Clan Review: Big Fat B*stards

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Back in 2003 when Battlefield 1942 was as popular as Pirates of the Caribbean, a trio of gamers decided to start a clan. Uziel, Nettron and Gruesome, all had one idea in mind — the best BF1942 team in the country.

At the time of creation, the players were really good at infantry, however they lacked flying and armour abilities – leaving them with the need to recruit more players. And so the team slowly but surely filled the gaps. The Big Fat B*stards were born.

After four years of running the team Gruesome and Nettron decided to step down from their high-horse leaving the squad in the hands of ChaosADPumpkinhead and Razer0.

Once the founders stepped down, the change in management saw Trevor “qu1k_sh0t” Henry joining up with Andrew “Zobol” Stapleton to create a Call of Duty 4 team which placed third in the first Battle of the Clans CoD4 Competition in 2008.

To date =BFB= holds 40 members where 30 of these are active on a daily basis. Following this the clan holds competitive teams in Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Call of Duty 4 where they often joke around in Team Fortress 2 and Quake Live. At the moment BFB holds two CoD 4 teams and one Bad Company 2 team.

The Teams

Team laRd (retired)

• qu1k_sh0t” Henry
• Andrew “d3tox” Deacon
• Andrew “xiR” Harper
• Dane “Jax” Hamilton
• Greg “Bambi’s Revenge” Ireland

Team muPtarDs

• Andrew “d3tox” Deacon
• Rudi “buggerthat” Engelke
• Craig “CrAiGiSh” Dodd
• Dane “Jax” Hamilton
• Andre “Perinandos” Van Rooyen
• Nick “Darkness” Hardwick
• Jerome “nwoRb” Brown

Team TuBBeH

• Justin “SluggyJ” Robinson
• Etienne “Bonta” Engelbrecht
• Michael “Commander VB” Joubert
• Craig “CrAiGiSh” Dodd
• Mikal “johN” van Dyk
• Danny “OverFiend” Niemandt
• Andre “Perinandos” Van Rooyen
• Flippie “Sub_FuZe” Moolman
• Rogan “5abre” Mocke
• Andrew “d3tox” Deacon
• Ryan “Dogpilot-Playdoe” van der Linden
• Sam “Pandemikkk” Feinstein
• Ewan “Reaper870330″ Teijlingen

Team cHunKy

• Michael “Pie” Reiche
• Greg “Bambi’s Revenge” Ireland
• Rynier “Cranky” Schoeman
• Mikal “johN” van Dyk
• Jonathan “Lambda” Glenday
• Grant “Hypocr1sy” Macwilliam
• Stephen “SoloBoom” Lockhart

Most Recent Results

=BFB= said that they do not focus on results as they’d rather play to enjoy the game. However, there are a few results worth mentioning:

Team laRd

Competition and League Results

• 1st AGASA 2008 Division 1 League Leg 1
• 3rd BOTCv1
• 4th – 8th Quarter Finals rAge 2008
• 6th AGASA 2008 Premiere League Leg 2
• 3rd November Vendetta Lan
• 3rd November OC Lan
• 4th doGaming 2009 Premier League Leg 3
• 1st Logitech One Night Cup
• 2nd rAge doGaming Championship 2009
• 3rd – 4th Brazen One Night Cup

Team muPtarDs

Competition and League Results

• Promoted from AGASA League Division 2 to AGASA League Division 1 (2008)

Five or so years after creation, the team went through a tough time when ChaosADPumpkinhead decided to leave the squad, taking a few players with him. It was said that the team could not seem to find the correct path forward, and this left the clan with one option — splitting up. Those who stayed behind quickly fell under Trevor “qu1k_sh0t” Henry’s management.

For interest sake: the 10 players who left the squad decided to form a team called Bound By Honour (BBH). The name seems to be true, as they left the team with honour — following their leader.

Despite BFB’s near death experience, Trevor pressed hard with the remaining players where he scored a sponsorship for the 2009 year. With the sponsorship the team practiced hard, and battled even harder — leaving their team with a second place finish at rAge 2009.

And as previously stated, the commitment from the remaining BFB players allowed the team to grow from a single team to 30 active players per day.

To date the clan is run by Trevor, who now works for Incredible Connection – one of the team’s initial sponsors. Trevor scored the job by producing good gaming-related information for the company, and since then the retailer has grown to love gaming. Incredible Connection now runs a project called Gaming Inc — an idea dedicated to helping gamers.

On the topic of sponsors, =BFB= were previously backed by Incredible Connection, Logitech, Samsung, Acer and Gigabyte where they tried to introduce them into the world of gaming. While they did receive a few freebies, their aim was to show the local firms that there is a market in gaming. At the moment, =BFB= promotes various companies at free-will for the greater good of the community.

Big Fat B*stards is not sponsored, however they said that if they go more formal they’d look for stable sponsors. But until then they are focusing on community growth which they find to be very important.

Trevor said that “people need to step back a few steps and looking at competitive gaming as a whole, [because] over and over I see players expecting the world cause they won a few leagues online, and [they are] wanting to get all sorts of sponsorships.” And we all know it doesn’t work that way.

He added that “in order for any of us to be able to grow this scene some more business sense needs to be injected into the gaming market.”

Whether or not this means tournaments or company-based gaming — we’re yet to find out. But to grow gaming, Trevor believes that there needs to be a larger player-base with more potential for better competition and more exposure.

In the future =BFB= are planning all sorts of changes to what they have to offer, and this could include: a new site, different games on a competitive level, and even the possible chance of a Multi-Gaming Organisation — a popular topic in South Africa at the moment.

Trevor said that =BFB= isn’t worried about fame or fortune, they are focusing on fun at the moment. But when the time is right, they’ll be there to fight.

On that note, =BFB= has never focused on hardcore competition, instead they went for hardcore friendship. The friendship from playing together has grown the team from strength to strength as they started to understand and flow with each other in game, allowing them to win with co-ordination and teamwork – not luck.

eGamer Overview

BFB is a team which plays casually to not only create friendships and contacts, but also better the community. They have created opportunities for players and companies to be involved in something greater than the usual online experience.

The Big Fat team has offered sponsors a path into gaming, and they’ve achieved this by being friendly and business orientated, opposed to aggressively-hardcore wanting to break every opponent in half before the game even starts.

BFB has an interesting outlook to the gaming world and their commitment to stay alive after a near break-up experience is admirable, as many would have called it a day and moved on.

While many might think that BFB is a clan based on fun and friendship only, you’ll need to know that they’ve scored large sponsorships, and they seem to have a pretty little trophy cabinet too.