Several players were taking part in a CCG tournament behind the Heroclix© tables which had led to a major lack of table space for the rest of the venue. So in a way we were lucky that a few regulars were missing and one or two opted to play other games leaving six players to just about squeeze onto the tables we claimed (and we had to steal one of those).

I forgot my digital camera so took a few pics on my mobile phone camera. The quality isnt half as good and I had to multi-media message them to a friend and then she sent me them back via email - what a chew on that was (but thanks for the assist Kelly). Hence the low resolution piccies and the lack of them too. I have even cheated some of them - how sad is that???

The finacial front was a bit of a fiasco too. Ste Date forgot his wallet so had zero cash, I just about had enough to pay us both into the club and was hoping for some money I had been promised for procurement of storage containers. That wasn't forthcoming so the kindly Mr Hunt had to sub us a round of soft drinks and a round of McFlurry's afterwards (cheers Ste).

On the plus side though I got the latest isuue of Marvel© Zombies to read and Ste Date's order of Ultimate Clayface™ figures had arrived from Wizard Magazine so we got to see one of the Collateral Damage figures at last! Very nice - can't wait for the Wizkids Celebration Event at Loughborough on Saturday now.

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Ultimate Clayface ... arrived today.

We love the figure but the names in big capital letters will take some getting used to I think! He also seems to have a 'safe' pair of hands, perhaps he should be a goalkeeper (bad pun alert).

As Ste Date had actually turned up I decided that I would do a ' type 1 ' randomisation which only involved shuffling the sheets to almost ensure Ste D played Ste H in the first round. Sure enough thats how it came out. The other pairings being Paul Atherton versus Craig Woolnough and Paul Brown against Martin Teece.

Much to Mr date's chagrin the Huntmeister proved once again that he is a master of turning $#!+ looking teams into killer combos as his Legion Team made another appearance, this time harnessing the power of a Security Guard Pog to grant them additional Wildcarded Attack Bonuses on many occasions. This added to the couple of perplexers made an ordinary looking team into a formidable force and despite Ste Date's best efforts he succumbed to first round defeat by 362 points to 238. So it was pretty close, but Ste D's support figures, including the unlicenced taxi of Man-Bat, went down to give Ste H's "Legion of Super Cops" team more points and an ultimate victory against the "Crown Prince of Crime".

On the neighbouring table, Craig was making an early play for the "Noone could ever do anything more ridiculous than push to destroy a wall removing their impervious and leaving themselves wide open" award by using the Earthquake Battle Field Condition. It may have been very effective on Saturday but with Craig having only 2 flying figures totalling 69 points and Paul Atherton using only 23 points of non-flyers, this sleep-deprivation induced trick wasn't the best tactic ever employed by Craig. Who knows what the outcome would have been if the Earthquake hadn't kicked in halfway through the game, but as it did and decimated Craig's borrowed team, Paul's "How Much to the Daily Planet, Please" chaperoned by the Metropolis Transit Driver Pog won convincingly - taking 522 points against's "JLA Hax0rs" 78 points.

On the last of the row of tables Paul Brown was beginning a meteoric turnaround from the 0 and 3 second last place he achieved at the weekend. Still with a nameless team (boooooo, hisssssssss) he was skillfully disposing of Martin's Blockbusterless "The Good The Bad and the (incredibly difficult to read) 'Baldies'?". Martin had gone with the theme of Batman™ Enemies lead by the Hypertime© Unique Joker™ and supported with Riddler™, Cheshire™, Mr. Freeze™ and Killer Crock™. He may have outnumbered his anonymous opponents but the pure strength of Unique Prometheus™ (with Siphon Power), Experienced Persuader™ and the Eddie Nashton Riddler™ LE was too much for them and they were condemned to a meagre 180 points and a loss. Thanks to Craig's generousity in persuading mother earth to speak next door though, Martin was not last after the first Swiss Round.

As you can see the resolution of the camera on my mobile phone is not exceptional, but is I think you will find adequate to capture the emotion of the occasion

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Tonights number one method of decimating your own team!

Might I suggest that in future you read the card text and look at your team before you decide which BFC's you will be borrowing Mr Woolnough?

You may have had your Magic Baseball cap back (you didn't wear it on Saturday as it was covered in cheese, but not as much cheese as Phil's team LOL), but pulling a stunt like this isn't going to help your tournament chances. It was very funny though so Kudos for that!

Stephen "plus three attack plus two damge" Hunt and Craig "Spends more time in World of Warcraft than the real world" Woolnough slugged it out on the next table. No Earthquakes this time could have allowed Craig to make a game of it, this time going with the Madness BFC whilst Mr. Hunt played his placeholder card. Ok, I said 'could have' made a game of it. This was effectively Mr. Hunt's A Team versus his B Team as Craig had borrowed another team that Ste was 'possibly thinking of using'. After a 578 points to 22 points thrashing I sincerely hope it has either been relegated to the Z team or disbanded entirely. It may also be an idea for Craig to get more than 2 hours sleep before the next tournament if he wants to stand any chance of a decent performance or a tournement win.

The third table saw the battle everyone wanted; Ste Date's Batman™ Enemies lead by Experienced Icons© Joker™ against Martin's Batman™ Enemies lead by Unique Hypertime© Joker™. It didn't disappoint! Ste rushed headlong into his opponents force and Martin ran to meet him half-way(ish) to generate a titanic struggle of Batman™ Enemy against Batman™ Enemy, Joker™ versus Joker™. The highlight of the battle and the night and perhaps one of the greatest events in Middlesbrough Gamers Club Heroclix history was seeing one Joker™ push to hit the other and taking out both Joker™s for the price of one action. Classic! Ste's team eventually came out on the right side of the result, if the wrong side of the law, and took the nights tally to 1 win 1 loss and 679 points with a 441 points win. Martin was as ever sporting in defeat and fought on until the inevitable end.

 Yes I do have a copy of the card with me and its the right universe and there is only one of it and its made from the correct density of cardboard and I checked that the pantone sahdes were correct before I left home tonight ... is that okay?

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Full on Joker™ on Joker™ action!

Ste Date was recovering nicely form his early defeat inflicting massive pain on Paul' Atherton's Transit Driver and Mystics team-up. The Mystics et al were erradicated entirely amassing Ste 446 more points. There were however some friendly casualties, including the first point of damage to Ras' al-Ghul all tournament. Today Ra's would not be spending a lot of time getting beauty sleep in his Lazarus Pit.

In the Wooden Spoon War Craig had cancelled out Martin's not playing a BFC with an Ordinary Day. Kudos to Craig today for only picking one useful BFC as several players were not using them at all. Considerable more Kudos for using the only really useful one to shaft himself in game one, this had to be intentional ... didn't it? Martin took Ye Olde Wooden Spoone Awarde by losing his entire force, which appears to be an annoying habbit he has developed - he did at least take 140 points worth of Craig's JLA with him as he went.

This isnt' a picture of the final. I can tell because in the final Paul was hiding on top of the building opposite the one he is hiding on here, the lovely mauvey-purple one!

This time being able to use the Assembled BFC to give his team an even better attack value, Mr Hunt once more moved stealthily towards to roof that was Paul's teams new second home. The combination of attack modifiers for the PD Team Ability (wildcarded from Monsiuer Pog) and the Assembled card, not to mention the two perplexers to give some help to the damage value too, gave him a definate edge this time round. Paul made a valiant attempt to take a second game from Hunt but alas it was in vain as the "Legion of Super Cops" 'nicked' (cops/nicked get it!) the win and deprived Paul from a first tournament victory.

So it was that Huntmeister tasted victory and the tournament winners LE in Middlesbrough for the forth time (two each at GameStuff and GamesWorldUK). Paul had shown a remarkedly improved performance from Saturday and on this showing it wont be too long before he too can proudly prance about with the majestic aura of a winner.

As a penance for winning with the Legion of Superheroes and spoiling their naffness in the eyes of Ste Date, Ste Hunt was made to take us all to McDonalds and get a round of McFlurries for us - only right and proper as he had walked away with the mighty Skurge™ (Executioner™ LE). Having witnessed first-hand Martin's appalling dice rolling tonight I can now see why he is struggling to win his games. He has a great knack of rolling one under the number he needs, especially if he chooses to perplex up a damage value. Well tonight it didn't matter because ... Martin Teece you are a Winner ... even it it is the Fellowship Award for the sporting way you have taken so many bad dice rolls leading to so many defeats. I hope you like the LE. If not you could always sell it on a well known internet auction site that starts with 'e' and rhymes with Tebay. I am sure you wouldn't be the first to do it!

The players all look so excited tonight, at the front of the picture Paul Atherton realises too late that he has made a juvenile schoolboy error. Still at least it didn't throw the game away (oops!)

Ba ba ba ba baaaaa ... we were lovin' it!

Ok I am getting pretty desperate for graphical illustration now

Perplex

This very scarey looking bloke won (left), this is an archive photo as the one I took on the night made him look even more like Lex Luthor. The far more handsome bloke with the big axe (right) is the prize for the night - LE Skurge