last updated:
21.08.08 | 19:43 gmt
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Mansfield Maul II 2000
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Thanks to certain unmentionables amongst the Sheffield lot (who shall remain unmentionable) not getting the venue organised for the Sheffield Slaughter, it was decided that we'd hold a tournament in Mansfield for the second time this year, and call it the Mansfield Maul II. It's very rare that we are noted for our originality. Anyway - thanks to fifty-odd blokes appearing with their toys, it turned out to be a cracking event in the true tradition of SMDS Events (i.e. beer, beer and some gaming)...
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organiser:
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venue:
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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 6th
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unavailable
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images:
02.12.00
Upstairs
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The Maul was upstairs this time!
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Headaches, Stress and More Headaches
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As
John Dale had volunteered to be the organiser for the Mansfield Maul II, I had rather hoped I'd be free of stress and headaches (and possibly nightmares) running up to the event. Thankfully that's how it proved: everything was done in pretty good time - including getting twenty new boards and painting them green, and finding a Data Entry Clerk in the shape of my wumman Trace - but I wasn't prepared for what happened on the Friday before!
Headache number 1 came at about 4:00pm when
Greg Chambers' computer source ran dry and he couldn't bring the laptop (for the scores, y'see), so I promptly rang
Paul Scrivens-Smith and wondered if he could bring something to help us out. Even an abacus would have done, but all-round nice bloke that he is, he said he'd bring his own PC. What a star! Unfortunately, more was in store for us - we'd hoped that we could set everything up on the Friday night so we didn't have to repeat what happened at the first Maul, but Fate dealt us a hand at around 5:30pm that included a Disco, a load of kids and a double-booking. Nightmare! Thankfully John managed to resolve that one with a bit of ear-bending, and we did actually manage to get most of the boards upstairs and even have a game or two; Alan Thompson and the rest of the BFP guys turned up, along with
Adrian McWalter and
Paul Corcoran (Corky for short, a newbie SMDS guy).
Great, we thought - everything going as planned. Unfortunately Headache number 2 arrived early Saturday morning - about 8:00am to be precise - when
Paul Scrivens-Smith's PC's floppy drive failed to recognise the disk that held the scoring spreadsheet I'd prepared the night before. Bugger. Then
Paul Corcoran piped up and told us he'd a laptop we could use at work, so he popped off to get it - and then we realised the disks were knackered, not the floppy drive... ouch. By this time it was 8:30, and with panic setting in I took the drastic step of taking the scoring spreadsheet from the first Maul (which Smithy still had on his hard drive, thankfully) and changing it for this one. I made it with five minutes to spare, but it meant that I didn't have time to change the scoring around and so Draws would still be within 100 points, and not 200 points. Ah well, thought I - at least we've got something...
Stress number 2 reared it's ugly head when
John Dale reported we'd only had 53 entrants, so I decided (reluctantly) to drop out to even up the numbers: and then when
Dave Batten's name wasn't read out John realised we had 54, so I was back in. Blimey!
The moral of this particular story? Be thankful for small mercies: at least my car didn't break down...
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Pete on the bottom table!
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John and Trace, data entry clerks
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After the Storm
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After handing over the first round draw (without looking at it, I might add) I popped downstairs and found out that
Adrian McWalter was playing The Legend (i.e.
Pete Scholey). What a turn-up for the books, eh? Still, the boys didn't have to play each other - as we were holding a club event it was fair enough if fellow team mates didn't want to bash themselves and felt like bashing somebody else instead. Gluttons for Punishment that they are, they decided to play. Silly sods. Adi won that one, of course (sorry Pete). You can understand Pete's reaction when he found himself on the bottom table in Round Two!
I was playing
Dave Batten's rather oddly-composed Empire army - ten Hochland long rifles within ten units of Handgunners, two Helblasters, two Mortars and two Cannons - but I'll mention little about that game apart from my shooting army was shot to bits. A touch of the same medicine, I guess! It all went pretty smoothly after the early panic; fifty-four Warhammer players played Warhammer, drunk beer, laughed, shouted, hurled abuse and (in the case of
Darren Dabell) shouted rather too loudly for comfort. He isn't called Daz Decibel for nothing.
At half-time (lunch to you) I still had a few tweaks to make to the scoring spreadsheet so I busied myself with that whilst everybody else stuffed themselves silly at the buffet. As the day progressed it was clear there were around five people in the running, with
Adrian McWalter,
Martin Bunting, Steve Thornton, Pete Renn and Rob Sedgeman winning most of their games. Adi was rather fortuitous in two - saving his General from D6 wounds on a 4+ ward save twice - but that was all par for the course; everybody seemed to be having rather impressive luck, apart from
Andrew Chesney who couldn't make an armour save - even on 2+ - if his life depended on it. Poor lad. In the club event, it was clear there were a couple of clubs streaking ahead, namely the Northern Warlords and the Big Chiefs. Of course, only having two players in your club helped rather a lot, but we'll say no more about that until they start bragging...
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Pete Renn plays our Smithy!
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Adi and paperwork in flagrante delicto
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Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
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As usual
Nathan Hoole was on a promise so close to home so he buggered off early, but it was decided we'd join the rest of the gang -
John Dale,
Adrian McWalter,
Darren Dabell etc. - at the Portland Hall Hotel in deepest Mansfield, which we did after popping home and grabbing a bite to eat. Unfortunately this early bite to eat proved our undoing as a number of the usual suspects wanted to go for a curry - so we had a pint or two and thought we'd be allright, we'd just order a couple of poppadoms or summat. No dice. The guys at the curry house decided we couldn't stay unless we ordered a main meal, so instead of rising to the challenge I decided to bugger off and take the Moral High Road (which is a bit like the Moral Low Road, only without fists).
Apparently the rest of the night wasn't too good either as, after their curry, the boys ran (yes, ran) back to the Hotel and played cards until the early hours, with
John Dale losing rather a lot of - ahem - matches to the Card Sharps known as
Adrian McWalter and Dan Heelan. Three twos... heh!
Sunday arrived with most of us in good spirits, but after the evenness of the events on Saturday we realised the numbers had become uneven overnight. Alessio Cavatore, that paragon of virtue from Games Workshop, had to drop out thanks to Family Troubles, and that gave us two options: 1) somebody had to drop out completely and get two byes or 2) a different person had to drop out each round. Headache number 3 was resolved by me decided to drop out completely and get two byes 'cos it felt unfair to force somebody we didn't know out of the running. Ah well - there's always next year, thought I!
At least it allowed me to help
John Dale with the judging - the painting scores and army selection scores weren't marking themselves!
After the first game on Sunday it was still very open, and the top five places could have gone to anybody.
Adrian McWalter, Steve Thornton,
Martin Bunting, Alan Thompson, Pete Renn and even
Pete Scholey (who had recovered rather well) was up there, with a couple of surprises too - Andy Winton of the Damage Brotherz was doing well, as was Darren Burnett of the Northern Warlords. The last round proved to be the killer, with the game on Table 1 the most interesting of all - Steve Thornton's Chaos Warriors were trying to bash
Martin Bunting's Wood Elves and doing it fairly successfully. Unfortunately for Steve Wood Elves are nothing if not annoying and it wasn't long before they came back at him with a vengeance - the Treeman did some spectacular Tree Whacks on the Dragon Ogres and the Chariot wasn't doing bad either! All in all it looked a cracking game and a fitting end to the tournament for the leaders.
Read on and find out what happened...!!
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Winners and Losers
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At around 4:30 the games trundled to an end and as Trace had been totting up the Sportsmanship scores after every game, it proved rather quicker than the first Maul to find out the winners and losers. So, without further ado,
John Dale took centre stage and gave out shedloads of prizes and trophies...
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The Northern Warlords, all two of them, win the club event!
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The SMDS retain the Steel City Challenge!
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The Club Event
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First of all came the club event. As I said before, it was clear from the first day that the Northern Warlords and the Big Chiefs were damn strong, but the Damage Brotherz and the SMDS were up there too. At the end there was thirty points in it, with the Northern Warlords claiming first place. Well done to Daz Burnett and Tristan Grant! The Big Chiefs ended up second and the Damage Brotherz third.
And so, of course, came the Steel City Challenge, with SMDS geek pitted against SMDSS gimp for the Ultimate Prize. Well, a tankard, anyway. Thankfully, the Pretenders of Sheffield went home with nowt -
Pete Scholey came up to the front to show them who the Real SMDS are! And there's no way they can claim foul play this time, either - they were beaten fair and square! Honest!
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Wayne Kemp won Best Army Selection!
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Trevor Allen, best sportsman!
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Pete Scholey painted the best army!
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Andy Winton, third place
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Steve Thornton, second place
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Adrian McWalter, first place and best general!
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The Fantasy Event
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Once the preliminaries were over,
John Dale revealed to us all the guys that would go home with trophies, beginning with Best Painted Army. Now, as has been remarked by a few, the standard of painting wasn't too good this time, but it must be noted that a lot of armies are "work in progress"; the new edition has seen to that, so don't be too hard on yourselves. However, a number of armies stood out despite that -
Jason Annett's Lizardmen, Wayne Kemp's (almost finished) Skaven and Adrian Arnold's fantastic Vampire Counts - but in the end we decided to hand the trophy to
Pete Scholey's beautiful Nurgle Chaos Warriors, which he painted in around two months. What a guy!
Next came the Best Sportsman which, thanks to the way we scored Sportsmanship, ended up with one clear winner and no roll-offs seen anywhere (WPS Committee take note!).
Trevor Allen of the Nottingham Games Club was the Man with the Biggest Smile with more Best Sportsman and the best Sportsmanship scores throughout the tournament! Once Trevor had got his trophy and prize it was Best Army Selection time, and thanks to the way he'd designed his Skaven army Wayne Kemp was the obvious choice (well, for us, anyway). An unusual army with a lot of character, Wayne's Skaven comprised lots of Giant Rats and loads of Clanrats; a deserving winner.
Then came the placings. Stuart Cain (an SMDSS member, I'd like to point out) was the last place fella - he wanted this honour so much he even conceded his last game! He got free entry into the next SMDS tournament of course. In third place was the surprise packet of the tournament, Andy Winton, of the Damage Brotherz (more unpopularly known as the North Birmingham Troll Slayers). Well done to him! Second was that stalwart of second places, Steve Thornton with his majorly nasty Slaanesh Chaos Warriors. One day he'll win a tournament proper, but unfortunately for him it's unlikely to happen when we have the man known as McMad.
Yes, it brings me great pleasure to introduce the winner and Best General of the fantasy event - none other than
Adrian McWalter. He didn't get maximum points from every game this time and it was much closer for him than in most other tournaments, but he held firm and the Vampire Counts did the business for him in the sixth edition. Nice one Cyril!
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Epilogue
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Great stuff! Yet another successful event run by the SMDS, the first for the sixth edition in the UK and the second one we've held this year. A wonderful weekend was had by all and sundry and a great thankyou must be extended to everyone involved - the players, the umpires, the data entry clerks and of course the guys at the Victoria Social Club. You all owe yourself a big round of applause!
See y'all in March!
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download:
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Mansfield Maul II 2000 Results
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first place:
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Northern Warlords
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second place:
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third place:
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Cheltenham Big Chiefs
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Damage Brotherz
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last place:
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Nottingham Games Club
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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 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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Steve Thornton
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Andy Winton
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last place:
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Stuart Cain
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best general:
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best sportsman:
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Trevor Allen
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best painted army:
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best army selection:
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Wayne Kemp
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<<
Previous Dragon Slayer Tournament
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Next Dragon Slayer Tournament
>>
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Thursday, 20 November 2008
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