Wintercon DBA – July 2019
On Sunday July 21st 2019 the second DBA Tournament at the Canberra Games Society’s Wintercon, after a 6 year hiatus, was underway with a vengeance. We had 10 entries including myself to take the numbers up to even, a reasonable turnout for this year, on a par with Collision Course in May and heartening to see that there was no game day attrition. DBA was the winner with a tight and enjoyable competition, a late start due to traffic delaying a couple of entrants was mitigated with an early finish as no game went overtime. If you are out there Phil Rainey – all the DBA players owe you a debt of gratitude, and at least one glass of red, for the smooth way your DBA application lets the scores be entered and the draw be generated in under 5 minutes. As a player I didn’t get to see as much of the action as I had hoped, but the fact that I was not called away from my own game often is a testament to the gentlemanly conduct of the whole roster, I thank all of them for this. It was great to welcome Chris Burg and Adrian Williams back to DBA after a long gap, and to see David Lucas continue to join us.
Round 1 was a brutal start, with most victories being a whitewash, where the loser didn’t even take a casualty from their opponent. The only exceptions were my own game, which went to the wire and the major upset of the tournament where Greg Kelleher defeated one of the Canberra DBA powerhouses, Gary Moriarty. Adrian Williams started strong with a resounding defeat of Peter Phelps despite barely playing DBA version 3. A Swiss Chess draw pits the highest scorers against each other so like the movie ‘Highlander’, each match culls the winner’s circle. In round 2 Adrian Williams continued his strong start, and likewise, Brenton Searle and Stephen Hopkins continued their winning ways. Gary Moriarty came good with a convincing defeat of David Lucas. By round 3 the ‘There can only be one’ moment had been reached – Steve Hopkins had won 3 games from 3 and had a convincing lead, bringing Adrian William’s run to an end in the process. On a personal note, my Sung Chinese scored their first win against Peter Phelps’ Early Imperial Romans. In round 4 Gary Moriarty took the lead by defeating Steve Hopkins, and in doing so made the contest for top spot all the tighter, no-one would make a run for first place undefeated. With the endgame in sight, all eyes turned to whether a player could knock Gary Moriarty down again. Adrian Williams was put on the spot in round 5 and could not break the solid Italian line. Mark Baker continued to snap at the heels of thetop3, and another win kept him in contention. Round 6 saw a number of players in contention, and it fell to Mark Baker to be the giant killer. He fought a tough game against Gary Moriarty, but was overrun. Stephen Hopkins and Brenton Searle had wins that cemented their place on the podium, and my own personal triumph occurred when I snatched victory from the jaws of defeat against Adrian Williams. I don’t think I have scored a win against Adrian in 20 years and certainly it is my first DBA win against him.
The final tally saw the scores fall as:
1. Gary Moriarty – IV/61 Italian Condotta – 43 points
2. Stephen Hopkins – III/39 Late Tang and Five Dynasties Chinese (with Tibetan Allies) – 41 Points
3. Brenton Searle – I/32c Western Chou and Spring & Autumn Chinese (Other) – 37 point
4. David Lawrence – III/62b Southern Sung Chinese – 33 points
5. Adrian Williams – II/23a Later Pre Islamic Arab (Nomad) – 30 points
6. Greg Kelleher – III/71a Georgian – 30 pts
7. Mark Baker – IV/57c Low Countries – 29 points
8. Chris Burg – IV/80 Hussite – 26 points
9. Peter Phelps – II/56 Early Imperial Roman – 25 points
10. David Lucas – II/41b Eastern Han Chinese – 16 points
The Executioner Award for the most kills in a single game went to Chris Burg who scored 5 kills against my own Sung Chinse in round 4 in a nail biting finsh.
The Magister Militum Prize (aka “The Maurice”) for the highest adjusted score went to David Lawrence (me) and my Southern Sung Chinese, the second lowest rated army in the competition, and helped by the number of casualties I inflicted in the three games I lost.
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.
Wintercon is the second event of the Magister Militum Per Capitoline Territorialis Circuit – the remaining events in the series are Landwaster 2019 in November and 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
Cheers