Cancon 2020 Aftermath - Part 1

So after all the fuss about raging bushfires, damaging hail and the various other signs of the apocalypse that have been this Australian summer, the trip to Cancon ended up going pretty smoothly. The weather was relatively mild (especially compared to last year, which basically had me trying to play game 3 curled up the fetal position), there was little to no smoke whilst we were up there, and the long drive was uneventful. Of course Canberra was on fire the day before we arrived, and again immediately after we left. It was good of the fires to pause so we could all attend a convention and play with toy soldiers...

I survived the tournament, and somehow took over 300 photos on my phone. I'm sure I'll be able to weed my way through them to keep these posts manageable, but it seems like one game per post will be the way to go.

I posted previously about my list, but here it is again for convenience:

League of Rhordia (2000 points)

• Horde of Honour Guard with Indomitable Will
• Horde of Honour Guard with Indomitable Will
• Regiment of Knights
• Regiment of Knights
• Regiment of Knights
• Regiment of Halfling Archers
• Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez
• Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez
• Baron on Aralez
• Mammoth

(I warn you now that the Dukes on Ancient Winged Aralez are likely to be referred to as "birbs" for much of the report, as that is how we were talking about them all weekend. I can't get it out of my head. I'm sorry...)

I didn't quite get everything finished before the tournament, but my efforts the night before the event ensured the halflings were at least not obviously incomplete. That was about the best that could be hoped for. Anyway, on with the report!

Game 1 - Smoke and Mirrors

Tim Stewart - Kingdoms of Men

• Horde of Polearms with Indomitable Will
• Horde of Polearms with Indomitable Will
• Horde of Polearms with Indomitable Will
• Regiment of Polearms
• Troop of Knights
• Mammoth
• Mammoth
• Giant
• General on Winged Beast
• General on Winged Beast
• Army Standard Bearer with Lute of Insatiable Darkness
• Hero on Pegasus with Indomitable Will

For once I know exactly what was in my opponent's list, because I printed it myself. And they're my models. Tim was in fact the only practice game I played with my army before the event, so it was a little funny to find ourselves matched up again in the first round.

Ah, this won't be confusing at all... Look how samey it all looks! You can see the hidden objective markers scattered all over the place. It's an interesting scenario. Each player only knows the value of the tokens that they placed on the other half of the field (they vary from 2 down to dummies with 0), and each player reveals one at the end of each turn.

Time is running out

In the proud tradition of tournament preparation, I am running out of time in the lead-up to Cancon. The tournament starts on the 25th, and we'll be driving up the day before. That's 10 days from now, which would be a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, I'll be away on a separate trip immediately before that. So realistically my last chance to get any tournament preparation will be this coming Friday - 3 days away.

Friday is also the deadline for lists to be submitted, so I guess I will have a final chance to assess what I have left to do and adjust my plans accordingly. In the meantime, this is what I'm planning on taking...

League of Rhordia (2000 points)

• Horde of Honour Guard with Indomitable Will
• Horde of Honour Guard with Indomitable Will
• Regiment of Knights
• Regiment of Knights
• Regiment of Knights
• Regiment of Halfling Archers
• Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez
• Duke on Ancient Winged Aralez
• Baron on Aralez
• Mammoth

So that's it, I have a list. The downside is that I currently only have 8 painted Halflings. That's 12 short. I've started work on another 10, but they have a long way to go. At least they're short...

The other problem is that I don't currently have proper models for Ancient Winged Aralez. I could cheat and use griffons, but I'd have to rebase a pair of them onto correct bases, and it would be cheating. I need some proper winged doggies. So that's my main focus right now.

I had 2 partly assembled Thunderwolves that I bought second-hand years ago at Cancon. So I set about turning those into the models I needed.

The wings for this one were printed for me. I think they're from some sort of flying lion from the Titan-Forge Patreon.

New year update (everything is on fire)

So we're into a new year, and the blog is not yet dead! I know better than to make bold new year resolutions, but things are still ticking along.

The Goblin campaign has resulted in me getting a moderate amount of painting done, which is an improvement on how things were going beforehand. I posted previously about the first batch of squigs I got done. I then had to try to rush through another group and some handlers before the report in which I needed them. The squigs are basically done apart from static grass, but the handlers range from being about 80% done (the ones I needed for the game) through to 50% or less. Who know when I will actually get around to finishing these guys, or the remaining pile of partly painted squigs and mountain of undercoated squig hoppers...

Squigs, handlers and random assorted things in various states of completion. The pile of night goblins  behind the squigs was actually started for the campaign battle before I realised I was being too ambitious and cut them from the queue.

The Gob-off Interlude 2 - Mork save us!

The holiday period and Cancon preparations have kind of put our Gob-off on hold, but here is a bit of an explanation of what happened to Mush and Room after our last game...

Mush drifted. He didn't know for how long. He felt nothing. He could see nothing. And yet, somehow, everything felt kind of... green.