Tuesday 15 April 2014

ANZAC Cup 2014 - As the dust settles...





On the weekend saw another big 2 day event done and dusted for me, this time a charity even in support of Soldier On, organized by Ty Casey from WW40K and ADFWGA with behind the scenes support by Tamara Casey, Dave Hill, Ben Clarke, Danny Whitehead, Aven Fletcher and Cathie Cantrell. The weekend rose over $2500 which was donated to Soldier On, to help injured returned servicemen and women. The folks at Soldier On do a fantastic job so head over to their website to donate a little to make a difference.

The day saw me face a multitude of armies and lists across a variety of terrain types and styles. The terrain itself was lovingly had cratered for each table, on most occasions covering more than the ubiquitous 25% table coverage. Each table had an easy to read cheat sheet with unique terrain traits, any house rules for the table, a run order for the game & a quick handy reference guide for rules that as players we rarely remember.

So first up as this charity event was run by folks with a military background you can imagine that there was a strong adherence to time keeping with a strict dice down after 2hrs on all games with no exceptions. Although as a relatively new player who plays a horde based army this did cause me a few issues on a couple of games but as a hole the ridged format gave the even punctuality, which was appreciated as on Sunday I was driving home to Toowoomba that evening.

As this post is going to be a touch long I’ll give a rundown on how each game went later next week, but I will mention that the missions used over the weekend where 30K missions tailored to fit 40K armies. This did result in variable victory points depending on what armies and table where matched up. I'm not sure if this impacted upon how rankings where factored, but knowing how methodical Ty was on the weekend I could guarantee that there was some behind the scenes number crunching to factor this in.

In the end I placed 6th overall out of 21 players (whom 4 had to withdraw on Sunday) with 2 losses / 2 draws / 1 win. And in the Best Painted Category I place 5th, which is my highest paint placing to date and a fantastic result for my first painted army!

This event is fantastic! I would highly recommend it for any level of player even though to me it looked like there where a few tough nuts to crack, and I’m sure there where a few, the majority of armies where of moderate strength. This moderation in army strength in conjunction with the level and quality of terrain resulted in 5 tactically driven games for me over the weekend. It wasn't a case of the best list wins scenario that a few non restricted tournaments have been subjected too over the last 12 months or so. It's looking like next year will see a combined IPMS Queensland Scale Model & War Gaming Model standalone painting competition which I’m certainly looking forward too if that's the case. If time permits I’ll be there next year and probably any other even that the guys from WW40K & ADFWGA run in the Brisbane area. They also run & support events in Northern Queensland which if they are anything like the ANZAC Cup would be fantastic to attend.


 

Eldar by Ben Clarke

Dark Angels by Aven Fletcher

Eldar by Michael Harrison

Death Korps of Krieg (Imperial Guard) by Eddie Duncan
came away with 2nd place in Best Painted

Dark Eldar by John Harington

Nurgle Daemons by Peter St James
came away with 1st place in Best Painted

Nurgle Daemons by Peter St James
came away with 1st place in Best Painted



Space Wolves by Peter Marshall


 Tyranids by Simon Gojkovic





Not only was there a weekend full of War gaming, whether it was 40k, Fantasy or Flames of War, there was also a display from the fellows from IPMS Queensland. They displayed their amazingly painted scale models of real world military vehicles as well as other modelling. They were also the chief scorers when it came to paint judging and on Sunday I took the time to have a chat to them about how to apply weathering. The tips they gave me where amazing and I will certainly be trying them out when I’m back at the painting table. Here are some of the models on display from the weekend.











Next event for me is the cheese filled Force Z coming up on the 3rd May. Please leave any comments, questions or constructive criticisms. Always on look out for things to cover here & ways to improve.

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