Arcanacon 2008
Jan. 29th, 2008 07:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Arcanacon is over for another year, which means that I can start thinking about all the things I've put on hold for the last couple of months... first, though, it's worth taking a look back at what's happened so far.
Wednesday: Recieved an email from my co-organiser, telling me he couldn't make it down from Sydney for the weekend. With no second judge, that meant I'd be covering the Warmachine/Hordes Nationals event solo, and would also have to run the Monday event - which ruled out going to Golgotha on Sunday night. I'll get you next time, nightclub...
Thursday:
aeliel made a display board for the Purple Mantis stock that would be on sale at the convention, while I frantically finished off a painting commission job. I printed off scorecards and player packs, and tried to make sure I was up to date on the latest rules changes. With an active community of players (over twenty thousand on the forums) and a full time rules team, the game rules are as watertight and unambiguous as any system I've ever played... as a rules judge, though, it's a hell of a lot of reading material to brush up on.
Friday: Finally finished painting the last few models. Went to Collingwood College to start setting up the Nationals venue. I was a bit worried when we were told that we'd only have a single room, but fortunately that room was easily big enough for the players and game tables - we even had a dozen couches for people to relax in after their games.
Saturday: Woke up far too early, and headed to the convention to start the tournament. We had 38 players in the end, almost half of them from interstate.
aeliel handled the scorecards and round draws, while I ran around adjudicating the three 500-point rounds for the Nationals. The games went surprisingly smoothly, with no major disputes or arguments despite the size of the prize pool on offer. Once the official rounds wrapped up, we paused for a beer or two and prepared for the inaugural State of Origin game - contested by Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, and a motley team of Tasmanians, West Australians, NSW and more Melbourne players.
South Australia convincingly won the title, winning five of their six games. I finally got a chance to play, losing to Brett's horde of trolls (one of the best painted armies at the event), and then we headed off to
geserit's farewell party. Bon voyage Sarah!
Sunday: Things started to look bad after the first of the planned three 750-point games, when a draw on one of the top tables left us with an unchallenged winner - Damien, the only player on a perfect score of 20 points. After having several pairs of eyes going over the tournament rules, I decided that we couldn't call the event early - despite having an undefeated champion by default, there were still two rounds to go and a room full of players who wanted to keep playing them. (EDIT: the decision to keep going despite having an undefeated player was later supported by the Privateer staff. Hopefully the next generation of tournament rules will be clearer about this sort of thing!)
Damien ended up losing in the fifth round, setting up Heath as the top player. Despite that, there were six possible champions going into the final round. When the final game concluded, Heath emerged as the clear winner, with Damien and Joel taking second and third place. I got to hand out lots of prizes (from six sponsors in four different states), and then that was it for the first Australian national championship.
Monday: Metal Mayhem was a very different event from the weekend's games - the games were far more laid back, and I was far less organised. We fitted five rounds into the tournament, with Dave's Cryx/Mercenary army taking the top spot. After one of the longest award ceremonies I've ever sat through, we staggered off to the afterparty and I finally got a chance to catch up with all the roleplayers I'd missed during the weekend.
Most of the weekend is a bit of a blur, but it's a generally positive blur. I'll probably be helping for a couple of days at GenCon Oz as a painting or rules judge, but I have no plans to run an actual tournament myself until at least next January. There are now a couple of new Pressgangers in Australia, and they all seem eager to get stuck into organising things. I've been involved since 2003, and I think it's time to take a bit of a break.
The War All The Time guys sold Purple Mantis putty, sculpting tools and brushes over in the Warhammer 40k area. Sculpting tools sold very well; putty sold reasonably well. The sable brushes didn't sell well at all, which is a bit worrying - they account for about a third of the cost of my inventory, and may take all year to shift. Still, for the first "live fire" test, things went pretty well.
Wednesday: Recieved an email from my co-organiser, telling me he couldn't make it down from Sydney for the weekend. With no second judge, that meant I'd be covering the Warmachine/Hordes Nationals event solo, and would also have to run the Monday event - which ruled out going to Golgotha on Sunday night. I'll get you next time, nightclub...
Thursday:
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Friday: Finally finished painting the last few models. Went to Collingwood College to start setting up the Nationals venue. I was a bit worried when we were told that we'd only have a single room, but fortunately that room was easily big enough for the players and game tables - we even had a dozen couches for people to relax in after their games.
Saturday: Woke up far too early, and headed to the convention to start the tournament. We had 38 players in the end, almost half of them from interstate.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
South Australia convincingly won the title, winning five of their six games. I finally got a chance to play, losing to Brett's horde of trolls (one of the best painted armies at the event), and then we headed off to
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Sunday: Things started to look bad after the first of the planned three 750-point games, when a draw on one of the top tables left us with an unchallenged winner - Damien, the only player on a perfect score of 20 points. After having several pairs of eyes going over the tournament rules, I decided that we couldn't call the event early - despite having an undefeated champion by default, there were still two rounds to go and a room full of players who wanted to keep playing them. (EDIT: the decision to keep going despite having an undefeated player was later supported by the Privateer staff. Hopefully the next generation of tournament rules will be clearer about this sort of thing!)
Damien ended up losing in the fifth round, setting up Heath as the top player. Despite that, there were six possible champions going into the final round. When the final game concluded, Heath emerged as the clear winner, with Damien and Joel taking second and third place. I got to hand out lots of prizes (from six sponsors in four different states), and then that was it for the first Australian national championship.
Monday: Metal Mayhem was a very different event from the weekend's games - the games were far more laid back, and I was far less organised. We fitted five rounds into the tournament, with Dave's Cryx/Mercenary army taking the top spot. After one of the longest award ceremonies I've ever sat through, we staggered off to the afterparty and I finally got a chance to catch up with all the roleplayers I'd missed during the weekend.
Most of the weekend is a bit of a blur, but it's a generally positive blur. I'll probably be helping for a couple of days at GenCon Oz as a painting or rules judge, but I have no plans to run an actual tournament myself until at least next January. There are now a couple of new Pressgangers in Australia, and they all seem eager to get stuck into organising things. I've been involved since 2003, and I think it's time to take a bit of a break.
The War All The Time guys sold Purple Mantis putty, sculpting tools and brushes over in the Warhammer 40k area. Sculpting tools sold very well; putty sold reasonably well. The sable brushes didn't sell well at all, which is a bit worrying - they account for about a third of the cost of my inventory, and may take all year to shift. Still, for the first "live fire" test, things went pretty well.