Reviews

Well... the first NevCon UK has been and gone, and I have only one question for those of you who didn't turn up - why not? We had a great time. Oh well, maybe you can come to next year's event, which maybe I won't be paying for this time...

Anyway, I got into Leeds at around 2pm, 10mins to find a tourist information centre then 10mins to walk to the Golden Lion. It took about another hour or two (during which time I'd watched an episode of Rosemary & Thyme, tried to follow the route I'd wandered with Peel the previous week, and watched about half of a classic episode of Midsomer Murders) for anyone else to arrive. So, around 4:30, lordasb arrived. We met up in the hotel bar (me wondering why they had copies of the IRISH Independent in Leeds), and started on the serious business of drinking. We were midway through our second pints and looking at each others' empires when GGFR appeared, getting us mixed up momentarily. I think we were onto pint number three by the time Peel arrived with Malachi, Death Tornado and Warrior in tow. In the time we were sitting in the bar, Wayward Son, aRTee and Khan Nathen Kederek arrived. According to a few people, there were two Golden Lion hotels, prompting the now-infamous nev-wide popup Hey Nev Conners, there are two Golen Lion hotels, so if you dont see Nev Con at the one you go to, go to the other

At about 7:30, we actually got into the conference room. We spent a while writing our names on a board, later to realise it wasn't actually a whiteboard (I hope that pen came out), and our empire names to be eligible for Convention Mechs. We even foiled Peel's plan to get them in four empires by getting his friends Charley, Kate and Charlotte to write his empire names up there. After a while of wandering around aimlessly, we started playing Battletech, thanks to aRTee for bringing the miniatures. Unfortunately, it seems that Wayward contaminated the dice with the RNG virus - the number of headcappings was obscene. My GRF-1N was only hit once - to the head with a Gauss Rifle from a Daishi. However, Malachi managed to headcap the Stone Rhino within two turns with his Masakari. In fact, Malachi went on to win the tournament, beating Warrior in the finals. But then, it's not too surprising when one guy tried to charge a Masakari with a Hatchetman, and fell short by three hexes, causing Warrior to note "and that's when the Mechpilot says 'Mummy, I wet myself.'"

By the time we got around to the raffles, Kate, Airwalker, Charley and Charlotte had gone home, so of course Wayward managed to pick their names as winners of the door raffle, but since they weren't there to collect it, the prize of 100dp was given to Warrior. We then moved onto the raffles to win a Stone Rhino and 100dp. By now, Warrior had spent all his cash on drinks, so GGFR bought him five raffle tickets. Predictably, having done this, Warrior won the 100dp. Razor then won the Stone Rhino (that's an FWLM lvl5 now under the protection of Ryuken, Cult, Legion, Clan Mongoose and about five other alliances). It only remained to give out prizes for the mech tournament - Warrior managed to win another 100dp for 2nd place, Malachi winning a Pillager and $1 billion.

So, 1am - the people who lived in Leeds (Peel, DT, Razor, Capreolus, Skyly) had buggered off along with aRTee and Kederek. The remaining six of us (myself, Malachi, GGFR, lordasb, Wayward and Warrior) adjourned to the bar, before going out to find an ATM. We tried to get into a club, but they refused to let us in at half one, so we went back to the hotel bar (hooray for hotel bars staying open) to keep drinking. Wayward ended up going to bed at around 2:30am, the rest of us sitting up until about 4am before stumbling upstairs to our rooms.

And so ended the first Neveron Convention in the UK.

Warrior