As carols start to replace top 40 hits and the dust of months sitting on shelves starts to be disturbed on prematurely merchandised christmas gifts and decorations, many people, me included, gain a little bit of breathing space from the hustle of the working year. Thus, while the blog has been silent for some time, I have a bit of time to discuss what's been happening since the last update.

Most exciting is the development of representative teams and SA Open attendees! At least ten people have already confirmed their attendance at the SA Open, from three different states, with a whole host of others, from other states, promising to come along if they don't make their undecided representative team. Based on this it would seem the Open will be very well attended and, with a good local SA showing, could be a massive tournament in its own right. When combined with the State Championship there is a possibility of breaking records set by EucBowl and CanCon. A list of confirmed attendees is on the SA Open page of the website. Let me know by email ([email protected]) or on AusBowl.com if you plan on being there.

In addition, we now have three complete teams (NSW, SA and WA), and one partially complete team (NZ), for the State Championship. Victoria is currently in the final stages of its selection process as well.

We've also been talking up the possibility of a Barbarians team as NT was unable to put a team together. As yet we are unsure whether the Barbarians will be able to compete. However, if not our contingency plan is to allow competitors from the SA Open to play against the representative team that currently has "the bye" in any round. Exactly how this occurs will be determined if required.

BBLOC SA has been working hard to get some of the other details of the tournament up and running and, while the AusBowl Painting Contest is currently looking a little bit shaky, everything else is steadily falling into place. We hope soon to start some fundraising raffles, both fantasy-football related and looking to the wider wargaming community. The venue is sorted and we hope everyone will join us for dinner there on the Saturday evening. The rules are now locked down, including the schedule and scoring systems, and the sponsors page provides details of some of the amazing prizes available for the SA Open. We are turning our attention to player gifts and trophies in the near future, so stay tuned for details of those.

For the time being, from all those involved in organising the AusBowl State Championship 2, have a fantastic holiday season (even if you don't actually get a holiday) and a blitzing start to 2013.

SinisterDexter

I've been trying recently to pin down some additional detail on several areas of the website as we move ever closer to the competition. In particular, the rule set has now been almost entirely pinned down, with the only gaps being how match-ups will be determined in the ASC2 and how scoring will be undertaken. Apart from this the Rules section is complete and provides coaches with exact details on how to build their teams and how this event will differ from other comparable tournaments.

I've also now added some detail in regard to the AusBowl Painting Tournament (APT) which will run at the same time. Ever since we first discussed hosting this event in Adelaide, we've been talking about also having a dedicated fantasy football painting competition. It's no secret that this is close to my own heart as, while I've been lucky enough to make the SA state team on both ocassions, painting has always been my main focus and I love to see amazingly painted miniatures and teams line up on the pitch with one another. I know there are many others in the same boat and, to make a rounded event, I feel that including painters in the "AusBowl" event is vitally important. In future years I would like to see it become a feature of both the State and Team Championships, although this decision rests, ultimately, with the organisers for any given year.

The categories that are planned for the APT are Player, Big Guy, Team and Open. The first three should be fairly obvious, although team has been defined further. Open is for anything else: dioramas, custom pitches, large scale models, etc.

It is also important to note that we are not requiring entrants to actually be present at the tournament, so long as they can get their entries there somehow. Given that there are a large number of players converging on the tournament from across the country, we figure this gives everyone the best opportunity to be involved by using attendees as mules (of course, this is at the discretion of the mul... err... attendees). I'd love to see the painters from around Australia come along though. Perhaps it is selfish, but having the chance to share a beer with danielcollins, DevilsReject, the Chad and many other gamers known for their amazing painting (yes, even Sart) would be awesome. Either way, however, seeing their work in the flesh would be almost as good.

It's also important to note that this stands apart from the Best Painted Team awards in both the AusBowl State Championship and SA Open, which are open only to competitors in those events and which will be judged by peer vote.

Once you've finished reading this, nip over to the "More" tab on the main page and select "Painting Contest" to see the rules as they stand. Keep posted on this too as we have some ideas re the trophies and 'branding' of the contest going forward.

Until next time...
SinisterDexter