Jawathon 2026: When it’s More Than Just a Fandom

26th July 2026

Rosco

5 mins

On Saturday, 11 July, an amazing community built around a mutual love of Star Wars games achieved something far bigger than just a tournament. Jawathon 2026, led by the illustrious Andrew Symons (@Fez) and the Perth Jawas community, raised almost $8,000 for Kids' Cancer Research through The Kids Research Institute Australia.

Held at Wesley College in South Perth, Western Australia, Jawathon brought together players from across a range of tabletop games, including Star Wars: Armada, Legion, X-Wing, Shatterpoint, Unlimited, Marvel Crisis Protocol and, for the first time, Riftbound. The concept was beautifully simple: gather a bunch of people who enjoy pushing miniatures around tabletops and/or throwing cards down (as well as solving jigsaw puzzles) for a whole day, charge a small fee to attend, feed them, caffeinate them, and then donate every cent of the ticket sales and on-the-day fundraising directly to The Kids Research Institute Australia.

It turns out tabletop gamers are remarkably good at opening their wallets when the cause is worthwhile.

It’s still unreal that, by the end of the day, the event had raised approximately $8,000 for children's cancer research. That really is an extraordinary effort by everyone involved, from the event planners and tournament organisers to the sponsors, volunteers, sausage sizzle crew (The Outer Rim Recipe Raiders), and every player who bought a raffle ticket, bid on the silent auction, grabbed another snag or quietly slipped a few extra dollarydoos into the donation bucket up the front. An amazing combination of sponsors provided an epic prize table during the day as well, and I think just about every single attendee walked away with a door prize as the wheel was spun constantly through the day. I was super stoked to score a Battle of Hoth board game!

While Jawathon celebrates tabletop gaming as a whole, this is still Aluminium Falcon, so my attention was naturally drawn to those neat little fleet trays full of the Star Destroyers, Rebel nonsense, and all the other big plastic spaceships occupying one particular row of tables in the auditorium that housed Star Wars Armada.

The Armada event, organised by Colm Kiely (@Col_Ki), embraced the wonderfully cinematic Monster Trucks format. Fleets expanded to 500 points, flagships had to be a Large/Huge ship, at least half your fleet had to consist of Large or Huge hulls with no more than 125 points of squadrons, Legacy and ARC content were welcomed, and 3D-printed ships happily took their place alongside official miniatures. If you've ever wanted an excuse to chuck a bunch of the various oversized spaceships you own on the table at once, this was probably it.

More importantly, the tournament captured the spirit of the day perfectly. The games were a little competitive without becoming overly serious; everyone understood why they were there, and every donation helped push the fundraising total a little higher. After all, it's difficult to complain about your opponent's dice and getting tabled when they're helping raise money for children's cancer research. It was broadly encouraged to use donations in your favour, such as attack rerolls, take-backs or even for the TO to look the other way when flying a little too close to the edge… but members of the 501st Desert Scorpion Garrison were also wandering around, and the odd stormtrooper sometimes liked to do rerolls of their own with your dice. Watch out for Tusken Raiders camped out on the ridge too.

Colm ran auctions at the beginning of each round. Players could bid on a range of nautical hats that came with a personal title from Bo’sun to Captain, or even Dread Pirate, forcing your opponent to address you as such, or risk a donation fine! A range of Armada tokens and accessories donated by none other than Admiral Tater‍ also drove some bidding wars - meaning players could snaffle up some sweet Tater Perth Jawas-themed loot while supporting a great cause.

We had an excellent turnout of 10 players for the event, with participants from all over Perth’s ‘urban sprawl’ ranging from brand-new players to seasoned veterans of the game. My best mate, Dane, also attended for his first tournament. He and I originally started playing Armada together when it was first released in 2015. My opponents Charles, Michael and Angus were all great blokes. It was good to meet more of the Perth Armada crowd. ‍

Lists and standings can be found on T5, here: https://www.t5.tools/events/9423a944-7bea-4c4d-881d-78fb88e0426e

Overall, it was an awesome, fun day, and I am so glad that I was able to attend such an epic event. I will definitely aim to attend next year’s Jawathon, maybe even get a bit of an interstate contingent this time?! Maybe so.

I’ll be back soon to write some more articles, as It’s been a pretty busy first half of 2026! More on that later though. Until then…

Cheers,

Rosco 🥃