Cancon 2013 - Post Comp Wrap

So that's it..   as our Saffer friends would say.. 'finish und klar' (or similar)...   Cancon 2013 has been and gone. I did get to play two games on the Sunday, for one win and one loss...  but otherwise I was confined to unpiring - remarkably trouble-free, and organising - which wasn't too bad.

Final results were:
Player               Army                      Score
Aaron Russell        III/56 Khitan Liao        114
Glen Noonan          I/1b Early Sumerian       101
Ian Baxendall        IV/55 Ottoman             96
Greg Russell         IV/55 Ottoman             93
Tim Montgomery       II/3 Classical Indian     91
Andrew Card          IV/32 Romanian Frank      90
John Saunders        I/64 Early Japanese       89****
L. Greaves           IV/85 Burgundian Ord.     85****
Gerry Fallon         I/60 EAP                  83
Karl Hamlyn          IV/43 L. Hungarian        80
Michael Stone        II/64 MIR                 75
David Quilty         IV/17 Later Crusader      74
John Garvey          IV/79 Later Swiss         66
Rod Somerville       I/29 Philistine           62
Zac Russell          I/22 NKE                  61*
Anton Verster        II/80 Hunnic (Attila)     59
Chris Cameron        IV/29 Tupi                58
Craig Stevenson      IV/1 Komnenan Byz.        43*
Darren Addison       IV/64 Medieval French     32
Doug Melville        III/20 Sui Chinese        27**
Mark Lauchs          IV/83 Wars of the Roses   25***
Paul Turner          I/26 Trojan               20***

* 4 games
** 2 games
*** 5 games
**** Overseas Players

Not too bad except for the bit about wargamers being like cats, you have no sooner rounded up two, when three wander off.

I swear, if they were actual generals, they would turn up three days late for the battle, 50 miles from the right location, and missing half their army.

Regardless, we originally had 24 entries, two pulled out when they had family issues, and one couldn't get a flight from Queensland thanks to extreme weather conditions. So the first day saw odd numbers, and I took the byes to give us 20 players. Sunday saw another player arrive - and I managed to get two games in as one of the 22. Then Monday, finally, and another player had to leave early - so back to byes for me.

John G in the foreground, and me behind, showing off my new 'sea' terrain.

Everything seemed to go very smoothly, bar the draw software giving up the ghost on Sunday night with players appearing and disappearing. I managed to coax it into giving me the 5th round draw, and then it simply refused to work. The sixth round was done manually with only minor swearing and the top games more or less picked themselves.  The competition as a whole was very easy to run, despite that - and it looked like everyone had a great time.

A view of the hall.. DBMM in the centre

I can honestly say that there was not a single incident over the three days that I would characterise as bad-tempered (other than me before coffee on day 2...), and watching some of the games, it was very pleasing to see the truly gentlemanly spirit in which they were played.

A study in thought - Greg ponders, Karl in the foreground

Mark Lauchs received the Encouragement Award. The three place-getters received discount vouchers from Essex Australia (thanks Ray), and a variety of very nice prizes were supplied by Micks Metal Models (Mick Sellman), Miniature World Maker and Olympian Games (Dean Bedlington), which I handed out as round prizes  - for such things as: 3 ones for PIPS, loss of a general, opponent rolls 3 sixes for PIPS, first player in that round losing an element to a 6-1,  etc. Prizes included some Casino dice, some very nice Peter Pig scenery, and a complete Baueda Roman fort.

Going into the last game, there were at least 4 players who could have won it. Andrew Card, who was leading at that point from Glen and Aaron, went down in a crushing 25-0 defeat to Aaron (I saw his combat dice, they were truly terrible)  - and dropped out of the top runners. Tim Montgomery put up a very creditable performance with a bizarre (gimmicky) Classical Indian
that included war-wagons, artillery, superior baggage and stampeding oxen, and took 13 points from Glen's massive Sumerian army, which consigned Glen to 2nd place, and Ian Baxendall also had a smashing 25-0 win in the last to leapfrog some other very strong contenders.

One of the really nice things was the variety of armies that did well..  so while mounted armies were popular, a solid Sumerian pike army was second, and it was great to see we had the Alpha and Omega of DBMM armies present, in having the first and last lists played..  Book 1 list 1 (Early Sumerian) to Book 4 list 85 (Burgundian Ordonnance).

The only thing I would do differently is re-write the draw software so that it works even when people can only play some days of the comp, and quite possibly make the 3 day comp, five games only. This would give plenty of time for presentations and the like on the final day for a more leisurely finish. Our last game was somewhat rushed, as some of the players had planes
to catch and services had been badly affected by monsoonal rains and flooding. So I think it might be a good idea to review whether 6 games are necessary when the field is only 24 players.

And thanks to Michael Stone for some piccies...

Artistic, John G's hand moving some Swiss Blade up to Michael's Romans.