Twilight of the Reich - Chain of Command at Cancon 2026

A slightly belated post on my games at Cancon this year. Cancon is Australia's biggest gaming convention and takes place every year in Canberra over the holiday weekend that falls around Australia Day on January 26. This year, as I have done for the last four years, I ran participation games in the Lard Zone. 

Whereas most of Cancon is tournament focused, the Lard Zone aims to offer players an opportunity to pick and mix from a variety of Too Fat Lardies games, with the focus on participation, rather than competition. Cancon is a big event with multiple games and tournaments running over three days. The Lard Zone occupies one corner of this hall, one of four halls housing game events.

Last year, I ran four games of a scenario set on Saipan in 1944. As is usual for me, it was played in 20mm using the Chain of Command rules (more about that game in this post). Pleased to say, that scenario has since been published in issue #138 of Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy magazine.

This year, I stayed with Chain of Command and 20mm, but the scenario moved to the eastern front and the fight for Konigsberg in East Prussia in early 1945. Here is the table set up ready for the game on the first morning. The terrain sits on a 6'x4' homemade mat. I like to have this on a larger table, as that allows players to keep the other game related paraphernalia off the actual terrain itself.

The hall filled quickly. Between all the players in the various events and those just at Cancon to buy from traders and stroll around the tables, the volume rose significantly. By the end of the second day my voice had paid the price. The only solution would seem to be copious amounts of cold beer in the evening.

Entitled 'Twilight of the Reich' the scenario was an opportunity to use my ruined city terrain and incorporate many of the new rules in CoCv2. The terrain itself wasn't created specifically for this project. I've been building it up over time. Initially, some was created for games using Crossfire, when I returned to miniature gaming in 2015.

It was also a chance to use the Russian SMG platoon as it is listed in the CoCv2 rule book. The aim was to form a force with supports that aligned with the Soviet Assault Brigades that were in use with 11th Guards Army at the time of the attack into Konigsberg. It was a great opportunity to use my AB Figures' Russian collection.

The sorts of choices for support units included a Scout section, flamethrower team, SU-76, T34/76 and ISU-152.

The German defenders in this part of Konigsberg were Volksgrenadiers. At this late stage of the war their force morale is brittle, but they were well armed with StG44 assault rifles and plenty of panzerfausts. Once again, the miniatures are from AB Figures.

Their support choices included things like a Volkssturm section, StuGIII and a panzerschreck team. The Volkssturm miniatures below are from Wartime Miniatures.

This was designed as an Attack & Defend scenario, as per the v2 rulebook. For that I needed two suitable objective markers. To set the theme I chose a couple of models that would fit the period and place - a broken down Opel Blitz omnibus, a lovely kit from Roden, and, a burnt out PzIV, a conversion using a Dragon kit.

As luck would have it, Richard Clarke, from Too Fat Lardies, was going to be in Sydney visiting his daughter in mid January. He didn't plan on a trip to Cancon, but did have time for a game one evening in Sydney. That was perfect timing to have him playtest the scenario with Dave, my regular Chain of Command opponent. The table was not the final version, as I only needed to have the key buildings in place, but it gave me an important feel for how the scenario could be fine tuned. 

When it came to the table at Cancon I gave it the full treatment, dressing it with rubble and other scatter terrain. More about making that ruined city landscape in this post.

I ran four games using the same scenario, with two games each day on the Saturday and Sunday. To speed up the start of each game I set the force morale in advance and players were given a choice of three support options for their chosen side. I printed these out on to cards to make the whole process quick and easy to understand. Players were asked to select one of the options, keep it secret and hand me the card. That way their opponent would know what the options might be, but not which one was selected until the units appeared on the table.

It was interesting to see how each game unfolded and how that was influenced by the support options that were chosen. The combination of a T34/76 and a Scout section proved the most popular with the Soviet players, mainly because it allowed the use of the Scout special rule where they can use a team as a jump-off-point. They could also use the T34 for the Russian characteristic of Tankodesantniki, which similarly allows an AFV with no shock to act as a jump-off-point. Although, in the end, no one actually used that tactic in any of the games played.

The German players tended to favour taking the option for a StuGIII. This allowed use of Pakfront! one of the new German characteristics in the v2 rule book.

This often resulted in opposing tanks contesting the various objective markers and trying to stalk each other amidst the narrow confines of the ruined streets. Nail-biting for the players and very entertaining to watch as the game organiser.

The Volkssturm made an appearance in only one game. There they took up a secure position to guard one of the objectives and not much was asked of them. Probably just as well.

Objective points often changed hands several times in the course of a game amidst bitter hand-to-hand fighting. All of the elements you'd expect to witness in a city fight.

One Russian option included two SU-76 and an infantry flamethrower team. While the SU-76s provide useful HE support, their armour is paper thin. On the other hand, the flamethrower team could operate to deadly effect - if it can come close enough. 

In one game, a plucky SU-76 stood its ground to duel with a StuGIII. 

Hardly a fair fight, but it survived for longer than either player was expecting. Until it didn't. Exploding in flames and inflicting casualties on a nearby friendly SMG section.

It was good to see all of the scenarios hotly contested, but played in the right spirit. The game attracted a fair bit of attention from passersby, with plenty of compliments on the terrain.

20mm games rarely make an appearance at the convention, so it was great to fly the flag for that scale and for Chain of Command.

Too Fat Lardies very kindly gave all the tournament organisers two bespoke Lardy dice towers, featuring their Pie and Pint logo, made courtesy of Battlefield Accessories. Both saw a lot of use.

While my regular CoC opponent Dave helped with playtesting, he had his own games to run at Cancon. Here he is (in the centre) running participation games of Infamy, Infamy. He was intrigued that several different people asked if he was 'the Dave' from the Tactical Painter blog. So, here he is, the face behind the name.

Happy to say that was another very successful Cancon. I was pleased with the way the scenario played out. Several players travel quite some distance to attend and I feel game organisers carry a fair degree of responsibility to ensure they provide participants with a good experience. With three hours to play each scenario I'm always concerned the games may run over time, but all came to satisfactory conclusions within the allotted time. Naturally, it was really gratifying to receive so much positive feedback on all aspects, but particularly the terrain.

As always, it was good to see familiar faces at the event and big thanks to all those who participated in my games - Mark Chandler, MJ Carrick, Ben Fiene, Rowan Coker, Jeremy Cullis, Steve Preston (at very short notice, so thank you), Barnaby (you know who you are) and Damien Browne. Lastly, and most certainly not least, a huge thanks to Peter Rossetti, the organiser of the Lard Zone. As I said to him at CanCon, I don't think he quite receives the recognition he deserves for the excellent job he does. It must be like herding cats at times, a task at which it seems he has come to excel.  

Germanic Warriors for Infamy, Infamy

This is my first foray into the ancient period and was inspired by the Infamy, Infamy! rules from Too Fat Lardies. Some of this journey I documented earlier, but I thought I'd wrap up the completed project in a single post. 

I've put together a German warband based on the plastic figure set from Victrix. The set comes with sixty plastic figures and almost gives enough for a complete warband for Infamy, Infamy! 'Almost' being the key word.

There is a good selection of figures. From those barely dressed...

To several equipped with stolen Roman armour and other hardware. These will make for good Foederati.

The Germanic warband is composed principally of groups of warriors, with ten figures per group. The only type of formation these groups can form, if it can indeed be termed a formation, is as a mob. For that reason I've resisted the temptation to use sabot basing for the groups, preferring instead to go for a more unstructured look, but one that still allows me to remove casualties. I've opted for basing with either three, two or one figure to a base.

This worked well for the Mahdists, when I put together my colonial project set in Sudan.

A group of ten is composed of two bases with three figures, one with two figures and two individually based.

The leader figures are based individually, but on bases the same length as the three figure bases. 

I've added rocks to help identify which leader corresponds to which card in Infamy, Infamy!

One reason I've based them like that is so they can sit in between two of the three figure bases and in so doing give each group the same frontage as the sabot bases I will use for the Romans (ah yes, I didn't mention that, did I? I've gone right down the rabbit hole.... ).

That allows the figures and bases to be staggered, to give a much more irregular appearance. One that should contrast nicely with the Romans and their more disciplined formations.

They've already featured in one game. I think this basing has worked well and creates a suitably impressive looking barbarian mob.

The warrior groups have three options for supporting missile units. Only one of these is possible to create from the base set of Victrix figures and that's a group of six armed with javelins.

The other two options are slingers and archers. Initially, I thought an easy solution for the slingers was to make use of a box of Gripping Beast Dark Age Warriors that I had sitting around from a Viking project I'd abandoned (it was intended for playing Saga, but I lost complete interest after playing a few games with those rules and finding them not to my liking).

The Gripping Beast set includes hands with slings, so I thought I could use a few of the spare heads from the Victrix set with the GB bodies and that would help blend these in with my warband. Unfortunately, I found the Victrix heads did not sit well on the Gripping Beast bodies, they seem too large. To make matters worse, I wasn't convinced by the poses of the GB figures, they lacked any real dynamism. They would be passable in an emergency, but otherwise I didn't want to use them.

My solution was to buy an additional sprue of the Victrix figures and add the sling hands to some of those models. I was much, much happier with the result. Obviously, the figures blend in with the other warriors, but perhaps even more importantly, the poses are much more dynamic. Interestingly, I used a few of the GB heads to add variety and these sit much better on the Victrix bodies than the other way around.

I know plastic figures are not popular with all gamers, but this highlighted to me one of their advantages, which is their versatility when it comes to kit bashing or adding variation. Take the two figures below. Both are based on the exact same Victrix body. However, a simple conversion to add a sling hand and a head turned to the side (to alter the angle the body faces the enemy), had enabled me to have two quite different figures based on the same body.

That left a group of six archers. I looked at a sprue of Victrix Dark Age archers and realised these would work well enough for the Germans. The clothing was very similar and I had plenty of spare heads I could add. That was a straightforward enough project, made even simpler by the fact a single Victrix sprue contains exactly six figures.

One other support option, aside from obviously adding more groups of warriors to the warband, is a group of six fanatic warriors. I picked up one more sprue of the Victrix warriors and used this to add the extra javelin figures I needed. I used the additional figures to make up an extra six fanatics. They are no different to the warrior figures, but I just wanted to ensure I had enough on single bases to add the fanatics without taking figures from one of the warrior groups. That way I had sufficient to maximise the number I could deploy in a game.

I added to the support options by making up one of the Victrix figures as a horn blower, to use as a 'musician' to extend the command range of the warband leader.

Wargames Foundry do a lovely set of wailing women, which operate as a Rally Point support.

Finally, I've created markers to use to represent Ambush Points and Deployment Points. The stone cairns will be used to mark Ambush Points. The banner and the priestess will be used to mark regular Deployment Points.

That gives a reasonable force for a game. Naturally, it goes without saying, there is always more than can be added. No doubt it will be, at some stage. Their first outing in a game saw them roundly defeated by the Romans, hopefully they can lift their game in the future!

They fell back in chaos on the wailing women, but even their lamentations and chastisements were not enough to put them back in the fight. 

On the other hand the fanatics proved to be, well.....fanatical. That said, they tend to live fast and die young. It appears German force morale is barely impacted by their loss. After all, what should one expect from fanatics?