Monday, October 7, 2013

MOAB After Convention Report ACR

Well I went up to MOAB in Sydney for the convention to see Ben from Little Tin Men blog run the Chain of Command Participation game on the Sunday.

MOAB has always been one of my favourite conventions as the atmosphere is friendly, the competitions well supported, the venue all over the place but with hidden gems to be found in unlikely rooms and of course the traders with the booty that I don't need but still purchase. Of course one can't forget the bring and buy.
This is the main hall with participation games in the centre, traders around the outside and competitions upstairs, at the back, at the back and upstairs, and down stairs X2. As you can see it seems a little quite.



This year the Sunday seemed very quite and a run through the whole place made me realsie that there were not as many competitors (no Warhammer Fantasy tourney??? A sign of what GW is doing to its loyal customer base?) nor customers for the traders. There were some rather good participation and demo games though and if anything this seemed bigger than last year but many had no one playing on the table????

 Command and Colours demo in 28mm looked great
The Macedonians

The Indians


I did ask about the Saturday and it was ment to be much bigger so glad about that.

Number 2 son came and spent bigger than I did which was nice. Well nice that I did not spend that much.

The bring and buy is always really well run but this time around I missed all the buyers and sold a mere single minaiture. So my WWII brits from the last post remain in my control and this has given me the desire to get a German platoon finished. This is a good thing I think but it also means that I may end up buying some support platoons for the two forces. Hmm how can I buy if I don't sell?

I was rather lucky to sit in on a painting demo by last years Golden Demon Slayer Sword winner giving hints and tips on how to paint. Mark was giving advice to those prepared to listen and as you can see his miniatures are incredible. Sadly I tend to paint armies and thus the quality is not in the same league as these. That being said it was still a great chance to see and hear an artist in action. Thanks Mark your hints may help with my Infinity Miniatures.

Overall I had a ball at MOAB picked up a few essentials, bought a few non essentials and chatted with the odd fellow gamer. Slowly I have moved away from competitions at conventions through no ones fault just my desire for something smaller that I can do in one day or to try something new. I used to do competitions to learn how to play a set of rules and this is a great way to do it. I may go back to the competitions but at the moment I am happy playing someone else's game!

I am seriously trying to get a group back up and running at school. There are a lot of my students at my club but we have had a good run with games at the school and with games like SAGA and Chain of Command I can see me getting more of the lads to look at history in a new light. Even DBA might reappear at school.

Any way on to the reason for the trip to Sydney, the Chain of Command participation game. Which will occur in the next post.



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