AD Storms the Mechwarrior UK Nationals 2005 For the second year running, a strong contingent of SAD Mechwarriors assaulted the UK Nationals and came away with the booty. As the reign of the 2004 Champion (our very own Phil Clare) came to a famous end, it was the turn of his sons to carry the banner forward to yet more family glory.Seven Mechwarriors travelled to the Winterhill Centre in Milton Keynes for a day of intense fun and games on Saturday 25 June 2005 . No one came away empty handed and in fact most needed a large box to carry away the goodies.
Tom Clare won the junior tournament and is the Wizkids UK & Ireland National Mechwarrior champion. His brother Joe won the fellowship. As there were insufficient junior players for a separate tournament, both brothers competed in the main tournament and surprised many a senior player with their knowledge, skill and tactical acumen. This was no surprise to the SAD players, as we know exactly how good they are! Both guys walked out clutching a sealed dropship under their arms and seemed very happy with the result.
As the reigning champion, there was a bounty on Phil’s head all day with a spot prize for beating him – not many claimed that prize! Phil fought his way back to the quarterfinal knock out stage where he finally succumbed to one of the new game mechanics – planetary condition cards – that decimated his infantry. He was not quite top placed SAD player this year. That honour and trophy (lovingly crafted by Colin – he really does have too much time on his hands), went to Peter who went one better than Phil and made it to the semi finals. SADly, Peter lost to the eventual winner in a hard fought artillery duel. The good news was though, that the army that won had two Mechs in it, thus heralding a brighter future for MECHwarrior (although still with pogs, naturally).
Those players who did not qualify for the quarterfinals went into a follow up tournament, which they all enjoyed. Wai probably enjoyed it most as he won! Mark came second and Paul won the fellowship (to go with his top 16 place in the main competition – he missed the quarterfinals through the victory condition decider only).
The whole tournament was brilliantly organised under the able management of our very own Chief Battlemaster Colin, ably assisted by Hayden and Tom. Colin showed his usual detailed knowledge of the rulebook, 19 page FAQ updates and myriad forum “clarifications”. SADly he also showed his usual impartiality! This was very necessary as SAD provided the largest contingent of any venue at the Nationals and as a result was awarded a dropship for the club. This was a fitting recognition of the strength of the game in Swindon .
Well played all.
Foot note by Phil:
After winning the Event last year, parto of me was hoping to do a repeat performance, the other part kept telling me how lucky I’d been and that this year would be far more of a struggle.
With 33 players attending from as far as Manchester , York , West Sussex , North Wales and Plymouth it was clear from the start that getting through to the last 16 would be a good result.
The format was to split the players into grous A and B with 17 and 16 in each. The top 8 from each group would go through to a knock out stage. Joe, Waiken and Peter were drawn in A and I was In Pool B with Tom and Mark and Paul. The next part was that pre-qualifiers (in this case Paul and I) wouldn’t play each other in the first 4 rounds. This made it tough for the other guys who were coming up against “seeds” in nearly every match. Three of Mark’s opponents from the first 4 rounds ended up in the last 8 and I’m sure it was the same for the rest.
Highlights from the first round of matches were the number of spot pirzes (usually limited edition figures) that were handed out for things like rolling critical misses (double 1s) or having a certain type of army build.
For my part, seeing Joe walk into the Room with Pool B players in after a short period of time with a big smile on his face made my day when he told me he’d just beaten an opponent in 16 minutes flat – the quickest win of the day!!
There was a degree of fratricide in our pool as I ended up facing Mark and Tom which was a bit unfortunate.
t some point in the day, the last 16 rule got changed to a last 8 due to time constraints. This meant only Peter and I got through – I’m sure the last 16 would have seen a lot more SAD players.
Once you’re into the knock out, its pot luck and the chance to go out or progress is far more variable.
Peter’s already mentioned my downfall. Basically I didn’t counter a Planetary Condition that, on a roll of 6, gave all of my inon-battle armour infantry a click of damage. The fact that I had 10 of them in the army (just over a third of the points value) meant that after 5 rolls of 6, they had melted away.
The army I palyed was mechless and had that 1 thing as its weakness – over a7 or 8 round tournament, I knew it would be difficult to keep in tact. however, the big thing is
ITS A GREAT ARMY TO PLAY AND YOU HAVE A REAL BLAST !!
That’s the best thing about Mechwarrior AoD – a totally different game from Dark Age and much better for it.
I was pleased for Peter – he deserved to get to the final but finishing in the top 4 (and only JUST loosing to the eventual winner) is still a great achievement.
So only 11 months and 364 days to go and we can all bite off our finger nails yet again (can’t wait..!).