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

AHPC Bonus Round 2... EPIC Fail

I struggled for inspiration for the second "Epic Fail" bonus round but got there in the end. Once a germ of inspiration had blossomed however, I experienced significant trouble reigning my enthusiasm in but somehow managed it. I think. :-)

Here's my entry, a double dose of revenge for previous digs by fellow inmates Tamsin and DaveD, with both of whom I have a tremendously enjoyable ongoing series of wind-ups.

There are loads of other entertaining, creative and gorgeously painted entries so head over and cast your vote!

Cheers,
Millsy

D-6 to Aussie Bloggers Meet-Up: CanCon 2016

That's right peeps, we're less than a week away now from out meet-up at CANCON!

1:00pm at the Board Games section in the Northern Hall at CANCON 2016. Hope to see you there!

Cheers,
Millsy

Painting Challenge entries so far...

Time has been limited by various real life occurrences of late so blogging has been lagging behind the painting a bit I'm afraid despite being on hols. Anyway, I've found a few minutes while the paint dries (better than watching it!) so he's a brief recap of what's been painted Challenge-wise thus far...

 

This is my entry to the Bonus Round Number One, Ethel the Fire Engine and crew. Loads of other great entries to see and one day of voting left so pop on over...

And finally a small unit of crossbows for my SAGA Normans...

Two more submissions are ready today so hopefully some more eye candy for you in the not-to-distant future...

Cheers,
Millsy

Goodbye Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites

[Sigh!] One of the things I liked most about Blogger was the ability for non-Google folks to follow blogs. That's all about to change, "for the better". Really? Better for who?

"In 2011, we announced the retirement of Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites. We made an exception for Blogger to give readers an easy way to follow blogs using a variety of accounts. Yet over time, we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account. So, in an effort to streamline, in the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes that will eventually require readers to have a Google Account to sign into Friend Connect and follow blogs.

As part of this plan, starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.

We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow.

We know how important followers are to all bloggers, but we believe this change will improve the experience for both you and your readers.

Posted by Michael Goddard, Software Engineer"

Not much we can do about but it still stinks...

Cheers,
Millsy