From my starting five, My Hero Academia performed by far the best, ending 1st by a wide margin in the overal season ranking.  For the rest, the results can all be seen below:

 

My Hero Academia: 1st place, almost thrice the points of the second place contender...

Tomodachi: Bit of a let down, coming in only at spot 23

Saigo ni Hitotsu: A solid 2nd place, this yielded a good points haul as well

Watashi wo Tabetai: Solid midfielder whom brought home an 11th spot

Ranma 1/2: Swapped out in the final week, the series ended in the 6th place

 

And my initial bench pickings came in with the following results, in a course to end within the top XX % of this edition:

 

Gintanama: a good on and off anime for this season, which ended 12th during the whole run

My Status as an Assassin: Swapped in pretty early once it aired, it ended 4th, only dropping out of the top 3 in the final week

Disney Twisted Wonderland: Never having to use this, it also stranded on a lowly 40th place due to it's late airing time within the season

 

 

Week 1: 115054 pts, 395 th place, succesfully aced My Hero Academia

Week 2: 299396 pts, 466 th place, succesfully aced Saigo ni Hitotsu

Week 3: 259616 pts, 255 th place, swapped Tomodachi for Gintanama, 

Week 4: 743041 pts, 226 th place, swapped Watachi no Tabetai for Asassin, succesfully aced Assassin

Week 5: 882916 pts, 276 th place

Week 6: 995752 pts, 360 th place 

Week 7: 1291141 pts, 307 th place 

Week 8: 1465692 pts, 173 th place, succesfully aced Ranma

Week 9: 1725586 pts, 129 th place, swapped Gintanama for Tomodachi, succesfully aced Tomodachi

Week 10: 1993931 pts, 271 th place 

Week 11: 2106014 pts, 331 th place 

Week 12: 2386646 pts, 251 th place , swapped Tomodachi for Hitodenashi, succesfully aced Hitodenashi

Week 13: 2963150 pts, 244 th place,  swapped Ranma for Gintanama, succesfully aced Gintanama

 

So, we strand within the top 1% this run, quite a nice result, mainly achieved thanks to the swapping and acing game this quarter.  Something I did notice though against the regular trends, are that sequel series performed really well, not only My Hero Academia, which was a no-brainer to take.  Anime's like Kingdom or Uma Musume really scored high this quarter, while usually there is a drop-off in the sequels, and why I steered clear of them mostly.  

 

 

And also the first time daddy was flashing his Diamond Pass around like a real dandy *sigh*.  Yeah dad, I know you have a yearpass, you told me, a million times...

 

It was a nice wintery day (nothing nice about cold I say though),  as it hovered around the 3 degrees all day and all the small ponds where even frozen over.  The large lake wasn't though... otherwise I would have returned there and then and let those old peeps shivver their teeth out!

 

As we arrived around midday, daddy decided it was first time for coffee!  Or fries, as I don't drink coffee yet.

 

Not every attraction was open in the park to start with as a section has been closed for renovations, and some opened later due to the weather.  But El Paso Special, that legendary interactive western dark ride shooter was open, and I love myself some fun dark rides!  So of we went for a trip through the wild west!

 

 Daddy had read that if it was your birthday, you would get a special treatment.  So after waiting in line for 20 minutes, she got this cool button, look at how happy she is with it!  (Word from dad here: we found out later that if you show your ID on the actual birthday, like Noshi's was, you are allowed free entrance.  Something we need to remember for next year).

 

But then in the afternoon the best attraction opened, the boat ride, so I went in immediatly... twice in a row, as the lovely lady allowed me to sit for an additional tour!

 

The Winter Parade passed by, and it had some very lovely figures.  We even saw it pass by twice as we took the lake pontoon to the other side and saw it again.  The fun thing is some even recognised me later in the park due to my Mickey Mouse hat!  So fun, and I shared a lot of high fives and fingertip connections.

 

The "Dromers van Droodal" was a great storytelling moment, and they even performed magic with lighted up fingers, certainly a show I followed really attentively! 

 

In Santa's Village, I did some special missions with the elves, like calling the reindeers, spreading christmas magic and go on the picture with Selfie the Elf, though dad really insisted he joined me for some reason.

 

And then I got to meet none other then Santa Claus himself!

 

It was then time for the big spectacle of the day, as the christmas tree will be lighted in the park.  In the Santa Fe village, a huge tree stands at the center, and the Lord of Light himself comes to illuminate it for everyone to enjoy! 

 

The park was decorated with over 500 smaller christmas trees as well, and a very lovely gangway full of lights and minor touches all round to make it look wintery.   The fact it wasn't to busy at all made it extra cosy, and a fun afternoon out, we spend about 6 hours there and did a few attractions, but mostly enjoyed the shows and parade which where specific to this event.

 

And daddy grabbed a pin as always, this time going for the El Paso Special one as I love the ride so much.

 

 

 

 

 

 Time to try and get another game running at the club, and this event was all about Middle-earth.

 

 

A small scale affair to "test the waters", I set the points at 500 with maximal 1 Hero of the highest level allowed.  

 

As I was the reserve player, and need time for book keeping as well between round, I prepared myself an army consisting of (part of) The Fellowship, because 6 models play faster then 40... so Aragorn (with bow), Legolas, Gimli, Boromir (with shield), Merry and Pippin came along with me.

 

  

Now, the event itself had a nice 8 seats filled out of the 12 I made available, including myself as the reserve player as we had some last moment cancellations and no-shows, something inert at organising events.

 

Oh well, that means apart from second breakfast, there was third breakfast as well... 

 

And as such, the tables set up, pairings where guided to prevent people of the same gaming group facing in round 1, and off we went for 3 games of Middle-earth!

 

 My first game, the for me impossible Domination, saw me face The Easterlings of Tim (yes, I made a deployment mistake here, corrected in the following games as it would have actually helped me had I deployed correctly) led by Amdur.  Who with his special rule was bad news for Aragorn and Boromir.  This resulted in a 17-4 defeat on my part.

 

In the other games, the Easterlings drew against the Expedition in the East, Thranduil defeated Thorin's Company, and Angmar bit the dust against the Balrog. 

  

The second round put me against Mats and his Expedition to the East in the Fog of War scenario, and this was a far closer affair, as he found his treasure, and barely escaped by half an inch of losing his targetted scenery piece, making it a 10-6 defeat for the Fellowship.

  

Other results this round saw both Easterling forces fail, respectively against Thranduil and against the Balrog, while Thorin's Company went under versus Angmar.

 

In the final round, I faced "support crew" Andy and his Thorin's Company.  Both had only 6 models (well, technically I had 4, as I kept the hobbits far away) in a bout of To the Death.  But Aragorn proved to be the better swordsman over Thorin, and in the end I won 18 to 3, saving some grace...

     
 

In a civil war, Tim's Easterlings defeated Heikki's, the Expedition to the East lost to the forces of Angmar and Thranduil had to recognise his superior in the Balrog. 

 

As the dust settled over the fields of battle, it was time for the awards ceremony, and here are the full results.

 

1. Glenn - Moria - 9 points, 42 VP's

  

2. Sam - Angmar - 6 points, 32 VP's

 

3. Tim - Easterlings - 6 points, 30 VP's

4. Niels - Thranduil - 6 points, 29 VP's

 

5. Mats - Expedition - 4 points, 24 VP's, and winner of the Participation Raffle, which he handed to Niels 

6. Tomsche - Fellowship - 3 points, 28 VP's

7. Heikki - Easterlings - 1 point, 10 VP's

 

8. Andy - Thorin's - 0 points, 5 VP's, and winner of the Wooden Spoon price.

 

We also had all participants vote on best painted, and the result here was pretty overwhelming.  Out of a maximum to be had of 14 points, Heikki scored 11 points, and was a clear winner.

 

To give an idea, second place only managed 3 points (meaning the field was pretty close together on a painting level for the rest), and was shared by 3 people: Niels, Mats and myself.

  
 

But so the day ended with a happy crowd and a cozy little tournament, and my job was done to introduce the club to the wonderfull game of MESBG... or was it...

 

BECAUSE, of course, peer pressure.  We wanted to pass the torch to organise a second edition next year, but I understand you need to be a special kind of cookie to want to run tournaments.  Okay, in the case of Andy we are talking a big box of special cookies.  But while I at first didn't have plans, I let myself be convinced and as such:

 

See you there! 

 

Disclaimer: thanks to the participants that shared pictures in the event group, I happily used them for some more eyecandy in the report.