Northern Tempest presents Marton Melee. A tournament report.

Today the northern tempest crew were out in force at Marton where Joe was running a mini Melee. There was a nice mix of new and old hands there; some having played years and some who were playing for the first time. The venue was Rebel base gaming out in Marton, Cheshire, a lovely venue with a café next door that make some amazing food which as we all know is a very important factor for us wargamers.

So for this event, there were 12 players with a full range of armies represented.

Paul C brought his fearsome Irish with which he won SAGAGEDDON 1 in Liverpool

Daneel S was there with Byzantines

Sam C made the room shiver with his Pagan Rus

Joe with his nutters. Sorry, Mutatawwi’a

I (Jim) was rocking the Welsh

Richard M played Scots

The man known only as Ken arrived with Anglo-Danes

Chris A fielded Capetian Franks

Andy L opted for Saracens

Steve H was storming with Normans

David B arrived with Anglo-Saxons

Mark decided upon Jomsviking

So for the first Game, it was a clash of warlords. Straight forward scrap. The scoring allowed 5 points for a win, 3 points for a draw, 1 point for a loss, but if you managed to score 10 points or more you gained a second point. No extra points for killing warlords etc. An extra point could be gained for being voted as “best sporting player” to encourage friendly play.

I played David with his Anglo-Saxons. We deployed heavy terrain and David won the roll-off to go first and pushed up. We had 6 turns of cat and mouse and a few good combats with a lot of shooting mixed in. David played well, trapping a few of my units and bringing the might of the Saxons down on them. I just managed to get a win, 23-6, as I played a very aggressive last two turns. David got my best sports as a true gent and brand new with Saxons, so best of luck.

Joe played Ken for a draw, and Chris played Sam where he won but Sam fought back enough to take a second point.

Game 2 was Claiming territory

For this game I was placed against Joe. We both placed objective and deployed to hold them early, as the game began I made a move to contest one of his and fortified my own, this gave me a slim lead which I maintained as the game went back and forth. I managed to free up one of his objectives mid-game but my warlord paid the ultimate price – one of his hearthguard screamed Allahu Akbar and both models died. I may have been grumpy at this stage. I decided to make myself feel better with an attack and killed a unit Joe had moved up to block me from scoring. Joe charged in to rescue the situation but it all went wrong. Joe called it on turn 4 as I was winning 22-10 and scoring max each turn.

Chris played Daneel getting himself a win there with Daneel pulling back 2 points. At 16-19 that was a very close game though.

The final game saw me play Richard with his Scots in Old feud. I chose the Brute and Richard opted for the soldier. I “won” the first turn in which I couldn’t use any abilities so passed it over to Richard. This was a very cagey game. I know Richard is a very talented and crafty player so to underestimate him would cost me dearly and this was the last round. We chipped away at each other but we were both in good positions, I set up for a big attack turn 5 as Richard pushed hard at the end of turn 4 but the game ended following the roll of a 1 as a 4-3 draw. Joe played Mark where he lost 20-10 and Chris lost 38-11 to Andy

With that, we concluded the event and all that was left was to fill out the standings and award the prizes.

The best sport was Ken, who managed the amazing feat of being the favourite of 4 players in 3 games. I believe a fan club may be in order.

Overall the ranks were as follows

1^st place with yet another immaculate list was Andy rocking out 15 points

2^nd place was me (Jim) with 14 points

3^rd was Chris with 13 points

4^th place Daneel on 12 points

5^th was Sam also on 12 but slightly lower on tie break

6^th was Ken with his charismatic gameplay and 11 points in the bag

7^th was David also with 11 points but behind on tiebreak

8^th was held by both Richard and Paul who had managed to be neck and neck on every point going. A titanic clash between these gentlemen is in the future. Both were equal on 11 points and all tiebreakers. Theirs shall be a rivalry to write new SAGA’s about

10^th place was Mark with 9 points

11^th goes to Joe with a respectable 7 points

12^th the Lantern rouge was Steve with a close 6 points and ready to fight on.

Best presented list which I may invest in prizes for goes to Andy with Steve also presenting a nice list.

All in all another great SAGA event with more on the way and a wave of new players. SAGA is in a great place right now and with yet another book out there is always something to get people involved with. Don’t forget I will be collecting results off people’s games worldwide this month so please feel free to message the Facebook page and let me know or tweet to me on @NTempest1016 or on the saga forum. Let’s get connected and see who’s out there. If you got this far then thank you and I will post more as my UNI course permits. It is the last year this year so my time will be mostly spent writing for that. Thanks again. Jim