Long-suffering readers of this "publication" will recall a borderline defamatory article (which I am not going to link to, because I am a coward) which I penned in regard to the state of 40k at CanCon after I attended in 2023.
I won't go into the details, but I was bitterly disappointed, and the last thing I said was that if baby Danielle was not due in 2024, I would be running a 40k event at CanCon.
And? Well? Here we are.
Sort of.
By the time CanCon '25 rolled around, that ship had sailed - I was too late for event submission, and an open style event at CanCon would need to wait until 2026.
Fortunately, my enthusiasm (which normally peters out about halfway through the year) was maintained by a few key events:
Firstly, the 40k Friendly event organisers decided they were going to discontinue their open category.
And secondly, several local players had expressed interest in a CanCon 40k event due to the cost of travelling to Adelaide.
Just like that, I felt the community rally behind me, and knew that I could ride this wave of momentum all the way to day of show.
So I waited patiently, wrote a submission, got it approved, sought out sponsorship, sourced terrain and mats, wrote a player's pack and mission pack, got the local community to help me set the event up, and before I knew it, it was here.
I had initially expected a modest turnout of 30-40 players. Instead, I had to expand the event from 60 to 70, and the event still sold out before Christmas. I was absolutely gobsmacked.
Things went wrong almost immediately, as one of the 40k friendly players got lost and ended up registering for my event, tanking my round one draw.
Such is life.
Once the event was up and running, things smoothed out in a hurry. Dice were being rolled, models were being moved, water was being consumed (it was bloody hot, as per usual) and it looked like things were breaking my way.
There was a minor hiccup at the start of the third round with a player dropping, which wasn't a big deal - except I hadn't noticed, which tanked the draw again.
At this point, I became aware of how invaluable Captain General Tim was as the event's head judge. He handled rules enquiries, kept an eye on the tables, and bye busted - truly, a god of a man, and I was so grateful he decided to help instead of play.
At the end of day one, after a bumpy start, things had worked out alright - not perfectly, but not a trainwreck either. I was pleasantly surprised - and maybe a little bit sore.
I just had to fuss over prize support - which, to the credit of my sponsors (Gap Games, Ronin Games, Polymath Tabletop and Proxy Wargaming) was nothing short of incredible.
Day 2 was less chaotic than day one than day one, but not without its challenges - I had multiple drops, and one player stayed home, thinking he had the bye, only for a re-pair to occur and resulting in a number of players requiring a bye.
I had lucked out and had multiple assistant TOs who could bye bust (a rare luxury indeed) but it still showed I have much to learn, grasshopper.
After figuring out who was getting what for prize support, the final round went smoothly - the top table did not feature any sharking or cheating allegations, and both players were amicable.
It was a Guard mirror, which is... you know, not great for them, but as the event organiser, I loved watching them make each other suffer.
I did have one final bungle relating to prize support, where I didn't give Gap Games, my primary sponsor, enough time to get up and present the prizes for first, second, and third overall, causing me to panic, but I will manage that better next year, I think.
At the conclusion of the event, the players told me they had fun, they wanted to come back, and I allowed myself the sin of pride, just for a moment. Me and my rag-tag team had been able to put on a good show, and players walked away content.
I've covered who won what elsewhere, but:
1st Overall - Jawad "Agent J" Salah (Imperial Guard)
2nd Overall - "Apex" Rowan Kennett (Tyranids)
3rd Overall - Joe "The Warmaster" Loke (Death Guard)
Best Sports - Louis Hearn (Chaos Knights)
Best Painted - Ben Yeomans (Death Guard)
So with that in mind, I'd like to note down some of the ways the event could improve for next year.
Learning Point One: Player Vote Categories
This is kind of self-explanatory. On day one I was asking people to tell me their vote, and then day two I shredded two spiral notebooks and decided to hand slips of scrap paper to players instead.
This meant that players set their armies up - and then didn't get any votes because I had forgotten them.
Both options were bad, and had implications for prizing, which I don't feel great about.
I needed to have a plan before the event and I just... didn't. Fail to plan, plan to fail.
Something I would like to consider in future, if I can find it, is returning to the old school Games Workshop painting rubric and marking painting for players.
Learning Point Two: Communication
Overall, I think I did ok with communicating with the players, but I was far from perfect. Probably a C+, and that's optimistic.
I didn't have a round timer (this is my fault, but also my cheapness for not going and buying a proper power board after venues told me I couldn't use my one from home) and I didn't actually have a printed copy of the mission pack... anywhere.
Perhaps the worst mistake I made was not having the missions readily available. In a lot of ways, it's a miracle people knew what mission(s) they were playing.
There's a few options here:
-Have a QR code with a link to the mission pack on the tables.
-Include the missions on the tables (on the table number printout, ideally)
-Write the missions on the whiteboard on the TO's desk.
-Have a printed copy of the mission pack.
-All of the above
Just, something.
I also didn't articulate to players that there was a bye buster available, and that they should still attend round one.
Although I could also counteract the above by doing the draw on Sunday morning. Need to think on that.
Learning Point Three: Adequate Supply
Day one I smashed it with a huge supply of ice cold water bottles.
The zooper doopers were a bust, sadly, but folks were able to routinely get properly cold water bottles at all times - at least on day one.
But I didn't buy enough of them, and so had to buy more on the way to CanCon on day two, meaning they were warm, and the third law of thermodynamics did the rest.
We went from cool water to room temperature water, and whilst folks still appreciated it, it was clear the players were having a harder time keeping cool.
Pretty clear here - buy more initially, use more ice, and get another esky, you bum.
I also want to explore a chest freezer for next year, to give players access to icy poles that haven't been thawing out in an esky for four hours.
Learning Point Four: Award Presentation
If you're going to let someone come up and present your awards - wait for them.
Don't... do what I did, which is give into the pressure and start too early, resulting in the head sponsor showing up with a bag full of goodies and a look on his face like "so, nice of you to wait for me."
Despite this, it isn't all bad news.
Thanks to the generosity of the Exterminatus organisation, they gave me a sweetheart deal on renting 30 setups. This meant that I went from sweating about how I was going to provide enough tables for the event, to breezing through it.
No-one complained about the mats or terrain - in fact, it went so well that people were able to concentrate on the other parts of the event they really didn't like. Which is actually immensely helpful.
Not just that, but the community sentiment about the event filled my heart to bursting point. Finally, the local players who just like no-frills 40k got what they wanted - and they loved it.
And I loved giving it to them.
Next year, the plan is to expand to 100 places, and I've given the CGS some pretty robust feedback, so we'll see what that looks like in CanCon '27.
For now, CanCon's back on the map, baby!
And I couldn't be prouder.
Catch you next time,
Vulkan
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