Held at Spot On Models, Fleet Street, Swindon
… the home of Mechwarrior in Swindon ! As recorded by a completely unbiased scribe, namely “oilseller”To celebrate the arrival of the latest expansion set of Mechwarrior (Counter Assault), this month saw the Counter Assault Marquee held as a sealed booster event at Spot On. Nine intrepid SAD Mechwarriors and Charles, a welcome guest pilot made the day a busy one for our battlemaster, Paul.

The other delight of a sealed booster event is that none of the pieces are from the same factions and you rarely get a sensible army – a great leveller or lucky dip, whichever you prefer. The games kicked off in the salubrious upstairs suite at the gaming shop.

Some games moved quickly to melees while the best laid plans of other pilots were ruined by critical miss dice rolls.

Some people preferred to cover their backsides (known in the club as “the James manoeuvre” following a memorable earlier game which may one day be recorded here for posterity), while other showed why it was necessary.

Some games looked as though they were headed for standoffs

But with a timed game of one hour, few Mechwarriors left it like this for long, choosing to take their chance rather than wait it out.

After two rounds there were two leading contenders for the prize, Peter and Derek, each with 2 victories and 5 Victory Conditions from the first two battles. Paul decreed that the two must fight it out for the prize while everybody else played a big Solaris style melee game.

In fact this round was the decisive part of the battle. Peter’s missed charge with his Steel Wolves forestry Mech resulted in his Mech taking 2 clicks of damage from the failed charge and then overheating to suffer 3 clicks of damage from exploding ammunition. To round that Mechs day off, it then shut down. Trying to save the day Peter moved his big mech into contact (not a charge!). Unfortunately the following turn Derek hit it for loads of damage and while attempting to pulse back at Derek’s Mech Peter’s other Mech shut down too. Oh the joys of Swordsworn Mechs when they are not sitting in water – where it had been most of the previous games. Following Derek’s predictable hits in the following turn, Peter conceded the game which had taken a stunning 17 minutes 45 seconds. Congratulations to Derek who won the first prize of a Swordsworn Sphinx, take my advice Derek – sit it in water a lot.

Peter and Derek were just in time to join in the large game with the other players (and some bystanders who got dragged in). Derek’s penalty for winning the tournament was that he started in the middle of the table! Despite this and Peter’s previous record of being first out in under three rounds in the last three such games, the first casualty was one of the bystanders.

True to form however, having tried to sneak up on Colin (well would you attack him from the front, or at all for that matter?) Peter was pasted and became the second casualty in round four. Obviously this was a pleasingly magnificent improvement on previous form.

The melee continued until we were down to three Mechs. Rob stood by and recoverd his heat dial while James and Colin faced each other

With a cry of “Oh this is just taking too long”, James charged his Cygnus in for a failed charge which signalled the end of him in no time at all, leaving just the two Marauder IIs, Colin’s dragon’s fury one and Rob’s Spirit Cats version.

Showing exactly why the DF Marauder was the prize from the Faction Wars event last year at 326 points, Colin made short shrift of Rob’s cheaper mech (a mere 255 points) to score a victory in the fun end to a fun day.

and the (very happy) winner – Colin…

Memorable parts of the day for the battlemaster apart from pulling the Marauder out of his first booster were:

1. Joe alpha striking Paul’s Mech for 8 clicks of damage as the last action of their game (Ed: perhaps you should try it earlier next time!)

2. Colin advising Derek to destroy his Mech rather than capturing it which turned the game’s result on its head, and last but not least .

3. Peter’s timely win over James where Paul’s call of finish the round you are playing was interpreted strictly to the advantage of one player.

Many thanks again to Paul for organising it and Chris for hosting us at Spot On Models. All liberties taken in the reporting are entirely deliberate, and if you want to do better yourself next time then just let us know.

OILSELLER