3rd Place, Wrap Up and All Things Canberra

Game 7 vs Brides of Nuffle (Amazons)

My final game was against Ian “DoubleSkulls” Williams, famed UK ex-pat and scourge of the Blood Bowl world and I am happy to say I absolutely decimated his Amazons.  Having said that though, my Dwarves have a natural advantage over Amazons as there dodging abilities are nullified by my tackle skills and hence his team lost a lot of its potency.  He received; I swarmed, did a lot of damage to his team, took the ball off him and scored in only 4-5 turns.  He only had 8 players left, and it was all downhill from there.

He played dirty (because he had too) and killed one of my Longbeards with a foul, he also had hired a wizard who fireballed and badly hurt my runner as he was streaking away for what would have been my 2^nd score, but it was still mainly one sided… I guess I can credit Ian’s ability that he only kept the score to 2-0.

Having said that, I took maximum points (6) in the final round and gave myself the very best chance of winning.  Results had to go my way and both other games that had an impact on the final standings were initially looking like going in my favour with the underdogs doing very well.

Because my game finished so early, I browsed the retailers and attended an auction of gaming stuff and generally kept away from the boards because I didn’t want to hover.  When I came back though, both games had turned and the two coaches I didn’t want to win were winning comfortably.  In the end, I got 3^rd place and I am ecstatic about that.  CanCon was my first ever tournament playing to win (the first was Eucalyptus Bowl which I half attended with Halflings) and to play in front of the very best players between Melbourne and Townsville was a great experience.

My final record – 5 wins, a draw and a loss.  I actually came tied for second, but lost on the sportsmanship tie breaker (see the post to come behind this one).

Prizes:  Coming 3^rd gave me third pick from a selection of three teams.  This is a prize worth $70-90 depending on foreign exchange rate as new miniatures are only available from the US or UK.  There was a Necromantic team, and a Elf team and third choice was a choice of any of the ShadowForge range of miniatures.  First and Second place took the two Games Workshop teams and I was left to choose from the Shadow Forge range which I was very happy about.  Shadowforge is a Melbourne company that specialises in fantasy and military miniatures but the twist is the miniatures are all female.  They do “Gridiron” teams and they make great Blood Bowl figures.  I thought about it and whilst I think the female Orc team is a great novelty, I actually have two Orc teams already, so I took the female Elf team.  In my opinion, these are the best looking miniatures going around.  I have seen a couple of these guys painted up beautifully and they look fantastic.  Very happy.  I also got a little Bronze Dragon statue trophy as well.

Other prizes were given out as well, and I came 2^nd in the Individual Miniature painting comp with my Grim Ironjaw figure.  I was not even going to enter, but did so only because of the encouragement of others and came 2^nd by a single vote.  Very stoked.  Also my Hyperpitch Board was 2^nd in the “Custom Board” category but there was a strong protest vote because I had actually bought it rather than make it… I was going to give the prize to the guy who won anyway as I knew I didn’t deserve it.  However I got a lot of good ideas over the weekend and I am going to plan to do something with it to customise it some more… goal posts, team logos, etc etc…

There were lots of other prizes for wooden spoon, most touchdowns by a single player, most casualties done by a team etc etc but I wasn’t in the hunt for those.  In all, I have to say the organiser (Babs) did a great job and the sponsors put up a lot of gear to win.

Other Stuff:  Picked up a couple of half price D&D books as well and watched the auction and made some losing bids at some stuff, but wasn’t very serious about it.  Picked up a free roll of Citadel Miniatures grass matting (which is what my board is made of) because it was slightly damaged.  It retails for $45 so that was a very big bargain.  Next year I will be more prepared for the retailing side of the convention as there are some very big bargains to be had, but it is mostly cash only and a bit of a barter system.

Niki & The Girls had a wonderful time as well, and after I finished up yesterday at about 2pm, I went to meet them at the Big Splash water park at Belconnen.  They had been there since 10:30am and had not left the pool and slides.  I took Kate up on the big water slide and whilst she went up the stairs and came back down twice, she did eventually go down it.  First go was in tandem with me, but then she was into it big time and we couldn’t get her off it.  We stayed until nearly 5pm and then started the big drive home – and we got home around 9:30pm but we did stop for an hour for dinner on the way.  Also, the girls toured Questacon and Telecom Tower and did all sorts of other stuff and add in the Australia Day fireworks and it was all good for them.

Bring on CanCon 2007.