Gencon - 2010 (LONG)

Last week was Gencon and again I went for all four days! It was a lot of fun and if you are any kind of gamer and in the area, I recommend it!

Wednesday – Day 0

Like last year, I decided to “Cull the Herd” and sell some of my games. In the end I had two containers full with 31 auctions. I had a mix of games that I was looking to sell and a bunch of old 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons. After a couple of hours of waiting in line (I pre-registered all my stuff this year), I got out of there happy that everything was in there.

My purchases started that day since I went and bought the Privateer Press Ram shirt like I have every year (it’s a tradition – like the hirstart mold). Once done, I headed to the Game Preserve (the local game store) for Urbie Wars! It’s a fun little pre-Gencon Battletech event that is a King of the Hill scenario. One of the guys had a bunch of Urbies – that’s Urbanmech for the masses – one of the crappiest mechs in the game and we tear about a heroscape board trying to kill each other. It’s a whole lot of fun (and very tongue in cheek). I managed to not be killed this year, but I able couldn’t hit anything so I probably was the most ineffective mechjock in the most ineffective mech (it’s a talent).

After the event, it was time to head to a friend’s house where I stay for the convention (he lives 15 minutes from the convention).

Spending: $20.00

Thursday – Day 1

I was helping at the Privateer Press booth most of the morning/afternoon so there isn’t much to tell here. I demo’ed all of the games since I was doing the break shifts. I like the break shifts since they are a bit shorter, but more importantly, I get to do all the games so I never get bogged down on any single table. It works for me and my style... The only downside is I have to keep current on all their games, but I got that so what can you do!

That evening, I had an obvious zombie event (it was called the Umbrella Chronicles). As fate would have it, the game system that we were played under was Ares (by Majestic Twelve Games - www.MJ12games.com) which was on the description, but I somehow missed it. Actually, the game itself was a mash of Ares and ATZ (from two hour wargames). It took a little time to get back into how the mechanics worked, but soon we were playing and keeping the game moving. In the end, I was surrounded by zombies in the middle of the field I was trying to escape) and was slowly mauled (normally you only get a +1/die if you are outnumbered, but zombies get to add an additional +1/die for each extra zombie in the fight – when my final models died, I had 4 zombies on both my remaining characters they were rolling +4/die or +8 – bloodbath). Still the game was a blast and I have played Ares with that GM at Origins a couple years ago. The refinements that he has made to the game have really made it work.

If you look closely, I'm in the middle of all those zombies near the yellow truck.

Friday – Day 2

Friday was jammed packed with events for me. I really loved being able to pre-reg for events. My first one was a Malifaux Demo. Both of us to play the demo had a basic understanding of the game, but we only got into the second turn before we had to stop. Still, it was a great little game and to be honest, any game that requires only 5 to 10 models is awesome! We didn’t get through much of it, but I really enjoyed the demo and the game system has some real cool concepts and ideas. I’ll have to put that on my watch list once the Great Painting is complete!

My Malifaux models line up for a picture!

I had about two hours in the dealer’s room and I spent that wondering about with Jarrod (and getting a Dr. Who cup for Meghan). We just combed through the hall and I was making a mental list of all the places that I wanted to stop on my larger shopping break on Saturday. I did manage to play a little bit of Claustrophobia before having to head to my next game (it wasn’t that bad, but it’s only for 2 players).

From noon to 4pm, I was scheduled to play in Battlestations – Bot Wars. Due to the number of players, both brothers ran a game and since I kinda knew what was going on in Bot Wars, I moved and played with Jason in a Deep Ones in Deep Space game. My returning character is a mad genius and get into trouble with sanity check more often than you would think! Still, the game was a blast and we barely made it out with our lives (go us).

Right after that, I moved to the main mini’s hall and played in a Star Wars – Full Thrust game. I played on the rebel’s side looking to destroy one (or more) of the Star Destroyers. We had the option in setting a trap for the Imperial players and it worked perfectly! We skirted out of our hiding place and got one of the smaller Star destroyers with minimal damage to ourselves. It was a lot of fun for us, but I’m sure that the Imperials (who were way out of position once we showed up and as a result got barely any shooting in) would say otherwise.

The trap works perfectly and the Star Destroyers are facing the wrong way!

Finally I had a Desperado game sponsored by 19 & 1 gaming group (they are based in Indianapolis and I used to hand out with them when I lived up there – heck, I was a member of the club for a while). Due to a scheduling issue, I had to leave after a single hour, but I did get a head shot in before I left killing a guy outright (thankfully, you got to come back in once killed). After the hour was up, it was time to run to the Press Ganger party at Jillian’s. I thought it started at 9pm, but it was really 8pm, so I missed the demo of the computer game that is coming out (heard from others that it was sweet).

Saturday – Day 3

My first game was a Song of Blades and Heroes game and it was a lot of fun (even if a bit one side – action-wise). The scenario was that the dwarves are looking to settle the score and reclaim their lost items. In my case (since I played the dwarves), I was looking to kill the Rat-man and take back an anvil that was stolen. My opponent had lower quality than me and really had a tough time keeping his warband together. Using my better quality (and thus more actions), I was able to take the battle to his flank and kill some of his rat-man and then slowly grinded away the middle until finished.

I actually had a game from noon to 4pm (Circus Magicus), but due to a major problem, I didn’t have any time to really check the dealer’s hall. Due to that, I had to cancel that event. In the end, I should have played in that cuz it looked great (and the home-brew rules were promising) instead of the SBH (since I’ve played a bunch of that). In any case, these four hours were the only time that was going to get to all my purchases done.

Without really slowing down to look at anything else, I went to ‘work’. I had a list of all the booths I needed to stop at and I quickly went from one side to the other getting all my stuff. I did get a ‘demo’ of Settlers of America and it was good game (and I needed it to complete my Catan good set and my 50% off a game). My only beef was that the demo lasted 45 minutes and was a bit too long for me (give me a 15 minute demo – I have stuff to do). Of course, once I got all my goods (did some serious trading – Ore for Wood, Grain for Clay and Clay back for Wood) and was looking to buy Settlers of America, the coupon was not usable for it so I picked up Nuns on the Run instead.

The buys: A battlefoam Warmachine bag ($145), the Iron Dynasty RPG book using the Savage Worlds Ruleset ($25) - I thought it was going to have more in the skirmish side of things in it, but that’s okay should be an interesting read regardless. Then a starter deck for World of Warcraft: the card game (Jarrod and I did get a game in and it was only 5 bucks with a coupon so what can I say – it was an impulse buy). Next was Deep Ones in Deep Space for Battlestations($20), a Devil’s Panties Comic - after all this time reading that comic, I finally got to meet the artist and I totally geeked out ($20). Lastly, the above mentioned Nuns on the Run game ($18).

At 4pm, both Meghan and I had a WEGS Old Skool (see http://www.gamewick.com/ )game called Tale of the Trojan Pig (ran by one of the ‘designers’ in the Table Top Gamers area – a great set of guys/gals based out of Ohio). The game was a basically a long-winded demo, but it was entertaining and that system is quite good for the quick ‘hack and slash’ game of old. Personally, I think it would be a lot easier to run it as a boardgame than say Descent (less prep, still a ton of options). Definitely need to get into the larger games for the next year. Did I just say I was going to move away from miniatures at a convention to play in a RPG???

See, a Trojan Pig!

Spending: $233 + $40 just now for the new edition of WEGS

Sunday – Day 4
The final day, I worked for Privateer Press. I started in the Iron Arena area, but due to a double booking, I actually found myself giving breaks in the dealer’s hall. Not a big deal, but I didn’t want to completely kill my voice. Thankfully, the hall was more subdued and I didn’t have to scream the entire time (like Thursday). Once the hall closed, I helped with some minor clean up and got to heading home! No buys and no ‘fun’ on the final day – just work!

Final Thoughts:

Of the 31 things I put up for auction/sale, all but 4 sold netting me just over $500. After the 15% processing fee, my total take home was around $420. Not a bad haul if you think about it. Now the remainder of the money from Gencon is going to probably get me a better Subbuteo setup.

Red Sand, Blue Sky

After reading all the battle reports on this game I went ahead and picked it up. After reading the rules for myself, it was time to get into the arena and finally play a game. So excited about this game, I made an arena for all my gladiator combats using a pizza pan (see previous entry). I don’t have any actual gladiator figures, but I have a ton of fantasy figures laying about so I grabbed a couple and placed them in the arena for the first contest! I have been thinking and talking about working a more fantasy spin on RSBS since I purchased it. However, since this is my first technical game of RSBS, I decided that I should use the regular rules and not add any specials, weapon or armor modifications into the mix.

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In the early morning light, two gladiators face off for what could be the start of their glorious careers. Our first combatant is a lizardman Retiarius named G’agg and our second combatant is a human Secutor named Fetch. Both are REP 4 on the Fringes of the Empire (whatever that would be in my fantasy world)…
Both combatants are sent into the arena and the fighting (and betting) begins in earnest…

The first turn sees both move straight towards each other. Fetch closes the distance, but it looks like G’agg will still get to throw his net! G’agg lets it fly, but Fetch grabs it out of the air and causes a tug of war! Both gladiators fight with all their might, but in the end, the net is flung useless to the ground.

Both square off in the arena

Fetch moves in grabbing the initiative (again) and strikes at G’agg (not having enough movement for a bash). What looked like a telling blow turned to be a mere scratch on the left arm of G’agg. G’agg doesn’t opt to flank and attack and both exchange ineffective attacks. G’agg grabs the initiative, but both fighters fail to damage their opponent. Fetch seeing a possible opening attempts to flank and attack, but G’agg was ready for him and all Fetch does is tire himself out (G’agg passed one more die then Fetch). Wanting to conserve strength, Fetch backs down for this attack and it works. It looks like G’agg saw an opening that wasn’t there and wastes energy on nothing (Fetch rolled a single die, where G’agg rolled 3 – no successes for either however).

Current die pools:
Fetch at 12, G’agg at 11

G’agg retains the initiative looks to flank Fetch and end this, caught a bit off guard, Fetch wastes some energy and gets a spear shot into his upper Left Leg causing him to stumble back (G’agg passes one more die then Fetch and forces him to spend a 1d10 to keep G’agg to his front). On the attack, G’agg hits Fetch in the unprotected upper left leg and causes a wound that does a total of 3d10 and pushes him back an inch). Not to be outdone, Fetch rushes back in to attempt to win this battle, but G’agg is faster and stabs Fetch for a deep cut into his chest. Exhausted Fetch falls to the ground. G’agg is awarded his first (of many?) Laurel wreaths (and 4 AP). In the coming months both of Fetch’s wounds do not heal correctly and he is sold off never to combat again…

G'agg stands victorious over his foe!

Final thoughts: The game plays great. Between this and Fight Night Fights, I feel there is a lot more options available for the player to choose in RSBS than in FNF. Still, I can't wait to play again.

Gladiator Arena!

There have been a lot of people playing Red Sands, Blue Sky (RSBS) on the THW forum so I went ahead and bought the game while at Origins. After reading through the rules, it occurred to me that I was going to need a suitable gladiator arena for my combats. In a bit of inspiration, I realized that if I could find a decently sized pizza pan, that I could have a quick (and cheap) gladiator arena! A trip to Walmart netted me a 16” metal pizza pan for a mere 4 bucks.

I scuffed it up with some sandpaper and placed felt on the bottom to keep it for sliding (yellow was on sale).

Then, I glued down a mix of sand and rocks (I find that the best time to get my 'perfect' rock mix is to get some from roads during winter - my city uses sand instead of salt for the roads).



Next step was to spray painted the whole thing brown (I use the cheap spray paint for terrain. I think the can cost about 2 bucks).


A couple of lighter browns and a few tan colors later, I had a nice effect. Clear coated it with cheap matte spray and was ready to play! I found out later that the pizza pan that I bought is metallic and I can add terrain to the arena with a couple of strong magnets (talk about convenient)!

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.

Boardgames!

Of course I made this blog mainly to play miniatures games, but I decided that I could also use it to record other gaming (like board games) that I do. Honestly, I should probably log plays and even session reports on http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ but I rarely actually do that for some odd reason.

So enough explaining the new plan...

Lets talk about some gaming! I found a simple game called The d6 Shooters on BBG a while ago, but never played it much. In the process of cleaning some stuff, I refound it and in a moment of boredom I figured that I play it a couple of times. Simply put The d6 Shooters is a modification of the classic game of yatzee where you roll a number of dice (8 in the case of this game) and have three chances to get the 'best' possible round.

The object of the game is to move an outlaw from one city (Pyrite) to a second (Reno) in 40 days (aka rounds). The key is that the dice are in two colors and three of them can be 'locked' if you roll either a 5 or 6 on the first roll (both those numbers are bad for you). It's a simple game, but quite entertaining! I played three games and the first two were dismal showings (funny that a made it to the city of Thompson and then killed by the outlaw's gang both times).

My third game went a lot better and I actually made it to Reno and won the game with 44 points. I can't tell you if that is a good score, but at least I won. If you have a couple of minutes to kill, 8d6 dice (in two colors), a pen and the score sheet (a single sheet of paper), I completely recommend it!

the d6 shooters

Privateer Press - Leaderboard

As you might not know, I am a press ganger for Privateer Press (a volunteer that promotes their game and runs events). To that effect the last couple of weeks/months, my gaming time have been used to get things ready on that end.

The first was getting ready for a tournament at the local game store. One of the scenarios requires the use of flags for objectives. I quickly whipped up some (aka 18) for the game!

As you can see, I ran out of time for the actual flags and just had to use white paper with the Privateer Press faction symbols on them. The rest of the flag was quite simple. The base was coated in my 'basing material' (the road crews in my town use sand/dirt for the roads instead of salt. After the snow melts and the sand/dirt dries, I go and get a couple of scoops, sift out the bad stuff and volia - cheap rocks for bases) and spray painted black.

For most of my bases, I start with a basecoat of dark brown, followed by a dry brush of light brown and finally a dry brush of tan. Nothing fancy and it works. The only issue is that I have to do my 'basing' prior to the spray painting the model or it takes a bunch more time. I need to buy some pre-painted basing material for when I get the miniature done prior to the base.

The flag pole is a dowel rod cut to ~2 inch pieces, also sprayed in black primer followed by a brown and then a red/brown ink. All in all, they came out great and I really need to have more objective games so I can use them! :)

The next warmachine/Hordes project was for the Nightfall League. It started a couple of days after the tournament and most of my energy has been going into that (I mean, I'm playing my Trolls two or three times a week). The one thing that needed to be finished for the league was a ladder board. My local game store didn't have one so I took it upon myself to make one. Here is the end result...

The board started as a 2' x 2' one half inch oak board that I had Lowes cut into half. Then, I (and my dad) cut the 0.25 inch slits for the cards to fit into (the slits are 3.5 inches). Finally, I added a 0.5 inch square dowel rod to the top and sides so the board would sit out from the wall. The board was stained twice with a minwax and two miniature hooks were added to allow a piece of paper at the bottom (to show what league is currently going on). I think I am going to tweek a couple of things once the league is finished, but for now, it is a nice little piece that in currently hanging up at the game store.

How am I doing in the league, you ask. As of Friday, I was in second (tied with first in points), but I'm sure that I have fallen off since games were going to happen on Saturday.

35 point Warmachine Army - Color on the metal!

In an effort to ensure that I meet one of my missions this year, I am planning this early so I can have a lot of time to finish it. Since I have a new army, I figured that I would go with the Retribution for my choice (I really should paint pirates, but I'm scared of the number of solos)!

35 Points:
Ravyn, Eternal Light (*6pts)
* Griffon (4pts)
* Phoenix (10pts)
Dawnguard Invictors (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
* Dawnguard Invictor Officer & Standard (2pts)
House Shyeel Battle Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios (3pts)
Ghost Sniper (2pts)
Ghost Sniper (2pts)
House Shyeel Magister (2pts)

First mission is that I'm going to need to purchase two Ghost Sniper models (not really an issue - I need them for the army anyways). Then a paint scheme. I really don't like the official white - that's not true, I don't think I can make te white look cool.. In that end, I'm looking for something different. I really want to do Black/Orange, but I don't think painting-wise I can pull it off.