Landwaster 2020
While COVID continues to cast its shadow over the globe and major tournaments have been cancelled. Earlier this year the oranisers of MOAB were forced to cancel at a relatively late stage, and then Cancon followed suit soon after. But the relative normality slowly returning to the east coast of Australia has allowed boutique DBA events to go ahead. In October we had a test run by running “The Battle of the Warbands” which would have been the day 1 event of MOAB in Goulburn (about 100kms north of Canberra). This worked out well, which made the concept of Landwaster 2020 viable. After a little casting around for a venue we also booked into Goulburn, it being only an hour from Canberra and also shaving an hour from the Sydney based drive.
All up there were 14 entries but pre-game day attrition took one player out due to illness so I also dropped out to keep the number even. This chosen 12 consisted of 10 of the usual suspects plus two new faces, Justin Swain – a regular at Cancon but never before seen at Landwaster, and Peter Rixon – a brand new convert to DBA. Three previous Landwaster champions were amongst the entrants with Gary Moriarty keen to defend his hard won 2019 title.
Round 1 saw a series of expected results, mostly complete blitzes (8 points to 1 indicating that the loser failed to take a single casualty). Mick Sellman won the battle of the Italian Condotta – his Genoese proving too strong for Peter Rixon using my Venetians. Gary Moriarty with his Later Tang narrowly beat Stephen Hopkins using West Frankish and Guy Sheppard with his Early Imperial Roman took down Tony Cotton’s Eary German (Suveii) in the only other battle where the victor took losses. Justin Swain with the 100 Years War English were too much for Leigh Dunn’s Qaramita, Mark Baker and his Bosporans took Peter Spitzkowski’s Alamanni back to school and The Phyrric, competently generalled by Greg Kelleher made short work of David Lucas and his Easter Han.
Much of Round 2 went as predicted, however in what was considered an upset at the time, Peter Rixon claimed Leigh Dunn’s scalp as his well balanced Condotta mowed down the Qaramita camels. Tony Cotton rolled over Stephen Hopkins in the battle for supremacy in the top level of the bottom half. Other games saw Justin Swain fall to a well planned Condotta littoral landing, Mark Baker block and blast Guy Sheppard and Gary Moriarty school Greg Kelleher in no uncertain terms as the Top level sorted itself out.
It was Round 3 when the upsets started, for some reason this round saw several unfinished games with the Peter Rixon vs Tony Cotton and David Lucas vs Leigh Dunn games both having to stop at the time call. Even more earth shattering was Guy Sheppard and Gary Moriarty fighting to a 0-0 draw pulling Gary well down the table. So when Mick Sellman took down Mark Baker in a very tight game he was the last one standing with an unbroken string of wins. Stephen Hopkins started his comeback at this point against Peter Spitzkowski and Justin Swain scored a convincing win over Greg Kelleher
Now with Round 4 all eyes were on Mick Sellman who’s impeccably turned out Italian Condotta have been his staple at my events only since 2018 and in that time have not repayed to Mick the attention that was lavished on them at the painting stand. His prior successes before this event were with a Mithradatic army, the Condotta, not so much until this tournament. Mick scored a comfortable win against Gary Moriarty while Justin Swain continued his run knocking over Mark Baker. Stephen Hopkins schooled Peter Rixon and Guy Sheppard had close victory against Greg Kelleher. Peter Spitzkowski comfortably cut down Leigh’s Qaramita – it becoming clear that the massed camels Leigh had pinned his hopes on were not planning to deliver. David Lucas had a hard fought win over Tony Cotton.
Round 5 looked like the point where the podium would be set, but there was a very early upset when Stephen Hopkins scored a narrow but quick victory over Mick Sellman. This should have put Justin Swain within striking distance of Mick except that he was convincingly defeated by Guy Sheppard. Gary rolled over the top of Mark Baker and Greg Kelleher defeated Peter Spitzkowski. Leigh Dunn finally redeemed himself with a narrow win over Tony Cotton and David Lucas achieved a hard fought win over Peter Rixon.
The final round began with Mick Sellman pretty much locked in for first place unless a long series of upsets occurred, but second and third place were very much up for grabs. Mick made short work of Guy Sheppard making his lead unassailable and Justin Swain fell to Stephen Hopkins, despite being the winner of their two practice bouts with their chosen armies in the week leading up to the event. As with last year’s competition, Leigh Dunn chasing the wooden spoon, was lined up against Gary Moriarty and history repeated with Leigh being soundly trounced. Mark Baker gave David Lucas a serious schooling and Greg Kelleher was equally brutal to Peter Rixon. Tony Cotton crashed through Peter Spitzkowski’s Alamanni in our very own Battle of the Warbands.
The final tally saw the scores fall as:
1. Mick Sellman – IV/61 Italian Condotta – 44 Points
2. Stephen Hopkins – III/52 West Frankish – 38 Points
3. Gary Moriarty – III/39 Later Tang and 5 Dynasties Chinese (with Tibetan Allies) – 34 Points
4. Mark Baker – II/25 Bosporan – 33 Points
5. Greg Kelleher – II/27b Phyrric – 31 Points
6. Justin Swain – IV/62a 100 Years War English – 30 Points
7. Guy Sheppard – II/56 Early Imperial Roman – 28 Points
8. Tony Cotton – II/47f Early German (Suvei) – 26 Points
9. David Lucas – II/41b Eastern Han Chinese – 23 Points
10. Peter Spitzkowski – II/72b Alamanni - 22 Points
11. Peter Rixon – IV/61 Italian Condotta – 19 Points
12. Leigh Dunn – III/54b Qaramita – 15 Points
The Executioner Award for the most kills in a single game went to Greg Kelleher who scored 5 kills against the Eastern Han in Round 1.
The Magister Militum Prize (aka “The Maurice”) for the highest adjusted score went to Mark Baker and his Bosporans.
The Mithradates Trophy for highest adjusted improvement on the best previous Landwaster position went to Tony Cotton improved 21 percentile points on his previous ranking.
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 tthe Magister Miliutm Prize
• Dean Bedlington of Olympian Games -
www.olympiangames.com.au/ who donated vouchers for the Executioner Award, Magister Militum, Mithradates and Last Place. Dean also engraved the trophy plates and donated the figures used on the trophies.
• Barry Scarlett of Leadbear’s Tufts who donated a voucher to each entrant. Leadbear’s has a Facebook presence and now sells his tufts on eBay as well 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.
Hopefully time will see more DBA events running by 2021 – we already have a Pk themed event booked in for February.
So get the lead out – paint it and play DBA
Cheers