Landwaster 2018
Sunday 25th November marked 16 years of the long running series of Landwaster DBA Tournaments. There were 12 competitors gathered at the Austrian Australian Club in Mawson. This has been the premier DBA Event in Canberra since 2002 and while the numbers peaked over a decade ago it still brings out a strong field and pleasant days gaming.
This year was amongst the tightest completions ever. Four of the previous Landwaster Champions were at the starting blocks. However various commitments kept an number of the Landwaster faithful away on the day. With Greg Kelleher unable to attend the longest unbroken series of Landwaster attendances (13) came to an end, and with Mark Baker also away David Osborne can now claim the highest total number of attendances (14).
There were a number of upsets even in round one with Leigh Dunn holding Gary Moriarty to a draw a newcomer making short work of David Osborne’s Welsh with her Hundred Year’s War English. Stephen Hopkins bravely took Aztecs (with 6x5Hd) and opened with a convincing win over David Lucas and his Eastern Han. Dean Bedlington and Brenton Searle also had wins in round one. Round 2 quickly whittled down the top scores with Dean and Brenton finishing as the only two to win both games. Brenton all but wiped out Steve Hopkins Aztecs and Dean taking down Jon Willacy’s Early Polish. Gary Moriarty and David Osborne started their comebacks with solid wins each. When Dean and Brenton faced each other in Round 3 there could be only one, and it was Dean as the only one with three from three. Other notable games at this point were a low scoring 0-0 between Leigh Dunn and Guy Sheppard. Mick Sellman continued to struggle with his newly painted Italian Condotta. Round 3 also marked Dean Bedlington’s departure, he took his French Ordonance and raced off to a family commitment. I took up the slack and took my Konstantinian Byzantines for their first outing. In Round 4 Gary Moriarty narrowly beat my Byzantines and whilst Brenton climbed back with a convincing win over Jon Willacy, David Osborne was just overcome by the Aztecs. The field seemed wide open. Come round 5 Brenton kept his reputation as Sherlock and beat Gary Moriarty. Stephen Hopkins once again suffered a brutal Hordes collapse against my Byzantines and David Osborne scored another win. Round 6 started with the top half of the table mostly having no more than 3 wins, the only exception being the composite score of Dean and I with 4. The upsets continued with David Lucas and his Han Chinese scoring a convincing win over my Byzantines, it was almost over at first contact. David Osborne further opened up the field beating Brenton, and Gary sealing his place in the top 3 beating Guy Sheppard.
I recused myself from the podium as even after my loss in round 6 I still finished on top including Dean’s three wins, splitting the difference and putting our combined position as 6th. I had an additional claim to the podium as David Osborne was using my Welsh troops in his historic Landwaster win.
The final tally saw the scores fall as:
1. David Osborne – III/19b North Welsh (with Feudal English Allies) – 38 pts
2. Gary Moriarty – III/37b Abbasid Arab – 36 points
3. Brenton Searle – IV/79a Later Swiss – 35 pts
4. David Lucas – II/41b Eastern Han Chinese – 32 pts
5. Stephen Hopkins – IV/63 Aztec – 30 pts
6. Dean Bedlington/David Lawrence – IV/82a French Ordonance/III/76 Konstantinian Byzantine (composite position)
7. Jon Willacy – III/63b Early Polish – 29 pts
8. Leigh Dunn – III/49 Tulunid & Iqshidid Egypitqn – 29 pts
9. Mick Sellman – IV/61 Italian Condotta – 22 pts
10. Guy Sheppard – IV/47 Golden Horde & Successors – 22 pts
11. Tony Cotton – II/40 Numidian or Early Moorish – 21 pts
The Executioner Award for the most kills in a single game went to David Lawrence who scored 7 kills against Steve Hopkins’Aztecs.
The Magister Militum Prize (aka “The Maurice”) for the highest adjusted score went to David Lucas and his understated Eastern Han.
The Mithradates Trophy for highest adjusted improvement on the best previous Landwaster position went to Jon Willacy who managed to maintain his existing best percentile score for this year’s event.
None of this would be possible without the support of a number of sponsors
• Ray Compton of Essex Miniatures Australia -
www.essexminiatures.com.au/ who provided vouchers for first, second and third place
• Brian Hall from Hall of Ancient Warriors -
www.hallofancientwarriors.com/ who donated the first place trophy
• Mick Sellman of Mick’s Metal Models -
micksmetalmodels.com/ who donated DBA Armies for the Mithradates Trophy and the Magister Miliutm Prize
• Dean Bedlington of Olympian Games -
www.olympiangames.com.au/ who donated vouchers for the Executioner Award, Mithradates Trophy and Last Placel. Dean also engraved the trophy plates.
• Barry Scarlett of Leadbear’s Tufts who donated a voucher to each entrant. Leadbear’s has a Facebook presence and so I urge you to search him up and buy tufts.
Please support these businesses that do so much to support us by ordering lots of product from them, and if you see them at a tournament – why not buy them a coffee or something.
Landwaster, like Common Ground and Wintercon earlier this year is part of the Magister Militum Per Capitoline Territorialis Circuit – the final events of this circuit are the two days of Cancon in January. Anyone who competes in at least three of the events (Cancon is two events) could win the “Grand Maurice” which averages the best three adjusted scores across the events.
So get the lead out – paint it and play DBA
See you at Cancon
Cheers
. 