last updated:
21.08.08 | 19:43 gmt
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Mansfield Maul 2000
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It has to be said that organising a tournament is not an easy task, and whilst I knew this I didn't quite know exactly what I was letting myself in for. I'd obviously give it my best shot, and even though things went fairly smoothly before the tournament it still didn't stop me having a nightmare about nobody turning up (honestly, I actually did have a nightmare). It's a good job it didn't come true...
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organiser:
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venue:
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city:
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country:
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Mansfield
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United Kingdom
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system:
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event rules:
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Warhammer 5th
Warhammer Ancients 1st
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unavailable
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images:
25.03.00
Evil Eye
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Balfey gives Conrad the Evil Eye
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Daz loves it. Whatever "it" is.
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Alan Thompson, beaten by an Elf!
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Nightmares are Made of This...
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It all started really when the Sheffield Dragon Slayers and the Mansfield Warriors joined forces to become the SMDS in 1999. The Sheffield boys run two tournaments a year - spring and autumn - so we bandied the idea around that we could have one in Mansfield and one in Sheffield. After much discussion and beer drinking, we decided to do just that, with Mansfield being the pick for spring. The hard work began with organising the rules and this very website, and once that was up we just waited for the punters; thankfully a fair few people were interested, and in the end over sixty people made their choice and paid their pennies.
My biggest nightmare (apart from nobody turning up of course) was the game boards - the Sheffield boys had plenty, but it was just a matter of getting them down to Mansfield. A few hurried phone calls on Friday sorted that out, with
Darren Dabell borrowing his mate's pick-up to bring them down to the Club. Being the thirsty fellas we are, we decided to sink a few beers whilst we were there, and when Conrad and the Pompey boys joined us we thought it would be a good idea to have a couple of games too (along with the pies). After all, I wouldn't have a chance to play all weekend! So I got my Sea Guard out and played Alan Thompson's Necromancer-led Vampire army and I am quite pleased to say I beat him rather comprehensively. Never let anybody tell you that the High Magic deck is weak! In all it was a pretty good night, even though the Friday night bingo caller was sat right next to us...
When I picked
Greg Chambers up at 7:15 on Saturday morning I had a vague idea of how we'd sort the venue out; it all depended on how many geeks turned up. I decided to try and cram everybody into the downstairs room anyway and see how it turned out, but unfortunately it proved a little cramped with four rows. The pain of squeezing past everyone to get to the bar made us resolve to change it on Sunday, so that there were three rows of tables downstairs and the Ancients event and Fantasy tail-enders upstairs - which proved most popular. We worked it out that we could probably fit around a hundred geeks in that way, and I'm hoping we'll get that many next time!
Anyway: we had a couple of drop outs and two people didn't turn up on the day (perhaps due to my apparently bad directions), so a bit of rearranging had to be done. Unfortunately it meant that the Ancients event would have an odd number of players, so it was agreed for one player each round to have a bye. Karsten had to make up the numbers in the Fantasy so that they were even, but he did rather well by all accounts, even though he'd only ever had one game of Warhammer in the past two years!
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The Maul gets under way!
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Rob and Greg, the Umpires!
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Jason Annett was introduced to us!
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Adi does "The Shark"
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Maul! Maul!
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Once the preliminaries had been made and everybody had got their all-important cuppa tea, I read out people's opponents for the first round and everyone got started. There were only a couple of grudge matches - Ian Whittaker and his excellently-painted Tzeentch Warrior army against
Adrian McWalter's equally excellently painted Vampire Counts, and
Paul Scrivens-Smith's Vampire Counts (which he painted in the week before the tournament) against Conrad's Khorne Daemons. These grudges came about mainly because of all the dissin' on the WPS forums, and I'm pleased to say the SMDS lads won their respective bouts. That'll teach the non-believers!
The first day went pretty smoothly, apart from the cramped surroundings of course;
Adrian McWalter barrelled through all three of his games like winning was going out of fashion, getting maximum points from everybody, with Alan Thompson and his Bretonnians not far behind;
Paul Scrivens-Smith was doing well too, along with
John Dale's Lizards, Steve Thornton's Skaven and Rob Sedgeman's Bretonnians among others (surprisingly, Daley boy was the last to finish in almost every round, so he gained the honorary title of 'Tortoise' for the rest of his life). Surprise packets came in the form of Andy Stevenson and his Skaven of the SMDSS and Max Horseman, who was doing rather well with his completely beardless Empire army. In the Ancients event,
Pete Scholey's newly-painted Trojan army and Tim Haslam's Swiss looked set for a showdown, with Geoff Porritt and his much-vaunted Greeks losing a couple of games for a change. All in all, it was shaping up to be a spanking tournament!
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Beer and Breasts
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The Saturday night was a bit of a let-down as everybody seemed to be on a promise (
Nathan Hoole in particular), but the die-hards from Friday night turned up at the Social Club again for a few beers. I was starving so I led
Greg Chambers and my girlfriend Tracey to Domino's Pizza for a few freebies, and when I returned beers had indeed been sunk in rather copious amounts.
Adrian McWalter and Paul Hartshorne turned up (
Darren Dabell fell asleep on his sofa at home, would you believe) and after a while most of the talk devolved into smutty comments about Tracey's breasts, a few of which I made myself of course. Conrad had a close encounter with them, and he's still not recovered!
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images:
26.03.00
Relaxed
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A nice relaxing Sunday!
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We were also introduced to Martin!
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Andy Stevenson did rather well...
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...as did Paul Young!
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Adi and Alan, barrelling away
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Sunday is for Wargaming
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Sunday began bright and early unfortunately, and because the clocks had gone forward everybody seemed to turn up late. This was mainly due to a Chef in one of the hotels in Mansfield; he'd forgotten about the clocks and whilst everybody was waiting for their breakfasts he was still in bed. Even so, last to arrive were
Adrian McWalter and Paul Hartshorne, who'd apparently stayed up until 6:00am, getting sloshed. Sheesh.
This didn't seem to stop Adi though; he barrelled through his games again, getting maximum points from both Alan Thompson and Steve Thornton, until it was clear there was only one winner in this tournament. The top tables contained some fresh faces for a change; Andy Stevenson was up there, as was
Andrew Chesney and his Skaven (a Nottingham Games Club guy who actually comes from Rainworth, and will probably turn up to the MWC), Max Horseman, Rob Sedgeman, Ian Whittaker - the list goes on. In the Ancients event,
Pete Scholey and Tim Haslam were battling for the top spot along with Ian Turner's Samurai, and
Trevor Allen was doing well too with his Romans.
Sunday seemed a lot more relaxed than Saturday, and everyone looked like they had a great laugh, which is rather pleasing for
Greg Chambers and I. A lot of gamers came up to me after the games and told me how much they enjoyed the tournament simply because of the rules - most armies were pretty much beard-free, and we should know - we marked them all!
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images:
26.03.00
Prizes
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Lookit all dem prizes!
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Winners and Losers
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Eventually the games finished and I began totting up the points with Greg. We'd done the game, army selection and painting scores but not sportsmanship, which proved to be a right pain. Next time I'm going to get people to do their sportsmanship score after each game. Once they'd been done, it was time to dish out the prizes (most of which had been supplied by Karsten).
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images:
26.03.00
Ribbling
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The Ribble Warriors won the club event!
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The SMDS win the Steel City Challenge again!
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The Club Event
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The Team Event came next. For the first day, the Bristol Big Chiefs were pretty strong - their team consisting of Chris Stone and, er, well, Chris Stone - with the WPS not far behind, but it was eventually won overall by the Ribble Warriors (minus Rob Aspland, who had defected to the WPS). I'm not sure how the Ribbles actually did it - there are rumours of mistakes flying around the establishment - but they did... most peculiar! In fact it was the double duo of Tim Haslam and Ian Turner as HORSE that won the club event, but on the day the Ribbles deserved it simply because of their exuberant behaviour. At least, that's my excuse as Chief Umpire. Sorry Tim and Ian!
Mention must be made here of the SMDS / SMDSS challenge, of course -
John Dale's Gimps chapter (eleven strong) competing against the SMDS proper (ten strong) in the team event - the winners gaining hold of the coveted silver tankard first made for the Sheffield Slaughter last year. Which, of course, the SMDS won. Yay! We have retained the trophy we won from the pretenders in the Sheffield Slaughter of last year!
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Tim Haslam, Ancients winner!
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The Ancients Event
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The Ancients event - after a heavyweight last game against
Pete Scholey - was deservedly won by Tim Haslam and his Swiss Successor army. He got a trophy and a twenty quid book token, mainly 'cos we didn't have a clue what to get the winner of the Ancients...
Pete Scholey and
Trevor Allen came second and third respectively.
Just to satisfy Scholey boy, I must also mention here that he beat Amanda Rutter. Happy now Pete?
Last place was Justin Taylor, head honcho at Veni Vidi Vici (which supplies transfers for shields and such like), and he got the obligatory wooden spoon for getting his Normans thrashed a lot (sorry Justin). He also got free entry into the next tournament!
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Max Horseman - Best Army Selection
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Geoff Ball, Best Theme
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Ian Whittaker, Best Painted Army
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An example of Ian's fantastic Chaos army
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Dave Harboard, Best Sportsman
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John Dale, third and still robbed!
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A well-deserved second place for Smithy!
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Adrian McWalter... first place!
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The Fantasy Event
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The awards for the Fantasy event began with the Best Themed Army, which was new to the Maul (and new to any other tournament, I believe). This wasn't really that close as we'd picked out the winner on Saturday - Geoff Ball and his marvellous Night Goblin / Giant army. This contained a big unit of Night Goblins and a family of nine Giants, complete with baby and grandma. It really has to be seen to be believed! Since the event there's been talk of this army being beardy, but I (and most of the people I've spoken to about it) don't view it like that at all. In fact it does prove rather easy to beat once you know how - like any other army, really. As Steve Thornton said (in a Brummie voice), "Once you get over the initial shock of seeing nine Giants on the battlefield, it's not that difficult really." Geoff got a trophy and a couple of box-sets for his trouble.
Following on from that was Best Army Selection, which was won by Max Horseman's completely beardless (but still nasty) Empire army, which is the first thing he's ever won in a tournament. Good on yer Max! Dave Harboard - another Northern Warlord, like Max - won Best Sportsman, which was in fact a tie with
Adrian McWalter, but we thought he'd got enough prizes already. Both Dave and Max got a trophy and a box-set. The Best Painted Army (which was for both fantasy and ancients events) was won by Ian Whittaker and his excellent Tzeentch Warrior army, which he's selling... I really recommend you get in touch with him! Ian grabbed a trophy and a very, very limited edition Imperial Dragon as a prize - it's absolutely massive, and you can't get it from anywhere these days...
Then, of course, came the placings. Stephen Langdon (one of our dudes) came last, and he got a wooden spoon and free entry into the next tournament - he comes last on purpose, I'm sure of it. Third place was the Tortoise himself,
John Dale - which he seemed rather surprised about. He deserved it though, getting a trophy and yet another Stegadon! Second place was somebody who is always there or thereabouts, and really should do better in tournaments: our Smithy. Yes, finally,
Paul Scrivens-Smith got a placing - and he deserves it more than anybody else I know. He got a trophy and a box-set, too!
So, the winner. Like I said before, there was only one winner in the fantasy event -
Adrian McWalter. He got maximum points from every game, and even if he'd lost his last game, he still would have won, he was that far in front. His game scores also reflected his supremacy - he won the Best General award as well as coming first overall. Here's to you dude!
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Epilogue
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So, there you have it - another successful event run by the SMDS, this time at a totally new venue. Everybody seemed to enjoy it, with only a couple of bad games which didn't devolve into anything more than glum faces. All in all, a cracking weekend - watch out for the next one late this year!
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download:
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Mansfield Maul 2000 Results
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first place:
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Horse
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second place:
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third place:
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Battle Force Pompey
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Sheffield & Mansfield Dragon Slayers
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last place:
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Veni Vidi Vici
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Steel City Challenge Awards
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winners:
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Sheffield & Mansfield Dragon Slayers
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losers:
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Sheffield & Mansfield Dragon Slayers' Slayers
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Warhammer Ancient Battles Awards
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first place:
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Tim Haslam
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second place:
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third place:
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Trevor Allen
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last place:
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Justin Taylor
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Warhammer Fantasy Battle Awards
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first place:
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second place:
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third place:
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last place:
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Stephen Langdon
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best general:
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best sportsman:
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Dave Harboard
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best painted army:
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Ian Whittaker
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best army selection:
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best themed army:
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Max Horseman
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Geoff Ball
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