Wow.

Just... wow.

Crazy to think that it's only been a little over a month since I first challenged Jonas Saunders to a group game of MechWarrior on the forums, a challenge that he unexpectedly accepted. Since then, it's been a flurry of planning, team forming, barrelling through the holidays, and giddy anticipation. And it all came to a head yesterday.

The format:

-Each four-person team will purchase nine (9) Wolf Strike boosters and pool the contents.

-From the unit pool, each team member will build a 600-pt. army. This army will be used for every round of the tournament.

-Team A (Players 1, 2, 3, and 4) plays Team B (Players A, B, C, and D) in four standard 50-minute rounds. Every member of Team A will play every member of Team B. Wins and victory conditions will be recorded for each round, and the team with the highest total at the end of the tournament will be the winner.

A relatively simple format, yet one designed to test a lot of different skillsets -- army building, strategy conception, teamwork, communication... all while using a broad booster pool to mitigate bad pulls.

The Oregon contingent arrived at the venue at about 11:30 for the noon event, and people were already gathered in anticipation. We greeted Jonas, Kelly, Tony, and Allie, and spent some time getting set up and acquainted. Several people knew me from the boards, and had of course been following the challenge as it blossomed from pie-in-the-sky forum post to a dozen Oregonians braving winter driving to go to Bellevue for a MechWarrior game. The place was packed.

But first, the festivities. 'Twas Jonas' birthday, and we would be darned if we weren't gonna celebrate. Cake was had, the birthday boy was forced to wear a gigantic party hat, and general tomfoolery was the name of the day.

Then finally it was time for the reveille -- every person we'd brought up with us from Oregon (except for a couple stragglers) took off our coats and sweatshirts to reveal the badass Clan Ninja Beaver T-shirts I'd designed. Team members in black, entourage in white. We were met with stares and laughs -- it was perfect. A truly unified front.

See, this whole Ninja Beaver thing came up when we first challenged WK to this event. They had their Fuzzy Bunnies and Diva Monkeys and Light Mice and Gangle Meese... if we were gonna challenge these folks, it had to be as a Clan. But what to name ourselves?

First we tried coming up with names inspired by current MechWarrior factions: Republic of the Beer (RoTS), Panty Raiders (BR), Clan Rowlf (from the Muppets... it's obscure, I know).

Since we were going up as a state team, we figured it should have something to do with Oregon. Oregon's state animal is the beaver, which also opened up all number of dirty jokes, so that was too perfect (Clan Fuzzy Beaver, anyone?). But what distinguishing characteristic should we choose? Clan Eager Beaver? Clan Beaver Cleaver (for which I sketched an awesome picture of a beaver with a meat cleaver)? What was the most awesomest thing I could think of ever? Ninjas, of course. Clan Ninja?

And then cjlin576 said it: Clan Ninja Beaver! Brilliant! I got out my sketch pad, drew up an idea, scanned it into Photoshop, and 6 hours later, we were in business.

From the logo came the idea for t-shirts, and then we were off and rolling. And even though Ponto's kid leaked the t-shirt idea on the WK forums, no one seemed to notice, and the shirts were still a surprise.

So anyways, we cracked our boosters and started building. And in spite of my fears of our pre-event planning dooming us to terrible pulls, we actually had enough good stuff to build four relatively good, solid armies. I'll recount them as best I can.

My army:

Warwolf - Reaver
-Nikki Raddick
-Inferno Ammo
HS Raven
-Grad Certificate: Focht (+1/+1/+1)
-Alpha Strike
HK Kite
RD Kite
CNC Laser Team
HK Laser Team
CNC Monocycle
HK Inner Sphere Battle Armor
:^^^: RD Wraith
================
597

The ol' Homing Beacon-16" ballistic trick, plus a bunch of harassers. My kind of build.


cjlin576's army:

RD Marauder IIc
-Grad Certificate: NAIS (+1/+0/+1)
-SU Streaks
HK Vixen
-Raizo Mikawa
-Decoy
BR Manteuffel
HL Monocycle
BR Monocycle
ROTS ISBA
===============
598

HAND: Horrible Day

SU Strekas and Horrible Day help the Marauder get into good stats, the Vixen is a defensive powerhouse.

Killroy's army:

HL Vulture Mk IV
-Grad Certificate: Tamar (+2/0/+1)
-Electronic Camouflage
HS Griffin
-Grad Certificate: Canopian (0/+2/0)
-Artemis V
CW Carnivore
CW SRM Team
CW Purifier
================
600

The Streaks-EC combo on the Vulture helped make up for its 10 attack. The Griffin is a very solid piece on its own, capable of high damage output. And the CW formation meant that when his opponent came around blocking to get to the Vulture (and they would), he'd be ready to crack them with a formation shot and let the Vulture do the rest.

Ponto's army:

Atlas - Hammerfall
-One Eyed Jack
-AnP Pods
Wulfen - Marrow
-Cyrus Wolf
-Inferno Flamers
WH Wraith
CJF Purifier
CJF Laser Team
HD Monocycle
==============
600

Marrow has the potential to be a very good 'Mech, but his inability to easily get off his first click of life kills. I haven't found a great way to use him outside of a BR/SW army yet, but ponto figured he could get by with charging to get past the first click, then using Inferno Flamers as a followup. At that point, we were so happy to have a 'Mech with a matching pilot, I don't think I would have complained if I'd gotten it.

While our army construction was a group effort, it appeared Jonas was doing the building for the WizKids team. I'm gonna do my best to put together their armies from memory, so bear with me.

Jonas:

BR Vulture Mk IV
-Grad: Tamar (+2/0/+1)
-Electronic Camouflage
BR Vixen
-Rank: Lieutenant (+1/+2/0)
-Decoy
BR Vixen
-Grad: Focht (1/1/1)
-Decoy
BR Purifier
BR Monocycle
CNC Monocycle
================
600

A total nightmare to take on in Sealed. Three 23 defense 'Mechs, two of which were packing Decoy. Yikes.

Allie:

CNC Marauder IIc
-Grad Certificate: NAIS (+1/0/+1)
CNC Griffin
WH Carnivore
:^^: RD Wraith x3
CW SRM Team
=================
600

Range and stat stability are the the name of the day here. Though Allie didn't have any real pilots of note or IT to help with her low attacks, this was also a difficult army to gameplan against.

Tony:

Black Knight - Bailey
-Barnum Drummond
-CIWS
Crimson Hawk - Strength
-Honor Wittman
-Lock-On Targeting
ROTS Partisan
CNC Partisan
HK ISBA
CJF Laser Team
HS SRM Team
CNC Monocycle
=================
600

Bailey's the hammer, Strengh's the lightning rod, and the Partisans are the backup.

Kelly:

Hammerfall
-One Eyed Jack
-AnP Pods
HK Vulture Mk IV
-Chu-i (0/+1/+1)
===============
599

A Heavy and an Assault. Kill me before I kill you.

As you can see, the format lends itself to a lot more balanced, competitive armies, because theyr'e being built out of a pool of 6 boosters, rather than just the randomness of 2.

I won't get into individual game results, but every game was close -- Jonas, in particular, is a very good player, and my toughest opponent. But yes, the Oregon team managed to pull out the victory, winning more games overall than the WizKids team. We decided to call the tournament after three rounds (apparently the game designers aren't used to the marathon game sessions they put us players through at Nationals and Worlds :p), which meant that I didn't get to play against Kelly, which was a minor disappointment for me. But my games against Tony, Jonas, and Allie were fun and well-fought, and I enjoyed every one of them; hopefully they feel the same.

For their part, the WizKids folks were all very gracious -- Tony and Kelly spent an inordinate amount of time signing their respective pilot cards and 'Mechs (with Tony taking a healthy amount of ribbing about being a girl pilot). And they brought the prize parade with them dude, let me tell you. Jonas brought in two ginormous boxes filled with swag -- LE boxes from every set, piles of LE card packs... it was a huge stack.

One of the Clan Ninja Beaver entourage, John (whom you'll remember as the guy I've been beating up on with Flavio in my journal) won the 900-pt. Grand Melee that was run as a side event with a devastating SC/DF army. His prize pack:

-A Battlemaster trophy painted in ROTS colors
-CJF Battleforce set
-ROTS Battleforce set
-Black Rose and Sparky, signed by Vic Bonilla!
-A Vulture t-shirt
-Iron-on patch with some 'Mech on it I can't remember

It was impressive. And everyone that played in that event got at least one pack of LE cards, and got to grab an LE from Jonas' box, and I know I saw one Dark Age box with a sticky note that said "Gunsho Jun'ko", so this was definitely not a box of Flavios.

As for us... wow. What can I say? WizKids gave us an embarassment of riches. I truly am shy just saying everything they gave us.

Our gift pack contained:

-Two Ares 3-packs
-One Phantom War Battleforce set
-One Domination Officer's Club kit
-A copy of Technology of Destruction signed by Jordan Weismann (which I then had all four of them sign)

But the real prize, the one that damn near made me choke up, was the Mage Cage with the Annihilation HK/CNC combined lance (Lightfoot, Rising Sun, Ryu, Tekken) with pilot and gear cards, and all four 'Mechs signed by Vic Bonilla. I love those 'Mechs, I love Vic's work... it was an incredibly thoughtful and awesome gesture, and more than I could ever have dreamed of when we conceived this event.

And then... THEN we went to dinner.

18 of us (The Oregon team, the WizKids team, family, friends) piled into a bigass restaurant in Bellevue called Claim Jumpers. If you've never been there... whoo. Worth the trip. And what proceeded then was two and a half hours of comradery, plus the opportunity for all of us to pick the brains of Kelly, Jonas, Tony, and Allie as we dined on our meals. I can't reveal everything that was said there (though I will write up the results of my Q & A with Jonas later on), but what I can tell all the MechWarrior players reading is this:

Don't panic. There's good things on the horizon. WizKids has NOT abandoned us. They need to go through certain steps before making announcements, but I promise you, I know a small portion of what's coming, and it's worth waiting for. So take a deep breath, play with some pieces in your collection you haven't played with yet, and let's let the creative people do their work.

And finally, a very heartfelt thanks to the WizKids folks. Words can't express how awesome this weekend was, and you guys were the reason. Thanks for letting us have an opportunity to come interact with you in a way we normally don't. I sincerely hope it was as memorable for you as it was for us.

-Trevor Halligan

Wow indeed! Sounds like lots of fun.

Thanks for the writeup Trevor.

Hey! Post a pic of Clan Ninja Beaver insignia! :) Sounds like it was a blast. I'm jealous.

Living up to the awesome I see? ;)

tsk* tsk* Trevor, the whole recap is great and nice to see the entire event was a blast,but you shouldn't have mentioned that little tidbit about knowing that WK is still working on getting things for us. Now alll the nay-sayers are going to have to come up with something new for their "Sky-is-Falling " and "The Apocalypse has come!" rants about the game.:laugh:

Thanks for the write-up, Trevor. I was pretty confident that any group of people from Oregon would whup up on any group of people from Washington, even in Washington, in any type of competitive event you can think of! :)

Go Beavers!

Trevor, I'd kiss you if it wouldn't get me likely slugged. :p The news that good things are coming are indeed only reaffirming WHY I'm stubborn enough to stick around. That, and personal communications with Jonas at random as well.

Cheers for helping an old mule keep his head up. ;)

I was also on this ship of fools when the whole thing went down. 3 hours in the back of a Kia, a night on the floor of a tiny hotel room, an hour wedged between an occupied child seat and the rear door post of a Honda Civic, and another 3 hours home in the back of a Kia. Worth every second of it! If I had to ride in the trunk for the trip, and sleep on the sidewalk outside the hotel room, I would have done it in a heartbeat. The trip was just that great. I would reiterate Trevor's thanks to the WizKids Staff for being very open and accessible, and allowing us the opportunity we had. Thanks again!

Trevor, you da man. Thanks so much for the info!

Hey guys, thanks for the kind words.

Here's some photos from the event that I forgot to post in my writeup.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8877659...7594484258921/

Trev... Those shirts ROCK! I want one or just an iron on.:laugh: :cool:

Thanks for this Trevor. :)

Excellent Trevor.

i think you took away lots of worries from those who are curious if anythings gonna happen, sounds like this was a weekend you guys wouldnt forget. must ve been a blast im sure.

I ll tell our guys thinks are to come.

Clan Ninja Beaver and WK opponents,

Looks like you had a wonderful time. Sometimes makes me sad I live so far away. Then I look at the weather reports and think better of my location choice!

I am also glad to hear that something is coming. Right now things look very bleak and the March prize list is not helping the picture (looks like floor sweepings).

And the pictures are great! Love the shirts and the party hat!