Eggs to be hauled

Last minute change of plans left me with a spare Saturday to find some trouble, thankfully with a fully booked tournament calendar I could grab a ticket and head North to join the fun a Haul of eggs.

Finally my ongoing car issues were sorted so Saturday morning I hopped in the car, picked up Claire (partly out of the kindness of my heart and partly as we were heading so far from the safety of the M25 it was in case I needed someone to throw to the reavers)

A smooth run up the M1 and we were at Battlefield Hobbies. A great venue that you'll remember from my Nationals write up. (Yeah like anyone suffers reading this twice)
Best way to describe BH is it's a warehouse with unlimited tea. (In truth the place could be full of rabid wereotters and I'd be happy spend the day there as long as my mug was full).

Usual registration fun, plenty of chat, a bit of well meaning abuse, and a chance to top up my tea.

Game one. A Cooper off! Extraction versus Stef. A mirror match always has the potential to be a bit of a grind but we both took different set ups and schemes. We both got an early kill with Purple Coops blessed killing my Envy and the Red Coops Emissary killing the blessed. Shockingly neither of these scored for frame. After that the game changed gear and become more about dropping markers and weathering the storm around the extraction marker.
Last turn my Coop and Lola were paralysed and I had (thought I did) the markers down I needed so the mannequin took a pointless swing at a performer... Scoring a point for Purple Coop in frame. My idiot move was countered by an unlucky one from Stef leaving a marker just out to score end of game. The game ended in a well earned draw.

Game two. This time we had Guard the Stash. Cooper was back in the case as I'd decide to run a different Master each game. This time it was Raspi. I was up against Andy with Nico.
Because the deployment was flank I was lucky enough to secure a good position early to really unleash the filth of Raspi. Frozen heart was a life saver this game as the scary models Nico sent forward had terrifying as their main defence. One of the few times a pair hanged aren't scary is when they're sitting in the open ten inches from Raspi.
The game ended in a solid win for me (everyone was in almost as much shock as me)

Lunch. Food was provided by the venue a nice buffet the while tasty wouldn't have looked out of place at a great aunts funeral.
Painting was put out for judgement. There was two painting competitions, best three minions which have a huge amount of entries. And best painted egg, which has fewer than hoped but all of them were amazing.
I entered both and had a good nose at the other more impressive entries.

A quick walk in the sunshine to stretch my legs (I know who knew there there was sun up t'north)

On to game three, now I was sitting precariously high on a draw and a win, so I was likely in for a tough match to finish the day.
I got this in the form of fellow Dark Sphere player, captain of the fauxmads, and Angeleye's only fan. Marcus.
It had been ages since we'd played so it was cool to see how we'd both progressed. The game was recon Lucius v Marcus and considering neither of us were playing ressers the was a shocking amount of undead on the table. (Most of my available beasts are from my time playing ressers).

As expected the game was controlled by Marcus from the start but I did manage to put a few speed bumps in the road making good use of a charging emissary and a super quick Marcus.
The game ended in a win for Marcus but left me for I think the first time ever on a positive VP diff to finish a tournament, +1 is a lot better than the previous weeks -18.

As always people won things and there was clapping and raffles and all that fun. Check the rankings if you want to see the standings and things by this point in the day my brain has shut down so I just join in when other people clap. I did win some chocolate eggs and a trans Daw crew which was a pleasant surprise.

One last cuppa, a fair bit of hand shaking and working who'll be a what event next then it was back in the car, remembering to get Claire (no reavers so far but better to be safe).

All in all a great day. Lots of chat, almost enough tea, and I didn't embarrass myself (on the table anyway). Big thanks to my opponents, and to Mr Brown for running things.

Thanks for reading next up for me should be Spring Showdown (tickets still available I believe)