CANCON News and Loot

Having spent the last 36 hours in sunny* Canberra I got back home this afternoon toting a metric sh1t-tonne of goodies and awesome memories. But before I get onto the loot a brief overview of the show and a the Antipodean Bloggers meet-up....

* may not be strictly true [ahem]

This year's CANCON was like most I guess in that it had good and bad aspects. The bring-and-buy (see below) was pretty good and despite not being of a mind to line up this year I still scored a pile of bargains. The trade hall was pretty good too although "dice guy" was missing for once and I'd actually taken the time to write a list. Whoops!

There seemed to be a bigger focus on comp games this year and the table / terrain quality varied from really impressive to downright boring (unpainted MDF???). The Cold War participation game looked awesome and was a corker to play I'm told as was the ACW game but the rest was disappointing to say the least. We'd hoped to have a go at the 28mm Napoleonic game but we couldn't engage the organisers who seemed disinterested to the point of boredom so we wandered off. Why bother running a "participation game" if that's your attitude? A shame as it looked great...

The highlight was most definitely the Antipodean Bloggers meet-up and we managed roughly a dozen peeps all up at various times. Dinner with the lads was great fun and everyone commented on the fact despite many of us never having met in person before we had a blast and it felt like old times. An entertaining "people's pub protest" was conducted with a number of us writing heartfelt entreaties to Alex Buchel of SAGA fame, requesting a campaign supplement in no uncertain terms (written on beer coasters for extra credibility). These will be delivered in person later this year. If that won't get it written I don't know what will!

Left-to-Right: Chris (Moruya Marauders), Barks (Wargaming with Barks),
Paul (The Man Cave), Kaptain Kobold (The Stronghold Rebuilt), Dux (Dux Homunculorum),
Definitely not a GIMP and Steve (from Odin's Night games club).

OK, enough news about events, time for some news about loot. In short, I made out like a bandit and rather pleased I am about it too. Here's the haul...

Land Raider Crusader. $45 and just a bit of cleaning up required before painting.

NINE (one elsewhere) 40K/WFB army books for $25 (yes really!)

1kg of MDF off-cuts (free) for all kinds of terrain work

4 x unknown sci-fi figs from 1995 for skirmish games ($5). Any idea what they are???

5 x Eldar Dark Reapers ($10) for my Rogue Trader project

Dystopian Wars NIB KoB Wolf Pack ($20)

Dystopian Wars mint KoB starter box and Avenger Class Carrier ($30)

Quite the haul I think you'd agree. I now have so much Dystopian Wars KoB stuff to paint it's crazy but I really like it and couldn't walk by at the price. Points-wise it's over 3,000 without upgrades and while I doubt I'd ever play a game that big it means I can do all sorts of nifty combos and play some decent scenarios.

So all up a rollicking good time with lots of new toys and great mates. I'm not sure what more I could asked for? Actually, not true, we passed the Batmobile on the way home. Caked iced. Story, end of :-)

Cheers,
Millsy