B5CCG::Black Omega Squadron::tournament reports

GENCON UK 2000

Once again, the Black Omega Express heads off to Convention Land. What adventures await us this year? Carry on, brave reader, and experience just how insane a game can be!

IN PREPERATION

It's a little different, running two major championships on one weekend, with international competitors, a new venue and some pretty high expectations. Liaising with WotC on Guests was an interesting experience. I know organising GenCon should be a busy experience, but two months between e-mails is never a prompt reply! T-shirts were also going to prove difficult with bank holidays causing some confusion on delivery dates for the blessed printers that supplied them. Luckily, a stern word from Diane in the Union Shop and they were delvered post haste. Nice woman Diane, scary but nice! Travel was always going to be a problem, with the numbers of Newcastle players going to Manchester varying from four to fourteen at one point. Finally settling down to two groups, we shared the Black Omega Payload of t-shirts, newsletters and CASES of prize support between the cars and prepared to go!

THURSDAY 31^st AUGUST

It was early, very early but nowadays that's not a problem for me. Peter arrived and the tribes moved south for the great exodus. The meeting spot was Scotch Corner and then onto Manchester. The journey was no problem and despite our best efforts, Andrew didn't get lost! Hell, we even managed to get all of us and the prizes into his Micra for the journey to the conference venue - tight!

Of course, it wasn't going to last and we soon discovered that WotC's definition of 'free parking' and the rest of the worlds was about a million miles apart. Free to them meant - 'free, if you can manage to get a space, but we've let the locals in first so park you car in a heinously expensive car park first and come back at 6.00pm for the frantic rush.' Needless to say some people were not please at all.

After finding the actual conference entrance ( another victory for hidden signage - the theme of the weekend as it would transpire…) I met up with our Finnish contingent and discovered that their free room had been gobbled in some frenzy of WotC efficiency - don't ask how or what, it just did. Anyway, after a bit of hunting around I managed to findanother spare room, courtesy of that very nice, kind supporter of the game, Karen from House Atreides ( Am I crawling enough here?) and finally found them a home

Of course, as part of the room hunt, we had to find the area we were going to play in. Now, for those of you that weren't there, the CCG stuff had an entire building to itself -which sounds good, but was a NIGHTMARE. It took five of us no less that half an hour to find the room were would be playing in, because there were no signs!!! How on Earth the players were expected to find it, I have no idea! Anyway, one good thing about GenCon is that we get to team up with Marcus and the Esdevium crew and they did a wonderful job overnight plastering the building with posters and stuff so it was far easier to find.

After a nice hunt around the trade hall, a chat with some old friends and more than a few bumps with B5 players from around the country I finally settled into a bar and downed a few well deserved beers - because I knew that sooner or later I was going to have to find my room, which, due to Neil's Law, was on the other side of the Manchunian Way, under a number of very lethal looking underpasses and as I discovered when I got there, a student. Schoolkid infested building site with staff that with the manners and social skills of a Pak'mara's arse!

While I'm on the subject and to get the first day whinging over with - don’t stop me, I'm on a roll! - what the f*ck was going on with the venue? One bar, so it would appear, with only shite bitter and lager on draught, which backed onto the cafeteria ( over-priced, low quality fodder with the same delightful staff presence) which also doubled as the much lauded 'Delegate Gaming Area'. What a crock!

Anyway, many beers into the early evening we retired to the Gaming Area and played the Hardcore Championship. What a storming idea this was! 16 players scrapped for the one round tournament and then battled it out for the title. The game was played with great spirit - 'name' players choosing to play with starter decks whilst others borrowed decks from Shaun 'Obscure Deck Idea' Hovers. In the end Richie triumphed and became the first Hardcore title holder. To follow the path of the much coveted Ancient Mew promo card look here

After that, Phil went and got a couple of carrier bags full of beer and the B5 area turned into a pit of seething testostrone as WWF returned to Manchester! Fueled by lager, vodka and martini - drank from an assortment of containers including cardboxes and card sleeves, we managed a 16 -man, Raw Deal WWF King-of-the=Ring style tournament for our other favourite game! There were some excellent matches and the game was finally won by Andrew Watson playing The Rock.

( Note - one of the funniest moments of the night was when Ian 'I drink from card sleeves' Richards tried to persuade everyone that this was NOT a fun game and was in fact a steaming pile of putrid garbage. Guess what, it didn't work!!)

Eventually, the fun ended at about two in the morning and I managed to get back to my cell without serious bodily injury.

And the Germans hadn't turned up….

FRIDAY 3rd SEPTEMBER

Or 'Demoing Day' as we had dubbed it. This was going to be my quiet day. A day of rest and gaming with no responsibilities. And you know, I nearly pulled it off too! The morning itself was interesting as the shower in the halls resembled a Pube Convention. Obviously Manchester or students or gamers have either a) no cleaners or b) some affliction in their pubic area making them moult in contact with water, but all I can say is 'Euuugh!!!'. Breakfast was hilarious as some very large men looked down at the slim pickings that were dished out under the title 'breakfast' and wondered if this was supposed to be the first ever gamers 'fat camp'. Hint to the caterers - I prefer some bacon with my rind and in general, it's more likely to pass muster if the cereal actually covers the bottom of the bowl??

Of course, the entire point of the day was to see how few people would want to have Tomb Raider demoed to them. We had tons of support to give out and some wits in the crowd were suggesting we give a box of boosters to each demo participant - but then, they added, we would still have to take half of it home. How wrong they could be!

I spent the morning having some very pleasant games of Wheel of Time with Ann Rumsby, whilst around me Shaun and Mark Lancaster seemed very busy on the WoT demoing front. Strangely enough, so was Paul Sheward, the volunteer who got the alleged 'short straw' to demo Tomb Raider.

Eventually, Mark and Shaun started the tournament in a pretty unique style - newbies played with sealed decks, veterans with constructed and prizes were given out for the best performers in both categories. Thirteen people played, with me being No#13 and getting the bye for the first round. Mark combined running the tourney with demos and even Andrew Sims ended up running a surprise B5 demo too. And Paul was still demoing, he even had a queue at one point!

Peter Meredith and I went out for a meal ( All You Can Eat Malaysian…Hmmmmm) and then got caught in one of the heaviest rainstorms I have ever seen! I didn’t make it back for the next round so I dropped out to make the numbers even and just bodded around. The tournament was a thrilling affair with arch rivals Andrew Watson and Kris Aspinall being pipped at the post by another player whose name escapes me, as they tried to tear themselves apart!

And Paul and Mark were still demoing! When I dragged them from their tables at 6.30 they had each done 22 demos for their respective games. We were all stunned. It was probably more games of Tomb Raider than has ever been played in the country as a whole to that point <g>

Anyway, an evening, some roleplaying with my old mates from Rugby, the arrival of Geordie John, our prodigal son, now a member of the armed forces and more beer and things were looking up. They even tipped us off that the Students Union bar was open ( and Dry Blackthorn was only 1.00 a pint!!!). They neglected to mention that the Union and the University obviously have issues and if someone was found taking a drink from the Uni bar to the Union bar they were thrown out. Not asked to take it outside, not asked to drink up and not do it again, but physically removed from the building with a fair amount of verbal abuse. Not good. Not good at all….

Walk home. Still safe. Knackered. How little did I know?

And still there were no Germans

SATURDAY 4th SEPTEMBER

The day of the UK Championships started early with another gladiatorial battle in the Pube Farm and a new tactic at breakfast. Putting on the 'I'm a Big Lad and I need feeding' eyes will break even the hardest Manc. Mother and as I exited the café with two sausages and two rashers extra I felt suitably chuffed.

Registration for the tournament was slow, with a number of people missing due to some very late registration. We were a little concerned as t-shirt sales were well down - but them again, people can only have so many witty black Ts. The lads from Team Homer arrived and were suitably disappointed at the no-show from the Germans. Adding them to the Finnish players it was a pleasingly international field of 45 players.

We were sharing the room with Sy from SELWG and his DoomTown storyline tournament ( very prestigious apparently!) and we were having some great banter with them. They were impressed by our turnout and we were impressed with their prizes. One of the cool things about GC is that you get to meet new groups of players like them, and during the ordeal to come I like to think that the two groups bonded somewhat….

The tournament was also kicked off my Peter (Galen) Woodward, which was very cool indeed!

I'll skip detailed analysis of the tournament as that's boring. The final table consisted of James Blagden, Richie Willis, Steve Gold, Peter Meredith and Andrew Watson. That was possibily the toughest table there could have been and the tension before the final was palatable! It started at 4.30 and things looked pretty good. We all knew that given the chance, Peter's deck could produce a pretty unstoppable 4-8 point power jump and therefore we could be in for a short one. Then Andrew Expelled him from the ISA and he Expelled Andrew and the game was set in the trenches. Time passed. The Doomtown final, considered a marathon by their standards started. Time passed and the game ground on. Ewout, who did a wonderful job scribing the final mentioned to me that it was the most interactive game he had seen with each player making ( and breaking) deal after deal each round and every possible move being discussed as a general concensus was reached that no-one should be allowed to move away. At one point it looked all over as four of the five players had Support of the Mighty on the table and one was eligible for victory… and then Peter played Zero Sum Game and we were right back where we started. Time passed. Phil disappeared off to play in the Vampire LRP ( which I would have been playing in too - the things I sacrifice for the game!) and he came back and it was still going on! Doomtown players got a huge delevery of chinese food, as hunger,fatigue and desperation were getting to our players. They watched in awe as the final dragged on. Their final finished and ours continued. Milestones were being passed every half hour and finally midnight came and the game still hadn't finished.

In the end, the game ended almost certainly due to fatigue as Richie Willis managed to sneak a conflict through and win the game, much to everyones delight! It finished at 12.30am on Sunday morning. A seven hour final!!

Needless to say we all descended on the bar and finding it four deep, formed the famed 'Black Omega Bar Wedge' and got served pretty quickly!

More sleep, more pubes….

SUNDAY 5th SEPTEMBER

The final day, the European Championships, the final conflict! Numbers were down slightly at 42, but to be honest I think some of the weaker players were put off by the sheer level of play performed yesterday. The format, Master of All, raised a few eyebrows and seemed to throw up some clever and some rogue decks.

We also had great fun doing starter deck spot prizes for B5 trivia. Even the SELWG lads got themselves a starter for one of the questions! Of course, the best answers came for the inevitable 'Who are you?','What do you want?','Who do you serve?' and 'Who do you trust?' questions…

There was a tournament and some people won and some people lost. In the end we dispensed with the seven player second table and the six player third table and just had a very large prize ceremony where everyone that played got something for their efforts.

It was also a sad moment because it signalled the retirement of Black Omega founder, Phil Nichols from 'active service' as a Prec Rep and as Black Omega President. I think the massive cheering round of applause he received at the end of the presentation said a lot about people's thoughts about him!

The final was, to be honest, a scrappy affair, with everyone involved - the players ( Stephen Gold, Andrew Watson, Ian Richards, Richie Willis and Sven Burgemesstre) and the ref (me!) - very tired. I actually had to do the 'sit at the table and conduct play' thing when the mistakes began to get silly and game breaking. We had, after some deliberation, decided to time the final out due to travelling times and such and in the end Stephen Gold won in a timed victory. Everyone was very pleased for Stephen, a great player and the former Black Omega and UK Champion. In the end the table was a Giants Playground though. Ian Richard has won multiple Welsh titles, Richie was the reigning UK champ, Andrew has been in the last five Title tourney finals and Sven won the largest tournament in the world at Triples 2K. What a way to end the convention!

We said our goodbyes and Andrew and I made our way home, getting lost and taking the A57 rather than the M62. I finally got in at 01.00am and crashed into bed. What a weekend!

OVERALL

Yes it was tiring, yes it was frustrating and yes, there were things that we could have done differently, but in the end it was one hell of a ride and between the two finals some of the best B5 I have ever seen was played. Certainly, Saturdays ordeal should go down somewhere in gaming legend!

And we'll be doing it all again next year too! See you there

Neil (Neil Gow)