CanCon and Warhammer ahoy

Another January, another CanCon. This year I spent it in close company with Reilly and Slowpainter John, enjoying the hustle and bustle.  Caught up with a broad range of fine folks - I always enjoy these annual reunions, though a few of the usual suspects were conspicuously absent (you know who you are!)

Among the great goodies on offer, the 6th edition Warhammer tournament caught my attention with some wonderful eye catching armies:

Thoroughly inspiring, and yes I did go immediately to the bring and buy and acquire some old school metal Warhammer Black Orcs...

See you next year CanCon!

January Gaming + CanCon

Great times with good friends

Looking back on my January hobby month I was struck by the variety of games I have played, many of which were new to me, and all of which were big, multiplayer games. And also that I kept getting invited too :-)

General d'Armee (2 x 2 players) French vs Anglo-Spanish
My first foray with these rules, hosted by Aled and his father Dean, which I really enjoyed.  Slowpainter John and I ended up facing off on an action packed flank and it came right down to the wire.

Slaughterloo (3 x 3 players)
This fun game is a tongue in cheek Napoleonic big battle in a fantasy setting - good fun but also very god rules which would work equally well for historical games. All sorts of mixups and mayhem, and we converged on Slowpainter John's Orc Guarde in the Centre with a singular purpose - and tough buggers they were too!  Postscript: John has never played in the central position since!

The Battle lines are Drawn!

The Advance to contact!

The last stand of John's Orc Guarde - sandwiched between my Flank attack and Marty's Cavalry charge

Dragon Rampant (4 x 4 players, but with a twist!)
A return to our Foulwarren fantasy campaign when I hosted the guys at mine for a big 4 v 4 player Battle Royale on a 12 x 5 table.  But one of them was a traitor, and just didn't know it yet...  I'll write up and post the scenario later but it was an awesome 'toys on the table' mega game

Three Quarters of the table (and players!)- I had to take this pic through the window from outside

The wearing of Hawaiian shirts and a fez earned players additional army build points!

Kaiser's Pirates
We played this GMT game at the club a few times actually.  The theme is really well executed and the resource management is quite dynamic. With 3 or 4 players this really hits a sweet spot.  Now to find my own copy (its OOP).

Congo
I enjoy Studio Tomahawk games and their innovative mechanics but hadn't tried this before. Cub mate Mac shared his lovely terrain and figs with me for an introductory game one club night and I really enjoyed it (and not just because my Tribesmen War Party cleaned up his cursed Zanzibari Slavers!).  I really liked the multi-layered resource management that the game uses bu without slowing play pace, and most of all it felt like an adventure not a scenario.  A game I am definitely interested in playing more, and maybe making a warband for.

And then to top it off, a bunch of us did a road trip to CANCON and had a cracking hobby day out. Good times indeed!

Working Hard vs Hardly Working!

The fourth Annual catch-up: thanks for organising Barks!

So thanks indeed to all the club lads and lasses for their companionship, time, and sharing their wonderful toys.  A most memorable summer of fun gaming.  It comes at expense of AHPC painting time, but I'll choose gaming with friends over a brush any day :-)

CANCON meet up this weekend

2019 Aussie Bloggers CanCon Catch-up this coming weekend - now in its fourth iteration!

If you run a wargaming blog then come along and say g'day, meet old friends and new, tell us what you've bought and lament your dice rolls.

Sunday 27th January 2019
11:30am
Coorong Pavilion (Top Hall) by the Bolt Action tournament

See you there!

CanCon - Part 2: The Confession

The CanCon pile of shame - but in fairness it mostly came from the second hand stall and in any case I'm buying for two right? right!

A boy and his loot

Given our current foray into FIW using Sharp Practice 2 - I got some nice tokens and this mdf set by Battlefield miniatures to track Force morale and display the Command cards as they are drawn (Yes Alan, I got a set for you too!)

Various bits for Dragon Rampant.  I wasn't planning to get a new goblin army but fate intervened, as it does...

Gorgeous, but not worth painting points so these will have to wait until AHPC VII is over!

A new modular river system was on my to get list (I'm still using a temporary one I scratch built 20 odd years ago on cardboard and the years have not been so kind) so I felt comfortable in splashing out to get this set.  With some flock, tufts and a little bit of extra detailing, these can look fantastic.

I also got a few nice Weird WW2 goodies - some Konflikt 47 Armoured Infantry and a trio of these great MG toting Soviet Gorillas from Eureka Miniatures.

Didn't find anyone selling nice gaming mats (which was strange) so I'll have to go elsewhere to update my veteran and now dying one.  Strangely, there was a lack of diversity in the trade stalls I thought.  I did pick up a half dozen pluck foam trays though, so that will help protect all this figures I am painting in the Challenge.

Well those are the highlights, though there was lots of other hobby detritus in the bags(s).  Enough to tide us over for a bit :-)

CanCon 2017 - Part 1

Another year and another CanCon, so Reilly and I made the trip from Sydney to check out the goodies and catch up with friends:

We met up with a bunch of bloggers, including:

Comrade James of the Man Cave!
Blue Willow of Kampfgruppe Willow
Barks of Wargaming with Barks
Millsy of Canister and Grape
Kaptain Kobold of The Stronghold Rebuilt
Trail Ape of Trail Ape's Wargames
Patch from AHPC VII

Unfortunately, many could not attend the meet up due to other commitments (like gaming!), and there were some noticeable absences from CanCon which made this year's pic a little smaller than last year.


We then caught up with some old friends and lead pushers including:
John and Ian from War and Peace Games
Nic R of Eureka Models
Mike P of Battlefield Miniatures
Jimmi from Flashpoint Miniatures

Reilly: taller than me and catching up to Comrade James too!

And met a whole bunch of guys from the Epic Forums whom I have been "chatting with" for well over a decade (closer to two) but had never met in person - that was very cool.

Barks with his new Norse Blood Bowl team 

Naturally, I bought too much stuff (pile of shame pics to follow) mostly from the second hand trade stall to support our current club Dragon Rampant campaign.  Fantasy hasn't been my thing in the past so some inventory holes needed filling, plus I was buying for two.  Justification complete.

Saw some nice terrain and models about the place - probably another post to follow with those as well

Here is Comrade James' brand new 88 on the table during the BA tournament, lining up a shot on a doomed Matilda

Best part of the adventures was a Day 2 thrown down between Lad and Dad using Bolt Action 2.0, being kindly demonstrated by the Demo Gamers (http://thedemogamers.blogspot.com.au/).  Dave and his boys Peter and James are staunch supporters of the hobby are are inevitably seen at every show patiently explaining the rules and sharing their toys.  They also kindly develop excellent indexes for Warlord's BA series of games, which are available at their blog.

The young Dick Winters with James from "the Demo Gamers"

After watching Band of Brothers with me for the first time recently, Reilly was keen to play US Airborne.  So he grabbed the US forces to play against me as the German commander as we fought over a church and some crossroads in a meeting engagement on a lovely late war winter table.

Started well for me, moving up to capture the church and threaten the crossroads with a Vet squad in a corner building.This got ugly over subsequent turns as two of my squads got chewed up in there in close combat, leaving it in US hands

Reilly moves up paras on the other side to threaten the church

My Panzer IV rolls on - but Hans has to go back to Panzer school after failing to hit *anything* all game :-)
That squad then entered the building and got pummelled into nothingness by the Sherman's HE shells

One thing that went right for me- a flank marching Vet squad comes in from the left to disprupt the Americans, wiping our an infantry squad, a bazooka team and isolating the US Platoon Commander.  Before they got wiped out themselves. 

The exciting conclusion as the crossroads become the focal point.  Alas, my last 3 infantrymen were then gunned down and Reilly won both Objectives at the end of turn 6 - a well deserved win.

A fun two days down in Canberra with Reilly - very social catching up with lots of people.  Cant help but think that there was a lack of diversity between traders though - I wanted some resin terrain and some new autumn coloured trees but such things were not on offer.  Not that I went home empty handed, but I thought there was a noticeable absence of diversity of hobby accessories etc.  Well, the ones I wanted anyway.

It was also two days without a brush in hand - back to the AHPC VII projects!