair. Matthew’s Green Lanterns (yes pluaral) couldn’t cope with it and fell to earth with a bang seeing Foxy end with a 2 – 1 record and 1035 points.

Ryan Callahan was showing his green side tonight as well as being very colourful as his Black Lightning, Scarlet Witch, Green Goblin, Herbie and Lackey came together under the name “rainbow Warriors”. Due to a late arrival and team selection Ryan had to settle for a first round bye, but at least he collected a win and 200 points. He wasn’t so lucky in his first match up as he was drawn against Patto in round two. Patto didn’t leave much wiggle room for Ryan as he set about destroying the Rainbow to see if they were hiding a pot of gold. Ryan was whitewashed and stayed on 200 points going into his last game. How many 6s did you roll for blade attacks Patto? For the third round Ryan was paired with someone of similar experience level as he came up against Kieran Nunn. Ryan’s squad actually managed to get into action this time round after two non events and the Green Goblin finally got a chance to show what he was made of (not cheese like so many others). Ryan won the game and finished in a very respectable mid table position against a lot of players with more experience and a bigger selection of figures to draw from. Well done Ryan.

Liam Cooke actually entered a team with a name tonight as Iron Man and War Machined teamed up to be “Best Friends”. The team worked effectively in their first round as they took down Patto’s squad, but due to a lack of colourful characters Liam wasn’t too high up in the points stakes. The battle of the Cooke family came next as Liam was drawn against his brother. Somewhat dispondant before the game began about his struggle to damage Magneto I fear Liam’s negative attitude may have assisted his quick downfall to hand brother Parry a second win as Liam managed to only scrape up an extra 7 points for a little bit of bystander bashing. Liam recovered well from the heartache of being beaten by his arch rival Parry as he stormed to a second win in his last match. The molten metal had rearranged and repaired itself after the master of magnetism had done evil things to them and they saw off the challenge of Jonathan McNamara to end the night just a little behind his brother on points.

Alec Barrett went over to the dark side for his build tonight as he combined Black Bolt (Nova Blast and Vendetta) with Black Cat to create “Night of the Black”. The combination worked well on its first outing as he was randomly paired with Simon Fox. In a strange quirk on the night this was the only match that Alec won and the only one which Simon lost. Strange, but true. The heavy defeat Alec inflicted upon Simon was enough to see him play against Swiss David ‘Cheese is my middles name” Hansell in his second encounter. The high defence of the Green Lantern proved out of range for Black Bolt, despite the altering probability of Black Cat and Alec was defeated without increasing his point score. Alec rounded off his three swiss matches with a game against Patto upon the rising seas of Atlantis. He did better than in his last game as he managed to notch up 152 points, but the outcome remained the same and he finished the night with a record of 1 – 2 and only 727 points.

Parry’s team, if it can indeed be described as a collective saw a leaf taken from an old Paul Crosby book as his “Magneto” consisted of Magneto (strangely enough) and Happy Hogan. First to face the wrath of the manipulator of metal was Peter Davies. Peter’s lightweight mini hoard didn’t really have the necessary talents to take down the House of M and Magneto got of to a great start despite his lack of colour. As we have heard, the Battle of Cooke against brother Liam was next up and Parry won again to be within smelling distance of the final, one more win and no-one could stop him. Alas, standing in Magneto’s path for the third match was Simon Swinbank’s A Team (or was it the B team Simon?) and they had other plans. Simon trounced Magnus the Lonely and his cardboard buddy hoping to sail past him and into the final themselves. With a final total of 1427 to go with their 2 – 1 record surely they had achieved it … or had they?

Matthew Canning’s team name was pretty much illegible though it looked as though it started with Hell and there was no help in looking at the actual team as it comprised two rookie Green Laterns and a rookie Dr. Mid-Nite (cheesy as hell maybe?). Matthew’s first game was against the newcomer Dan and Dan sure didn’t look like a newcomer as he peeled through Matthew’s defences to destroy the team and secure an early whitewash and glorious points haul. Unfortunately that left Matthew on a big fat lonely zero heading into round two. Things improved (how couldn’t they) in the next game though as Kieran was the next opponent. Matthew managed to collect his first points and even managed to turn them into a win as he defeated Kieran and scored 539 points in doing so. The joy was short-lived however as his win create the third round game against Simon Fox. Simon was still looking to recover from his first round defeat and he couldn’t do much better than handing Matthew his second whitewash of the evening. Just as well you scored all those points in the second round eh Matthew?

Peter Davies must have used up all he Heroclix super powers on Saturday with his impressive performance because unfortunately tonight his “The Arms Have It” had a bit of a mare. Doctor Octopus, White Queen, Hydra Officer, AIM Medic, and two Hand Ninja didn’t combine into the world’s most deadly force and they struggled to make any impact. Their first opposition came in the form of Parry’s Magneto and the Brotherhood’s esteemed leader didn’t need any assistance in disposing of his foes, even Happy Hogan managed to survive the skirmish. Peter ended the round whitewashed with a row of 0s on his score sheet. It got no better whatsoever in the next round as Simon inflicted similar casualties on Peter’s now not so merry band and Peter saw a second straight row of 0’s. Who knows if Peter could have equalled Liam unenviable record of going through a whole event without scoring a point? Not us as after a dice off with Kieran Peter was lucky/unlucky (delete as applicable) enough to pull the third round bye. A win and some points, but Peter was a little dissatisfied by the night’s events after he had performed so well on Saturday. Back to the drawing board maybe? If I do a huge point game at least you have a Dark Phoenix you can use now.

Jonathan McNamara was one of the many players who was using a Green Lantern tonight. His GL had strangely joined forces with two hand ninjas to create "Green Nunchuk". Simon Swinbank decimated the trio without any retaliation to speak of in their first match as they were condemned to a pointless whitewash. After collecting a bye for round two and thus gaining 198 points Jonathan saw another thumping whitewash in his third and last game. Thus after gaining points only from a bye round Jonathan shared a tie for eleventh place with Peter davies as neither player could be separated by any means.

Kieran Nunn had the unfortunate glory of finishing dead last today and some further investigation of the results proves just how unlucky he was. Liam losy his first two games without collecting a single point, the first at the Hands of David Hansell and then suffering the same fate against Matthew. Due to a roll of Kieran didn't get the luxury of a bye that some others players did and thus whilst losing his third game to Ryan and collecting only 156 points he did actually have to earn his points rather than getting them 'for free'. Unlucky Kieran, better luck next time mate.

James 'Patto' Pattison was still smiling from his Fellowship win on saturday, but carrying a Dark Phoenix in his bag with him, why shouldn't he be? You know sometimes I think I am too good to you guys! Patto's "Heavens Angels" combined two Magdelenas with an Angelus for an all Indyclix team tonight, you don't see that too often these days. His smile was perhaps a little less pronounced after his first match in which Liam's War Machine and Iron Man combo proved that metal can block even the sharpest of blades. Things improved considerably for Patto after this early low, starting with a sound thrashing of young Ryan as he appeared to have sharened his blades after the blunting against metal suits and couldn't stop rolling 6s. Ouch again. Patto ended his matches by srorming to another big win as he cut down Alec's Black Bolt and Black Cat in similar style. Ending on 2 - 1 and over 1000 points didn't look too likely after game one so good perseverance there Patto ... no Fellowship Award today though.

Simon Swinbank and his "A" team (the one he chose to use himself) had a pretty good night tonight. Blackfire, Blue Devil and Black Panther or "Black 'N' Blue Breakdown" as they were collectively known started their campaign against Jonathan and were in no mood to take any prisoners. With a nice neat combination of big hitter, outwit and probability control Simon was able to control the game and ease to a big win as he overcame Jonathan's challenge. This result brought about a very interesting second round tussle as Swinbank's two teams were faced opposite each other, one in the hands of newbster Dan Thomas. Not overly helped by some dice rolls I would have been proud of Simon struggled to dent his "B" team, yet stayed calm and didn't appear to get too frustrated. The outcome was pretty emphatic in the end as Simon collected only 66 points and lost. All hail the "B" Team! The night wasn't over for Simon and he was still fighting hard for the chance to reach the final if the top tables results went his way. Fighting hard is certainly a great description of Simon's last swiss round rampage as he went hell for leather to beat Parry. Simon secured the win and an extra 590 points to end on 2 - 1 and 1427 points. Depriving Parry of a third win gave him every chance of rwaching the final and potentially a rematch against his other team.

Dan Thomas, undertaking his first ever Heroclix event had a rather impressivive start to his Organised Play career. He started off his swiss rounds with a match against Matthew and easilly managed to overcome this challenge whilst amassing 744 points. Next lamb to the slaughter was none other than the provider of his team for the day Simon Swinbank who suffered a very similar fate to see Dan stroll out in front after two games. It was up to David Hansell to try to stop the newcomer form taking the glory of a 3 - 0 score in his first event and reaching the final, despite David's best efforts - including running to hide behind some blocking terrain to try to pick off the opposition he just couldn't manage it and Dan made the final with a perfect three and zero. All hail the "Silver Fire" of two Silver Sables and two Blackfires.

David's "No Evil Shall Escape My Sight" was lead by Green Lantern, ok if I am being more exact it WAS Green Lantern. Green Lantern with Trick Shot and Force Field in fact. His first game was realatively straightforward and saw him destroy Kieran team. Next on the hit list was Alec and his team faired no better as they went down fighting. The third game saw David meet his match as Dan took out Green Lantern to leave a scratch and an on David's scorecard. The 162 points of KO's that David got in the game saw him finish on 1433 and have to face Dan again by the slimest of margins. A mere six points kept Simon from his rematch with Dan, so David and Dan set their teams up again, this time on a Prison Map.

Speaking of which, Simon was awarded Fellowship tonight as I observed him rolling several poor rolls against Dan (using his figures) and he curbed his usual level of frustration. Simon deserved the award for his improvement to be reminded that the winning isn't the most important thing in Heroclix. So well done to Dan and to Simon, to Simon's "A" and "B" Teams and thanks to everyone for playing. Tune in next week for another novel twist on a Heroclix theme!

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