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Many thanks to our sponsors this year. Their contributions
have been detailed in the relevant sections of this report.
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Umpire’s Report
I would like to thank all the players for making me feel welcome as umpire, being friendly and for playing nicely all weekend, which helped to reduce my
stress levels. I appreciate the fact that everyone accepted my rulings, both for and against, with good grace and got on with their games. Players discussed rules interpretations with me in a calm and
friendly manner so that we got the correct ruling for some very tricky situations sorted out. I also learned a great deal about DBM, in particular translating 'Barkerese' and discovering 'legal but
rorty' moves.
This was my first time umpiring a large tournament: my previous biggest was 16 players, so I was nervous at the outset. Apart from some awkward moments at the end of round 2 when people didn't hear the
whistle, I think I managed to cope reasonably well. My hearing has now recovered from the much louder whistle blows I did for later rounds.
 I would like to thank David Young for his excellent preparation and organisation of the draw for each round. I
would also like to thank our list checkers Geoff Frost, John Sandercock, Django Upton and Shaun Breadner, all of whom did plenty of work but didn't get to play. Thanks also go to Scott Nicholas and the
rest of the SAAW committee for the background administration of the tournament. Detailed tournament guidelines don't just manifest by themselves!
Speaking of tournament guidelines, I am happy to report that the blitz rules worked quite well, once players (and the umpire) got used to them. On the first morning about one third of the players were
opting for 'no blitz'. By round 4 everyone assumed that all games were using the default blitz rules. Just as well, as I was being more ruthless in enforcing the blitz rules for the last two rounds.
Before that, I was loathe to interfere in many games by imposing the blitz as the games were already heading to a conclusion. The only problem was that the games in blitz dragged on past the whistle
stop and ate into the organisers' lunchtime.
In the final round we had two of Australia's highest ranking players make blunders regarding when the game ends. D'Oh! I had put their two games on blitz due to slow early bounds, then they ripped
through several bounds and finished the 12th before the regular whistle stop. Read the tournament guidelines: their games had to continue, much to their dismay as they had done some 'this is the last
bound' moves they then regretted.
I was glad I did not have to resolve many 'is it in or out?' cases, and I thank the players for that. I was conservative in the few such adjudications I did make as I was trying not to influence the end
result of any game.
I hope players had a good look at the beautiful trophies we had for the tournament. The excellent figures on the trophies were kindly donated by Essex Miniatures Australia, and the superb paint job on
them was by HCH Painted Figures. Essex Miniatures Australia also very generously donated discount vouchers for winners and teams. I urge people to check out the websites of these two companies: they
have excellent products.
Many thanks also go to our sponsors, Essex Miniatures Aust, HCH Painted Figures and
Miniature World Maker. The latter sponsored the "Most Improved" and the "Porus" awards, as well as providing the prize for the "Best Painted Army".
Miniature World Maker also provided the discount vouchers I was handing out to players for ending their games before the whistle (win or lose), and so being considerate of the organisers by not running
overtime. Remember folks, your vouchers have a time limit so go to the Miniature World Maker website, browse their extensive array of merchandise and spend some money improving your terrain.
Now I have a couple of awards to mention.
The award for "Best Painted Army" was quite hard to judge, as several players had truly beautiful armies. Some standout items include Luke Taper's medieval battle fleet, Simon LeRay-Mayer's carroccio,
Steven Horvat's CinC trampling his foes and both Doug Melville and Gavin Bowman had excellent camps. Some players had beautiful armies that were not considered for the award as they hadn't painted the
army they were using. In the end, two armies made me think 'Wow!' that were complete and painted by the players using them. So, we have a tie! Congratulations to the winners of the "Best Painted Army":
Anthony Winter for his Later Hungarians, which included beautiful standards and pennons. Russell Smith for his Italian Condotta, which included matching terrain.
After a die roll, Russell scored the terrain donated by Miniature World Maker, while Anthony scored the extra terrain piece donated by me. By the way,
neither of these armies can be used to win "Best Painted Army" at Cancon next year!
My final award is the "The Dice Hate Me" award, for which there is no official prize but the winner does have bragging rights at future tournaments. Our winner, due to a die rolling effort by himself
and his opponent that completely changed the game's outcome, is Nick Wade.
I would like to thank the Cancon organisers for letting me umpire the DBM tournament. I had a great time shopping at the various trade stands during the quiet moments in the tournament. Now I want to
play DBM at next year's Cancon!
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