Wednesday – 20 August 2008
After work, I picked up Chris and we headed to Far West for this week’s HeroClix tourney. We played a new (for us) format: “300-Point, Floor: 50% Restricted.” This means that we had to build 300-point teams, with at least half of our force built from the latest release: Secret Invasion. Aside from Chris, we had a couple of other people show up, too: Ma’afu and Chris2, both of whom are fairly new to the game, but were pretty eager to dive in with both feet. I wasn’t sure if we would have to draft (buy a booster pack) our first 150 points; we didn’t. We were able to pick from our existing figures. This was good for me, as I had been wanting to test out a couple of figures, especially the Susan Richards figure… so I did. My team consisted of:

I played Chris2 in the first round. He brought a four-figure team:

Matt and Nano helped coach him, since it was his first real game, I think. Spider-Girl and She-Thing got up front and personal, fairly quickly. I learned that Susan Richards’ Barrier power is a great thing… especially when you want to make someone go through Hell and half of Georgia to get at you, rather than make a bee-line for your and whomp on you. And, having three characters with Outwit didn’t hurt, either. I took out Spider Girl, She-Thing and… either Nick Fury or Ringmaster (I forget which), before time ran out. Win.

Next up: Chris. *sigh* At least it wasn’t a first-round game. His team consisted of:

And he went to work. Having played a game with Chris where he used Gamora, I assessed her as the first/biggest threat. I wasn’t necessarily wrong in considering her a threat, but Doctor Strange is no slouch, either: He can see through Stealth(!) and, thanks to his team ability, is able to copy others’ team abilities. In last night’s case, he took on the Batman team ability. Gamora stepped up and wailed on Nick Fury… but, being the master spy that he is, I used his LMD ability, reducing his damage and got him out of Dodge. That still left Batman and Sue as targets, but I managed to take Gamora out before Chris’ Batman and the good Doctor took me completely out of the game. Loss.

Next up: Ma’afu. He actually said that he had been waiting to play me. I was a little surprised by the compliment – I don’t think that I’ve had someone who wanted to take me on (Take on me! I’ll… be… gone…. If you don’t taaaaaaaake….) like that. Comments like that are usually reserved for people waiting to test their mettle against Chris and his team du jour. His team consisted of:

Ma’afu also got a little sideline assistance from Matt. My first assessment: Take out Ms. Marvel. I neglected to Outwit her Hypersonic Speed in the first round, but I didn’t make that mistake again. After she punched Nick Fury (and I LMD’ed him to a far corner) I made sure that Batman and Sue didn’t let her pull a stunt like that again. Nick took out his frustrations on Gee. I should have probably felt guilty about having a WWII vet gun down a little kid, but this was war (sort of), so he was fair game. Nick’s next target: the Human Torch. It took a few rounds, but I managed to snuff him out. And that just left Ms. Marvel. I beat on her a bit, but didn’t manage to take her out before time ran out. Win.

All-in-all, coming in second to Chris wasn’t bad. And above all, it was fun.

After the game, I dropped Chris off and headed home. I had no time to tarry: SaraRules got back into town about 8:00. And, aside from needing to go to Cedar City tomorrow to do her Capstone defense, she’s back for good. (That pretty much comes under “Win,” too.) I got home a few minutes before she got there. We hung out and talked about her last few weeks in Aspen, the overall experience and bidding farewell to her former coworkers. Then she had to get a few things ready for meetings she had today.

I was completely tapped from the lack of sleep Monday night, so when the alarm went off, I turned if off and rolled over. The second alarm, was not ignored, though. We got up, observed the necessary hygiene rituals, made coffee(!) and got ready for the day.

I had planned on doing Round 3 of server inventories today. I still plan on doing that. However, the first part of my morning was spent moving Julie from her old desk to one behind mine. No rest for the wicked.

Stray Toasters

…right on to the friction of the day