Origins!

The last week in June was Origins Game Fair, a four day gaming convention in Columbus, Ohio. A group of my friends and I go every year and it’s always a good time. This year didn’t disappoint in the slightest.

Thursday – Day 1

I was helping Privateer Press run a Warmachine/Hordes tournament so I had to be at the convention center around 9am. I got my badge and my pre-reg tickets (not a fun prospect this year) and was the Co-tournament organizer for the morning and most of the afternoon. After the tournament was finished I wandered through the Dealer‘s Hall seeing if there was anything that I wanted/needed to buy. In the end, I went ahead and picked up the new Risk’s and Rewards card for ATZ by Two Hour Wargames. As an added bonus, I got Red Sand, Blue Sky for half off. There has been a lot of talk of that game on the yahoo board and I could pass up the 50% off sale!

The only game I played in before heading to sleep was Assault on Vault 51. It’s a fallout scenario using the Mutant’s and Death Rays rule set produced by Ganesha Games. It had a wonderful looking terrain and the game was well thought out and provided a ton of enjoyment. I am going to keep my thoughts and game recap to a minimum since I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who is going to play in it. After the game it was around midnight and since I woke up at 5 am to get to the convention on time, I didn’t feel all that bad for cutting out early.

Some of the beautiful terrain used in the Assault on Vault 51 game!

Spending: $20

Friday – Day 2

I got to the game room a bit early so I had some time to kill. As I was wondering around, a game of Deathrace (based off the Warlands system) was starting and even though I told them I couldn’t stick around for the while race, I jumped in. The rules are quite simple and the game itself was a lot of fun. I was bumped by a car during the first turn and that player managed to do a critical that killed my driver. It turns out with all the crashing and bumping that no car survived to the first ‘curve’. I was killed by my awesome ram in the back of two vehicles (after using nitro of course).

If you look closely, there is a car barely over the start/finish line (way behind yellow), that's me!

Again I was helping run a Warmachine/Hordes tournament. This only was a 2 caster/’lock, 50 point beast/warjack and it was a whole lot of fun to watch. Since we had an odd number of players and the second TO left to hang with his father for a round, I even got to play a Haley/Striker list against a Cryx player. Due to the number of players, the tournament ended a bit early so I spent the remainder of my time wandering about the game hall before my game that night. I picked up a couple of block die from Impact miniatures and some counters from Litko (http://www.litkoaero.com/)

In the evening, I played in an “Adventures in Lost Lands” game (by Two hour wargames) ran by Ed himself. There were 8 players so we split into two groups of 4 (with a bearer apiece). This game was a lot of fun. For some reason, the fates were against my side and we had to deal with a couple of feeder dino’s (which we wounded and sent towards the other group), Trogs (which we handled without any issues), Early Man (who surprised us and kill most of our team’s bearers) and second dino (who turned out to be a meat eater). We managed to kill it, but one of us was wounded in the process.

See the other dino's flee in the wake of KONG!

While trying to skin that dino (to prove their existence), three PEF (that’s possible Enemy force) showed up right on top of us… One of those PEF turned out to be King Kong! I fled when he came “In sight” but the others fled when Kong went after one of our hunters. Of course, we flee towards the other group and after losing one of their hunters, manage to kill Kong (amazing die rolls I might add). I didn’t make it off the table. I was attacked by the other of those PEFs after Kong ran through and we grouped back up. A great game!

Afterwards, I found a group just starting Red Dragon Inn and sat down to play. It was great fun and I even managed to win the game allowing me to have a chance at a prize. I rolled amazing (a 17 on a d20) and got Street Illegal for free.

Spending: $25 (but I knew I was buying Warlands when I came home)

Saturday – Day 3

This day was jammed pack with gaming starting at 8 am and heading straight through until 4pm. First up was “Wings of War” with miniatures. I really enjoyed the game with its simple rules and quick play. Due to an error in scheduling, a second group of people showed up to play at 9am and we all just played a huge 4 on 4 battle. Great fun… I can’t remember the young lady that showed us how to play, but I can tell you that she was a fighting ace taking down at least 4 planes in the short time we played… Even got me on turn two (took 4 damage cards that were enough to destroy my plane).

After that, it was time for some Savage Showdown in the Iron Dynasty campaign setting. The book is not out, but they are hopeful for Gencon. When I signed up, I wasn’t so excited about the setting since it’s ancient Japan with steampunk included, but I couldn’t find any other Savage Worlds non-RPG so I figured I’d take a stab at it. The game was a lot of fun even if my side (with the designer no less) didn’t manage to win. Each team had a clockwork vehicle of some sort, a magician of some sort (a wild card) and a couple of units (some samurai and some ‘shooters’. I was playing the vehicle (which tried to go toe-to-toe with the other vehicle and was destroyed). The system plays great as a skirmish wargame, but the point system can be easily abuse. I figured that I enjoyed the rule changes and the game enough that I’ll probably pick that up in the end.

The two steampunk vehicles command respect (at least their's did).

Final scheduled game for the day was a Battlestations game called Bot Wars ran by one of the designers (Jeff instead of Jason) and it was a hoot. There newest release is a mini-campaign where the bots have gone crazy and are attacking the humans (and the rest technically). We barely managed to survive the game. The only major beef with the convention games is that the returning characters can be a pick strong which really can have a huge impact. Our game was super rough since we had a level 6 pilot that was awesome at flying the ship, but the scenario we played was all about fighting robots. A friend of mine said his game was a mess since they had a level 6 marine who single-handedly fought most of the robot attackers! I’m glad that our game wasn’t that one-sided.

After that, it was back to the dealer’s room to again look about. Due to how much fun I had playing the Lost Lands game, I picked up a bunch of prehistoric models (mostly dinos, but I did pick up some prehistoric men).

Most of Saturday night was a trip to the Sausage house that we always go to. It’s has an all you can eat brat buffet with all the fixings. My only gripe (and it’s minimal at best) is that I eat too much good German food and am a mess for the remainder of the night (it’s also disheartening to leave the convention for ~2 hours, but I wouldn’t miss “Sausage Fest” for anything).

When I got back to the convention, a friend of mine (Justin) bought All Thing Zombie including some Rebel Mini 15mm zombies/survivors. Since we had some free time and didn’t have anything lined up, we put together a little scenario and played through the game. It was a bit rough to remember all the rules and such (it’s one thing to read the rules, it quite another to actually explain and play it). Still, with a lot of page flipping, we got through the game pretty well. Both of us had a Rep 5 survivor (star) and a Rep 4 grunt so things weren’t as bad as they could have been (like lower rep civies). I think we ran into only a couple of minor problems on our trek across the board (to a car park).

Spending: $60

Sunday – day 4

I had a single game lined up due to one getting cancelled. It was another from Ganesha Games called Song of Armies and Hordes. I wasn’t going to play this since I’m not a big fan of large scale battles, but in the end I stuck it out and played in it anyways. In the end, I’m glad I did; using their activation mechanic made famous in their “Song of…” series, it played fast and fun. Honestly, there were just a couple of minor changes to the core mechanic, but really made the game a lot of fun.

The Dwarven and Elves clash!

Afterwards, I went back into the dealer’s room for some last minute buys. I first picked up a copy of Bot Wars complete with autograph! Next, I picked up three boxes of Starship Trooper models (costing 5 dollars a box), a dreadnaught for my ‘space marines’ (I have a couple of squads from Space Hulk) and some of the Iron Kingdoms RPG miniature line (including a bridge troll for use in Blood Bowl). If that wasn’t enough, I bought more dinos and lions for gladiator gaming (when I finish reading the book of course).

Spending: $80

Somewhere in there I played in a Leviathans demo from Catalyst games. It has some really cool ideas to it and I can’t wait to see some of the finished product. I wish I would have taken more pictures of it since my memory is fuzzy on when I actually played it. The system is easy. You pick a weapon that has a color code which coincides with a die type (I’m told that the polyhedron dice are ‘weighted’). To that add any addition dice for ‘crew’ (green die) and a die from the target (its speed & trajectory). With those dice, a final normal d6 is rolled to determine location (much like in Warmachine for the column). Sum the value on the dice and check to see if equals or exceeds the armor value in that space that location is damaged and whatever was ‘there’ is gone. I guess the idea is the hull of the ships are standard, but the ‘slots’ for each ship are going to be customizable. We will see once it gets closer to release on the full rules and the like. If I didn’t have a bunch of other game systems sitting in the house, I’d probably get into it.

Final Thoughts:

Origins Game Fair is always a fun time and if you can make it, I recommend going. Nothing many of the big game companies there, but don’t let that stop you. The dealer’s room has more than enough stuff to keep a gamer like me happy and the games being played are always fun to watch and play! I can’t wait until next year.

Origins 2009 Report

Finally Origins has come and gone and I can finally stop working on the games I’m running and start working on actually playing games. At least I can say that a good understanding of what to do and what not to do for conventions. For those who don’t know, Origins is a gaming convention that takes place around the end of June in Columbus OH (its official title is Origins Game Fair). It’s a five day event that has a little bit of everything a gamer would want! Board games, miniature games and RPGs go on throughout the day.

Thursday

We got to the convention center around 10am and after a brief visit to get my badge and a small tour around the miniatures room, it was time to check out the Dealer’s Hall. I used a lot of restraint and didn’t buy anything, but I used the time to mark where I would be making the trip back at a later date.

At 1pm, I headed to play in a Fear and Faith (F&F) demo by Ganesha Games ( http://www.songofblades.blogspot.com/ ). When I got there, Andrea (the designer) was explaining the rules for the game. I jumped in as the zombie player and got trounced handily. It turns out that my opponent had played the fantasy version of the game and wanted to see the differences. Of course before I sat down, each of the human survivors were given a single grenade. It was a slaughter! Still fun though.

2pm was a Battlestations game by Gorilla Games ( http://www.battlestations.info/ ). Again I got to play with the designer (Jason) and they were trying out their new expansion that will be released at Gencon. For those that have never played, Battlestations is a light RPG/board game that the players are all characters on a space ship completing missions for the UREF. Each character has a race (which gives a special ability), 5 stats (Engineering, Piloting, Combat, Science & Athletics) and a profession. Mechanics are simple (2d6 + stat vs. Difficulty number) and the action is quite entertaining. There are rules to advance your character and the like (and with clones, you can never truly die if you don’t want to). The game was a blast and I had so much fun, I went back for more.

Every year, my friends and I head to Schmidt’s for “Sausage fest” ( http://www.schmidthaus.com/ ). They have an all-you –can-eat sausage buffet with all the trimmings. Add a 32 oz beer and a cream puff for desert and you got a German experience to knock your socks off! It’s been a tradition since we starting going to Origins and I’m sure it will continue!

I did get to play a demo of Squadron Strike ( http://www.adastragames.com/ ). Once you get your brain wrapped about the 3D nature of the game, it’s pretty fun. I wanted to play in a full fledge ship to ship battle before I made any commitment. Unfortunately for me (but fortunately for my pocket book), I never got into a full battle over the weekend…

Friday

9am: I actually ran a Starmada: Battlestar Galactica game ( http://www.mj12games.com/ ). I had 2 players show up so I gave them two ships apiece and let them tear into each other. Due to the amount of work that I was doing for the SBH game, I didn’t have much in the way of scenario or terrain, but the players didn’t seem to care! In the end, the colonial forces wiped out the Cylon attack force with minor damage to the Pegasus.

1pm: I had a single player for my Song of Blades and Heroes game from Ganesha Games so after a quick rule discussion, we started playing the game. The player caught on really quick and it was good fun. It’s too bad more people didn’t want to jump in, but that’s due in my opinion two major reasons. One, the Warlord/Reaper guys already do a huge dungeon game complete with an awesome Hirst Arts( http://www.hirstarts.com/ ) setup (something I didn’t have with my converted Mage Knight figures and simple vinyl dungeon tiles). Secondly, there was a ton of SBH games running throughout the convention (too much of a good thing can still lead to too much).

After a quick peek into the Dealer’s Hall (I played the reprinted Tales of the Arabian Nights board game by Zman games – which I would have bought had they not sold out of it) and a little dinner, it was back to the miniature hall. I went to play a playtest of the Tales of Blade and Heroes, the new RPG from Ganesha Games. Personally, I’m a little leery of playing RPGs at conventions having too many bad experiences to count, but I really like the miniature system and the designer is awesome so I figured what the heck… Also, I wanted to see if I could adapt the rules for use as an expanded SBH miniatures game. The system was quite entertaining (the exploding 6 mechanic and the boosts were a great) and although I don’t think I’d ever play it as a pure RPG game, it has a ton of potential for use in the SBH miniature game.

Saturday

9am: Again a Starmada: Battlestar Galactica game and this time I had six players (I even had someone with generics, but I just didn’t have the space). Each player had a single miniature (granted it was about 1000 pts worth) and it was a slugfest. In the end, the Cylon players managed to destroy the Atlantia and cripple the Pegasus having only minimal damage to a single baseship. I was pretty glad that the scenario yielded a 1-1 overall!

~2pm: Due to the previous game running a bit long and the reasons above, I didn’t have any players for my second SBH game on Saturday. It’s unfortunate that I spend all the time, energy and money getting the game ready and not having any players, but there wasn’t much I can do. Thankfully most of the stuff that I prepared for the SBH game, I can reuse for my own personal games so I’m not too worried! Actually, I learned some valuable lessons in game presentation and scenario design that should help me in the conventions to come. I was a little disheartened, but I used my new found freedom to get into a second Battlestations game (Note: the second game was great has well. I tip my hat to the brothers).

~7pm: Due to dinner running over, I was unable to make it back in time for either of the games I wanted to play in. The first was a Hordes of the Things (HOTT) tournament. I did stop by and watch some of the action, but never got into a game. The second was a game using the “With Hostile Intent” rules (a great name for a spaceship combat game in my opinion). In the end, I spent the time moving from table to table watching all the different games being played.

Sunday

8am: I played in a Ghostbuster game that was a blast. The presentation was wondrous and the game play was perfect for early morning of the last day. We defeated the bad guy (you know the one) and walked away with a cool sticker showing off my ghostbuster skills (not mine, I couldn’t hit anything really).

The rest of the day was making my way back into the dealer’s hall to buy all of my needed purchases. I learned how to play Steam – the ‘remake’ of Age of Steam. It’s more forgiving than AoS so I might buy that as soon as Tales of Arabian Nights arrives. Due to a calculation error, I spend a little more than I wanted to, but nothing that I can’t handle pending I don’t buy any miniature stuff for a while (like until Gencon).

Notable purchases:

All Things Zombie (ATZ): Haven – I even got a quick demo by the Ed (the designer). I really need to finish my zombies and pick up some modern figures for use in ATZ and F&F. As an added bonus, I got 5150 book 1 for 10 bucks ( http://www.twohourwargames.com/ )!

Song of Splintered Lands: I knew that this was going to be an auto-buy since I have all the rules in the SBH series. What I didn’t know that I would be leaving the booth with ~50 dollars worth of their beautiful 15mm figures. I’m in the process of removing 15mm from the scales I play in, but these miniatures are beautiful and work awesome side by side with the larger 28mm cousins.

Savage Worlds – Fantasy Companion: This was a complete impulse buy for me, but due to a blog that I follow I picked it up. I have used the Savage World system for Dark City Games solo adventures and I’ve also seen people using the Savage World rules for purely miniature game so I figured that this would help me expand the rules ( http://www.peginc.com/ ).

Spaceship models: I bought a second Prometheus from the Iron Wind Metals booth ( http://www.ironwindmetals.com/ ) . The one I have will need some serious work since the engine piece doesn’t match up with the ship hull. I figured that I could use the second one for some serious BSG actions! I also bought a couple of ships from Ninja Magic ( http://www.ninjamagic.com/ ). Mainly the main colony ship from Homeworld and a couple of BSG inspired ships that actually are in the BS Prometheus fan story.

Dominion: Intrigue – The expansion for Dominion was out and I saw people walking about with it all weekend. The game itself is a good one so I really wanted to pick up the expansion. I have not been disappointed yet, although the new actions cards are a bit strange. I’m not sure why they needed to make it a fully playable game on its own (it has the needed VP and money cards), but I’m not going to let that harm my view of the game.

Final Thoughts

Origins Game Fair is always a great time! I enjoy the weekend of gaming and although I didn’t get to play all the games I wanted to, it was still a lot of fun. Now I have to relax and read all the books I bought from the convention and get ready for Gencon.

No 'games' to report

Okay, so another month goes by with little actual gaming occurring. The big issue is that I do find time to play games; every Thursday I go to the local game store to play either Warmachine/Hordes or MonPoc. Warmachine was in the mk2 playtest for April which was very exciting! It changes a lot of what has come before, but I find myself wanting to play games with the new set. It's a nice change.

I'm still working on the both the starmada and SBH scenarios for Origins. I have to make sure that I have enough stuff for a decent game, but not alot in terms of packages. I don't want to have to drive myself so I would really like to limit it to a case or so.

My current project is making the room monsters and the assorted accesories located in the dungeon. I am in the process of taking a bunch of my old mage knight miniatures and rebasing them for the game. Hopefully, I'll have that done in the next few days and I can begin to playtest what I got...