Monday, June 23, 2008

Texas Team Tourney Report

Nick Drinkwater
Echoing Walter, I'd like to say thanks to Rick and also to his family for sacrificing him to us for the whole weekend - I was completely stunned when he said he'd been upto 4am on Friday, and yet at 12.45am on Saturday night was quite happy for Zeb and myself to go the extra half hour or so to finish off our last match. A total Trojan if ever there was one - and a great tournament again - awesome job dude!

For me, it was 2-1 this time around: got heavily drawn into two awesome games with Matt Schwoebel and Eric which both went the distance for me to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat from previously snatching defeat from the jaws of victory from pretty much the last die-rolls of the games. However from these exhausting highs, I was soon in a emotional low, eventually getting crushed by Mr. Doyle in the aforementioned late nighter. Unfortunately, I did live upto my mid game expectations Walter and it didn't end pretty! As always though, it was fun. It was a shame that the H-town contingent was down a bit on last year's impressive turnout and I think we all missed the "I HATE THIS GAME!!!" cries from Mr. Gillis. I do believe I tried to emulate him at one or two points in the big game with Matt, but imitation is a poor form of flattery - Tom, you were missed dude!

One instant memory - about 11.45pm on Saturday night, watching my flame thrower roll cars, after missing make an instant "boil in the bag meal" of one of Zeb's small Chinese tanks on it's only other shot...some 'foetal-position assuming' was observed by dispassionate observers!!

It was great to meet all the old faces and some new ones too! I hope the young man (Robert) who was playing a lot of SK stuff had a great weekend and will come again - nice to see! Very pleased that our visitors from the NE were able to make it down to us and I hope they took back good memories and experiences as well as some of the prizes - it was great to meet (briefly) Chas and see how normal he really is: oh my gosh, "MMP are not the antichrist and are actually human" shock echoes around the internet! What will all the naysayers do now? Really hope you are able to come and visit us again in the future.

I would also like to acknowledge the generosity of all the groups who tipped in for Door Prizes for the weekend. MMP (among many others) threw in a couple of hundred bucks worth of goodies that will help to fill in people's collections, and there were great prizes from (among others and apologies to any I have missed out), SoCal, Bounding Fire, HOB, LFT, Mark Pitcavage, Mike Dorosh, Paul Kenny, East Side Gamers and Osprey Publishing. Everyone went home with something and there was enough stuff left over for some people to get two. I was angling for any of the beautifully produced LFT magazines, but others had their eagle eyes on these, so I was really happy to pick up a history of one of the US infantry divisions experiences in Normandy. Very nice!

Chas had brought a few copies of AP4 and there were several games of that being played when I was there. Didn't get my hands on any at the time, but I'm confident that my pre-order will show up soon. Would be interested to see AARs or first impressions of tthese from anyone who did get to play them!

OK. Need to run and do gainful employment stuff for a while. AARs to follow over the next few days, and perhaps a scenario analysis in a future Banzai too...watch this space!!

Hope everyone got home safely and see you all in February in Houston if not sooner!

Cheers
Nick

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