Gencon 2014: day one

Back from Gencon, and lordy did I take too many pictures. Tried grouping these by topic, but I ended up with an outline of... nine posts. And considering how sporadically (and tardily) I have posted this year, I threw out that idea and will just give the day by day overview. Basically, my plan is to get these written up before I start writing about my prep for Fall In.

Thursday morning, 7:30 in the a.m., before anything is opened, we're behind the lines and setting up for our first Critical Mass demo. Featured above is Maurice in a sea of tables, denoting where we'd be.

The basic layout. Day one featued my Kaamados versus Maurice's Praesentia.

Alien trees and buildings are all Critical Mass, as well. Buildings are out of production, but so good.

Some hard-nosed Naga vets escorting a Gekotaa command car.

The foul Praesentia menace. With their foul force fields.

 The massive might of the Dragamaa heavy tank, guided by the Legion commander in his Dractamaa APC.

Aaron explaining the game to our honored students. Maurice, on the left, isn't moving. He's just naturally blurry.

You just teleported into the wrong part of town, mother hubbard! 

 The Dragamaa begins its second career as a smoking wreckage terrain feature.

Praesentia claim the middle objective. 

The game went well. I think we did a good job explaining it, and everyone seemed to have fun. 

Toys packed and safely ensconced back in the hotel room, we return to the con and hit the dealer's hall for day one shopping.

After dropping some cash on must-haves for Bushido, we check out the preliminaries on their upcoming Rise of the Kage board game. Sneaky ninjas from rival clans try to complete objectives without alerting the vigilant guards. Figs look great!

Another early stop was the Sentinels of the Multiverse booth. Which was pretty big, and pretty packed. It's a favorite game in out household. I got some cards signed for a friend, picked up promos to fill out my collection, and chatted with the artist. 

The Impact booth was tempting as always. Those walkers are pretty spiff.

The afternoon held the first of three Bushido events for me. As noted earlier, I've never played a game. But I rushed to have the figs together so I could play in two of the dojo events (pretty much just bring your figs and square off against other players) so I could learn the rules, and then play in the tournament on Saturday.

My first game was a stand-up fight against the Savage Wave of Mr. Jack. A noble opponent, he was patient with my innumerable questions and general confusion. It was a decent game, to boot. I was able to figure out the ebb and flow of a turn, and start learning the ins and outs of how my forces work. 

Engaging the enemy. 

Bakemono! Oni! Paintjobs! 

My monks, surrounded. 

If this was an RPG, the term would be 'failing your Spot check.' 

 Aiko has a bad day.

The terrain caught a lot of passerby's eyes, and rightfully so. It's by Lost Village Terrain, you can see some more pics here. The objective markers in the center there were by Retainer Greg (Ret-CrazyFish) himself, an easy but highly effective craft store formula.

After the Dojo, caught some dinner, and then it was wandering the halls and checking out other people's games.

Retro Raygun! SO SHINY. No, I mean, actually shiny, a nice change of pace. 

The Game of Thrones board game, blown up, with 20mm-ish figs as tokens. Impressive!

While the boys went on a shadowrun, Miss Heather and I caught up with some cool friends of hers in the gaming hall. We sat down for some illicit libations and the Penny Arcade deckbuilder game. A lovely time was had.

What?

Soon: the Friday report.

Zombicide deconstructed

Many real-life... things prevented much gaming from happening this month. I even missed our almost-regular Pathfinder game. Boo hiss. But it's OK, I have been keeping busy resisting getting in on a lot of Kickstaters and playing with the toys I already have at home. Main focus has been getting the Kaamados ready for our Critical Mass challenge. Which I am naturally way behind on, but yeah. Also distracted with Pulp City preparations and some other backburner concepts I have been fiddling around with (including terrain assembly. I wish I was one of those people that loved making terrain. Or knew someone like that, heh.)

The one night I was able to get out was for some Zombicide. Now, as noted previously, I missed the first Kickstarter, and regretted it as soon as I saw all those lovely miniatures once they finally arrived. So I bought in on the second, and man, it's a mighty horde. I even justified it to myself, saying it's a minis game I could teach the family. But really, after playing it this last time, it occurs to me that despite being fully of great figs, it's not what I consider a miniatures game.

Seriously, do NOT open that door.

It's a good game, don't get me wrong. A little fiddly, rules-wise for my taste. And I think that is what takes me out of the experience to a certain extent. There's a bit of team-building at the beginning, when you put your survivors together. And a few tactical decisions along the way: when to level, which skills to select when you do, how to go about moving out and thinning the hordes, etc. 

The pic above is where the gaming 'realism,' for lack of a better term kicks in. There's really no maximum of zombies per tile. So the zombies followed the noise, and sat there waiting patiently for us to open the door. Which we of course didn't do until we had everything we needed. And you're really just playing to the rules, and taking it from a fearsome experience to something of a logic puzzle. Even an extensive ruleset like Zombicide doesn't move beyond that threshold. Which is fine, for a board game, but doesn't really immerse me like a good solid minis game.

And yes, while we weren't required to have the Abomination crowdsurfing on the horde, it became a moral imperative, once it was mentioned out loud.

And then there's things like this. Aaron figured out that, as long as you planned where your car would end up, once you got in the car and got it moving, there was really nothing the zombies could do about it. The loop of roads outside the prison just became a zombie recycling circuit. The car took zero damage from running over an infinite number of zombies, and as long as you did the simple math, you could always make a clean getaway. Tension? Whatever.

Yes, it's a fun game, and I like a good logic puzzle as much as the next nerd. But it's not, you know, really like a minis game. More on this dichotomy as it comes to me.

time to stomp Tokyo

Been a busy month out here, just not as much gaming filling the gaps. Sneaking in some painting, to be put up here soon, but wanted to add a quick note about another fun board game the wife and I tried out last week.

King of Tokyo is a fast and fun romp. You play one of the massive monsters/giant robots/huge aliens seeking to destroy Tokyo, but you have to beat the competition first. Each turn, a player rolls the dice up to three times, setting aside any dice they want to keep. You can roll hearts (to heal,) energy (to save up and buy special power cards,) victory points (to win!,) or attacks (to SMASH.) In true king-of-the-hill style, any monster outside the city can hurt the one monster inside the city, but the monster in the city can hurt ALL the monsters outside with a successful attack. One the monster inside the city takes damage, though, they can switch places with the beast that damaged them, leading to some tactical calculations. And if you start your turn as the monster in the middle, you get victory points. 

The game is quick and fun, and a great way to spend an hour or so. If/when I pick it up, the first thing I will do is replace the cardboard beast the game includes with some re-purposed Monsterpocalpse minis, because of course.

but first, zombies

Viva el Cholo!

Before I dump the Cold Wars reports, let me cover gaming from this past Wednesday night. I completely regret missing the first Zombicide kickstarter, so when they announced the expansion in the new kickstarter can be a stand-alone version, I knew I would want to buy in, and then some. In addition to something I can play with the gaming crowd, it's a good board game for the non-minis set as well, and as noted earlier, My wife Maia and I play a lot of board games. Wednesday also happened to be the eighth anniversary of when we started dating, so what better way to celebrate than killin' zombies and rolling dice?

I said Maurice should wear a tie, since he was running the demo on our anniversary. He did!

Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?

When we got there (slightly late) they were running through Spartacus. Aaron talked us through the anatomy of a turn, and gave us some tips on how the game works. Definitely looked interesting, I appreciate how it appears to work on a couple different levels at once, angling for influence, wagering on the arena, etc. Will likely check it out more thoroughly in the near future.

And then there was Zombicide. Maia and Heather got a quick rundown of how the game worked, and then we all walked through an easy scenario. No trouble at all. Buoyed by that performance, we tackled the first scenario, which has proven deadly in previous attempts...
 

Fearless zombie killers Maia, Heather, and King Maurice

...And through a combination of teamwork, good dice rolls, and benevolent card draws, we won! Heather played Nick, and camped out at an intersection, killing everything as it came in range (while making plenty of noise to draw in more.) Maia took el Cholo, and I took Amy, and we were a whirlwind of blades to anything that got closer. Good searches early and some liberal swapping of equipment paved our way. Teamwork!


Maia liked the game, but was looking forward to some scenarios with more tactical depth. Which sounds pretty wargamey, if you ask me, heh. Definitely a good night of gaming.

February is weird

 In case you missed it, Beasts of War is running Mercs Week. Check it out. They do good work, and Mercs totally deserves the coverage.

So yes, February is all but behind us. Not much actual gaming for me, but things happening in the backfield. 

Spent a few nights recently getting stuff ready to sell at Cold Wars next week. Looking forward to the show! My to-buy list is already as long as my arm, and I know I will wander into awesome surprises there as well. A little Gaslight on Friday; evening game up in the air. Selling stuff Saturday morning, then more gaming, Catching up with a friend who lives up near there Saturday night, too. Action packed!

Will be selling off some of my Imperial Guard there as well. I haven't played 40k for a couple years now, and it's just taking up space in the basement. (And selling it will fund more purchases, heh.) I kind of wish I hadn't checked eBay prices ahead of time, because wow. But really, the plan for the past couple years has been to eBay them, and it hasn't happened. And pricing them to move at Cold Wars will get them out faster and I won't have to fiddle with the post office. So there's that.

My compatriot Imam is also asking me to sell off his Flames of War British while I am at the con. Yep, the army he loaned me while I (slowly) got my Cobra together.

Not pictured: the other large infantry platoon.

But in exchange, he's loaned me an even-larger Hungarian army. Switcheroo! Will have to schedule some time to play with lists in EasyArmy.com.

When he was over, we also played more Gloom (which my wife won) and then some Ticket to Ride (which my wife won. She's good.) I actually met Imam on Usenet back when such a thing was vaguely relevant. We don't do as much toy soldier gaming as we used to, but make up for it with the board games, and apparently, loaning me armies. He's a prince among men.

Next update likely to be the post-Cold Wars report.

catching up with zombies and leprechauns

A couple diverse catch-ups today.

After trying out Tomorrow's War in November, I sat down with the gents to play Zombicide. Mostly letting the other guys explain how things work, and suggest what my dude should do, as it's one of those cooperative games. For instance, Maurice suggested I tack along with his guy, and try to strike out on our own to collect a couple of the far objectives.

And then Maurice got me killed. I was the orange guy.

The game is pretty fun. The survivors have a lot of character, and as they gain experience they play quite differently. That combined with different scenarios means a lot of replay value in my book, although I fear there's a bit too much fiddly-ness to have the game catch on with non-minis gamers. Time will tell. Formally, I regret that I didn't cough in for the kickstarter deal, because those are some pretty models. 

(I did see that it definitely won't supplant my desire to play a nice sturdy zombie miniatures game, however. Currently looking into rules I'd like to try out. Logically, either 7ombieTV or No Room Left In Hell, since I, you know, own both.)
 
Last week, we started playing around with the Mercs campaign rules (PDF free to download here,) just rolling through a few turns to see how it works. Definitely a good start, but some kinks that will need to be worked out. I'm OK with building up forces to viable strength, but it's missing a sense of... competitiveness? Something.

While the other guys played their campaign game, Aaron taught me how to play Smash Up. As you may have ascertained by now, I am a man who enjoys board games, and I have a sordid CCG past. So the current trend in deckbuilding games is OK by me. Smash Up is straightforward and fun. The cards are very clear, and the trick of combining two forces (Faerie-Dinosaurs vs. Pirate-Robots!) is a great hook, and allows some interesting strategies. Definitely looking forward to trying out some more games in the future.

We were also going to try out Matakishi's fantasy rules CROM, but didn't get around to it. Soon! I even painted up figs and all. 15mm fantasy has arrived.

And finally, for the five of you still reading, if you haven't coughed in for the AE-WWII Kickstarter, now is the time. The game is a personal fave, and I would love to see it get a new roll-out. Yes, December is a rough month for everyone financially, but good games is good games.

Historicon 2012 - day one

Initially, I was going to return for my second Gencon this year. But as the registration time approached, for a few reasons, I wasn't feeling it. And coincidentally enough, Historicon was downright convenient, at their new site in VA. Our brief trip to Cold Wars earlier in the year was a rousing success, so plans were re-routed, games were pre-registered, and Historicon was on.

Left at early a.m. on Thursday morning from my Maurice's place in VA; he had an early appointment with a Flames of War tourney, and we knew DC area traffic was something not to be ignored. After a brief detour to a McDonald's with no drive-in (seriously, it's the 21st century, people) we made it to the convention site in Fredricksburg.

With some time to kill, Aaron and I snuck in a game of Super Dungeon Explore at an empty table near the food area, attracting a couple passers-by while we did. I ran the heroes, and it was a brief tale of woe. Never made it off the first tile, and when the Dragon popped up and I'd already lost two of my four heroes, I raised the white flag.

Next up was the first tour of the vendors hall. I had a couple orders waiting for me to pick up at various booths. Basically I'd put off buying any gaming things for the past couple months, and now I will be stocked for the next couple months, easily. I will pretend this is like saving money. Snagged a couple bits from Eureka (their 15mm samurai are very nice.) Finally grabbed the Pulp Figures She-Wolves pack I'd bee wanting for a while also. And, as predicted, found myself buying the Flames of War templates and a few boxes of Germans from the Plastic Soldier Company. The big pickups from Rebel and Old Glory would be later.

Among the other eye-catching booths was a demo of an upcoming game called Fanticide. The models are lovely (depending on your definition) and the mechanics certainly looked interesting. But I freely confess, I am a fan of gorillas with wings. Call me crazy. (I also found out that Otherworld has a lovely fig for the hook horror, and I am a goofy fan of that monster too.)

 Positively inspirational.

After the vendors hall tour, we check up on Maurice and checked out the lovely Flames of War boards. I never spend enough time on terrain, and wow, some people poured a lot of effort into doing these up right. A whole section of winter boards, and whole section of desert boards. Some other fun scenes, like the ruined airfield above.

Nothing complex about it, but just clean and coherent.

Stalingrad-tastic!

So yeah. Did I mention I bought a Flames of War army this trip? More on that in future posts.

OK. Apropos of nothing, this van was parked in the lot all weekend. Heard more than a couple people discussing it.

Not pictured: the mech 'sneaking' up on my right, about to jack me up.

With yet more time to kill before my evening game, I learned to play this hot new game called BattleTech. Well, actually, I distinctly recall when I bought my first boxed RPG back in the 80's (Paranoia!) they also had this Battletech game for sale, but it's one of those classics of the industry that I never got into. It was a free-for-all scrum with everyone getting a mech, very little terrain, and lots and lots of shooting and getting shot. I started with a Commando, which didn't last long due to some poor planning on my part. Thereafter I picked up a Trebuchet, and made some better tactical decisions. By which I mean I snuck up on two mechs already in a knock-down drag-out fight to the death, and just fired into their mess. The game is fun, if a little too much book-keeping for my tastes, but I can certainly see why it's been so popular over the years. I might pick up a couple pretty ones to paint in the near future.

Ominous!

After a quick dinner, I headed over to my first game. Del Stover and the WNGA.org was running a skirmish game of Sherlock Holves vs. Jack the Ripper, using the Doctor Who Miniatures Games rules, i.e. the predecessor to the 7tv rules. I played the mysterious 'Professor' who, along with 'Lady Arsenic' and some incompetent thugs, were trying to help the Ripper reach the church and hold off both Lestrade and Holmes. 

A better view of the layout.

Mr. Stover ran a great game, and everyone had fun. Action cards flew fast and furiously. The Ripper ran at top speed, and faced little resistance getting to his destination. Lestrade and his men, originally frustrated about getting in position in time, broke down the back door of the church, and ended up saving the day. One of my thugs spend  the majority of the game facing off against a single bobby, never landing a single shot (thanks to some amusignly poor dice rolls on my part.) The Ripper was stopped at the last moment, as is appropriate for games like this.

It's these big scenarios like this that really made me want to attend the con, I confess. I'd wandered by them before, with lots of players, many figs on the board, an attentive and creative GM, and lovely terrain. So when the time came to sign up for this event, I signed on without hesitation, and so glad I did.

If you can listen closely, you can hear the theme music playing.

And did I mention lovely boards with carefully thought-out terrain? Next to our board was the Indiana Jones-themed board, for the other DWMG scenario. Just, wow.

Bottom-left corner: one jerk of a turret.

After the Holmes game, caught up with the guys who were finishing up their BattleTech 'King of the Hill' event. Amusing! Turrets were the bane of everyone. I learned a whole bunch about the BattleTech background (it's always the story that sells me on games, and I walked into the room knowing very little) and at some point I am sure I will pick up a handful of mechs to paint up and throw down in friendly games. I'll just find attractive ones, since that's really what it's about.