BrisCon 2016 With Garry Wait We ran our inaugural BrisCon 2016 event over the weekend of 30 April and 1 May weekend here in beautiful Brisbane, Australia. It was particularly exciting for many reasons. It used to be a fixture on the calendar each year to enjoy BrisCon as a long weekend of gaming at this time of year and for various reasons, it hasn’t run for over six years.

It also has been over three years since we had a two-day Mid War tournament in Brisbane and – most exciting of all to me – our first ever Team Yankee tournament for Australia and the Southern Hemisphere. I had the idea of running Team Yankee as not only are we very keen on Team Yankee locally, with games every week, I had also discussed this when playing Phil Yates at Cancon. Phil made the wise suggestion that he didn’t see it as possible to run a tournament any earlier than March or April, as people wouldn’t have armies painted and ready before then. So the end of April it was!

I decided to run both tournaments as a five-round competition over two days and locally we have found it much better to work off wins or losses as the primary decider with Swiss Chess draws for overall champion, with countbacks using VPs. We had a separate Best Sport award and a Best Terrain table award provided also.

Players travelled from as far afield as Adelaide, South Australia and some drove two hours each way, daily, just to play. Such commitment is impressive.

The Team Yankee Tournament

For the Team Yankee tournament, the first mission was set as Free For All and after that we used the excellent Battle Plan Scenarios from the extended Missions PDF. This resulted in: Free For All x 3 games Fighting Withdrawal x 2 games Dust Up x 1 game Bridgehead x 2 games Encounter x 1 game Counterattack x3 games Breakthrough x 2 games No Retreat x 1 game Two games were played at night, one at Dawn and the remaining 12 games were played in daytime.

Team Yankee Results
Player	Army	Position	Wins	VPs
Glenn Hudson	US Tanks	1st	5	27
Owen Heather	US Tanks	2nd	4	19
Brendan Downs	Soviet Tanks	3rd	3	20
Michael Clarke	Soviet Tanks	4th	1	16
Andy Thompson	US Tanks	5th	1	15
Glynn Murdoch	US Tanks	6th	0	6

Team Yankee Winner – Glenn Hudson	Team Yankee 2nd Place – Owen Heather

Team Yankee 3rd Place – Brendan Downs	Team Yankee Best & Fairest – Andy Thompson

Best Sport went to Andy Thompson for his maintaining a smile in the face of terrible dice and an absolute spanking from M1s doing an 'Oddball' in their rear.

Mid War Flames Of War Tournament

Mid War was even more close with up until the last round, four players were in contention for the overall title. Some very gentlemanly conduct by Russell Hodges stands out, owning up to mistakes in games that cost him his lead but cemented his place as a highly respected player. For the Mid War event, I decided to have randomised missions which ended up being: Encounter No Retreat Dust Up Hasty Attack  and Fighting Withdrawal. Special thanks to Matt Yakimoff who was to play in the Team Yankee when we had three people drop out at the last minute and he graciously offered to play Mid War to even up numbers, bringing two armies to the event just in case.

Mid War Results
Player	Army	Position	Wins	VPs
Troy Standen	German Panzerspäh	1st	4	25
Bill Smart	Dieppe Canadian Tanks	2nd	3	20
Russell Hodges	US Armored Infantry	3rd	3	19
Jason Humphreys	German Fallschirmjäger	4th	3	18
Kaleb Love	Dieppe Canadian Infantry	5th	3	15
Mal Clark	German Schwere Panzerkompanie	6th	2	19
Warren Nelms	NZ Rifle Company, North Africa	7th	2	15
Matt Yakimoff *	Soviet Mixed Tankovy	8th	1	8
Phil Baker	Bersaglieri	9th	1	15
Will Clark	German Panzerkompanie, Ostfront	10th	1	13
Al Griffin	US Tank Company, North Africa	11th	1	11
Garry Wait *	US Tank Company, North Africa	12th	1	9

* Matt Yakimoff and Garry Wait only played two games.

Mid War Winner – Troy Standen	Mid War 2nd Place – Bill Smart

Mid War 3rd Place – Russell Hodges	Mid War Best & Fairest – Jason Humphreys

At this point I need to acknowledge our sponsors, Paul of The Last Stand Miniatures and Gaming who were backed totally by Aetherworks and Battlefront. Paul has been an excellent sponsor and supporter for the hobby and this year was no exception – just look at the prizes provided. Aetherworks were wonderful in their backing of Paul and the tournament also. Battlefront also provided the 2015 Objective Markers and were extremely helpful in organising the event, thanks very much.

I want to thank the rest of the BrisCon 2016 team for their kind support. Next year will be even bigger and better. Watch this space. ~ Garry