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Yeeeeeah!!! GENCON!
Better come by the OTL booth and say hi

Have fun .. either place I'll be tuning in.

You coming to Indy, Ramos?

Consider it a date!

I'll be the one yelling KHAN! at random intervals.

Also, you are now officially press ganged into my search for OOP Empire models.

Because I need more empire, for um...reasons.

GenCon 2016:

GenCon finished up yesterday. It was an amazing few days of cluster gaming, visiting old friends, and spending a lot of money. Instead of the occasional recap throughout the week I figured I would just dump all of it at once. Please let me know if you want me to elaborate on any of the games I played or demoed. Here was the break down of my several days of gaming.

Thursday: Open day of GenCon. My wife and I got to the Con really early, mainly because my wife had a trade day pass. Which means she was already there on Wednesday at seminars and meetings, but more importantly it means she gets in an hour early on Thursday. SWEET! While she is waiting at the early gate I wandered to check out some of the other halls that were already open. In the gaming hall they already had thousands of people competing and demoing games with one another. I demoed King of New York. I watched a Battletech match with about 20 people all in their own individual pod. A wide screen was cycling through the action. It was awesome. Eventually I wandered back to the closed doors to wait to enter. By this time my wife had already been inside for about 45 minutes. In this amount of time she bought two games. One of those games, Seafall, sold out before the doors opened at 10 AM. When I finally got in, we demoed 7 Wonders. The game seemed fun but the chick running the demo had NO personality. We then visited an artist friend of mine, Sam Flegal. We chatted for a bit before we began to really hit the demos.

I didn't keep track of all of the games I demoed but there are a couple that really stuck out in my mind. First and foremost, Project: Elite. I wanted to buy this game and honestly, I do not know why I didn't but it was freaking awesome. It is a cooperative game that I demoed a total of three times during the con. The premise is simple, don't let the aliens get past you, but the system is unlike any other game I had ever played. After the planning phase you and your friends roll dice as fast as possible to try and kill the aliens while a timer ticks down from 2 minutes. You have to place your dice to activate your weapons and then you roll damage dice to see if you killed anything. Certain sides of the D6 allow you to move or to search or to activate things and at any time you can simple keep certain dice and reroll others until you get the results you want. One side of each dice makes you move one alien closer to your side of the board. All of your friends are doing this at the same time and it is a frantic mess of rolling and shouting and sudden changing of plans. I loved it.

On Thursday my wife and I played a huge game of Pompei. The board was a rug and the game pieces were cut up pieces of pool noodles. The volcano was two feet wide. It was the best game of Pompei I had ever played and I won! We also checked out Isle of Skye, it is a new award winning game from Mayfair. It had some mechanics like Carcasonne but each person had their own isle to build. Every time you play there is a collection of point systems that go into play at random so in one game lighthouses may be worthless and the next time they may be awesome. Great replay with that game.

Thursday we also check out the "Tiny" line of games. This company makes great quality games, also award winning, and each one is $30. The game boxes are all the same size, slightly larger then a paperback book. We played Tiny Galaxies and immediately bought it. Great little game and a great value. They jam a LOT into this boxes. Thursday afternoon we demoed a firemen game. Shoot, I forgot what it was called. It'll come to me. The premise was to save people in the building and get them out, as you can imagine. The base mechanics were very simple but they had a ton of optional rules you can add as you learn and play. Not really my kind of thing but I felt like it would be a great game to play for non-gamers. It would be a great gateway game, so to speak.

I almost forgot, Thursday for lunch I had the worst bowl of Udon I had ever had, but dinner was the best Thai food I had ever had. Thai Paradise, only a few blocks from the convention center. Hot Duck Curry, AMAZING!

Friday, we checked out probably a dozen games and went to the Concert Against Humanity, which is put on by the Cards Against Humanity folks. We had VIP passes this year which were awesome but the concert sucked. Last year it was the highlight of the CON, they had great comedians and musicians. This year they had several of the same musicians that played the exact same sets as last year and the comedians this year were not nearly as good. We will most likely not go next year FYI. Before the concert we did demo a dwarven drinking game that you would play with real drinks. You legitimately get drunk while playing this game, it sounded like fun. We also checked out Red Flag, which is a sister game to Superfight. After buying Superfight last year I think I would have rather had Red Flag.

Red Flag was hilarious, during your "turn" everyone else puts down cards to explain your date. These cards will be positive things like, very reliable, has three dragons, huge tits, loves to help out, etc. Everyone plays two of these cards. Next, each person will play a negative on someone elses date, like has explosive diarrhea when orgasms, spits bees when speaks, carries a knife for killing kittens, etc. You then have to pick the date you would go on. You of course want your date to be picked so you can get a point. It was simple and a lot of fun.

On Friday I also picked up the Character Trove box for Red Dragon Inn. The newest boss monster expansion that allows the game to go up to 6 players, AWESOME! For dinner we went to Scotty's. The bar played every Star Wars movie on Friday. The Ghostbusters on Thursday. Lots of geeky stuff, it was cool and great food.

Saturday, my wife and I played a game of Pathfinder. It wasn't run very well nor was our group very amusing, not really a great part of the CON. However, before that we played same great games by HABA, they make little kids games so we picked up a couple for my kids, one of which turned 4 yesterday. I demoed Seafall, and later found out that the guy running the demo was the creator of the game and the father of Legacy style games. Neat! That game is so cool I can not wait to start a campaign with it. I think legacy games are going to be a big thing in the future. Seafall is the first game to specifically be built in a legacy style format. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a legacy game is a board game where the results in one game have ramifications in the next. Risk Legacy was the first version of this. In seafall, the game has pages of stickers and sealed miniature treasure chests. When certain milestones occur in the game, you will be instructed to open a chest, certain stickers will be placed on the board. Stickers will also be placed in the rulebook. As the campaign continues more things be placed on the board and the rules will change. Good news, no two games will be alike. Bad news, you only have about 15 plays of the game before you run out of stuff. Either way, the system sounds amazing.

I feel like I am forgetting a lot of things.

Happy Salmon - perhaps the silliest game we played at the con, but a great little game to kill some time.

Sounds like an action packed CON, the closest thing NZ has might be Armageddon (here in October, Yay!) but they don't have a lot of demo stuff.

Funny you mention pathfinder as well, I've just fallen very heavily into listening to Critical Role on Geek and Sundry and my god it's addictive, they use a hybrid D&D/Pathfinder rule set and all the PC's are voice actors. So good so far!

 Knightley wrote:
Sounds like an action packed CON, the closest thing NZ has might be Armageddon (here in October, Yay!) but they don't have a lot of demo stuff.

Funny you mention pathfinder as well, I've just fallen very heavily into listening to Critical Role on Geek and Sundry and my god it's addictive, they use a hybrid D&D/Pathfinder rule set and all the PC's are voice actors. So good so far!

The DM from Critical Role was at GenCon this year. I haven't listened to it before but I should. I have heard good things about it.

Glad you and the Family had a good time. Sounds like a lot of choices to demo as well as hoards of people.

Did Moon go as well?

He certainly did.

I almost forgot to mention, I visited Ramos. We had a lovely chat.


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I just thought of some more games I demoed. I ran a demo of dropship commander. A very fun game. I wanted to pick it up but had run out of funds by this time. It may be a purchase later on. The main box set has all sorts of stuff in it and there is a great deal on amazon. Interesting......

Excellent.. I believe the next year is the 50th?

Glad to see the Wardens get together even if he was afflicted by the plague.

Now lets see some painting, building or a battle report.

Sounds like you had a great time Ice, glad to hear it.

FlashPoint, I'm guessing, is the co-op fire rescue game.

Great con!

So jealous, but really glad you had a good time, sounds so much fun.

And SL is right, lets see some action bud.

Alright fine. I will post something of use.

Brian, I believe you are correct. Flashpoint does sound like the correct game.

Yesterday I actually managed to get a games workshop game in. Moonpie came over and we played a game of Age of Sigmar. We got out the Isle of Blood miniatures. We printed off the rules and the warscrolls and we went at it.

I have to admit, I really enjoyed it. We imitated the silly voices that elves and skaven would have and we went about ruthlessly cutting each other down. The ease of the system and the changes with combat were great. With that being said, my birthday is in two days. A small amount of funds will be sent my direction and I think some Sylvaneth will be purchased. That thought raised an interesting question amongst Moonpie and myself. How would I paint a force of nature on an ice world? Would you paint it realistically or go for something ridiculous, because MAGIC!

Discuss......

One more thing, I won the game.

Well done on the win!

They would look spectacular in natural winter shades.

Sounds like you had a awesome time @ GenCon.

EDC

I'd go with a winter theme.. Whites, Greys with blue or lite green washes ect. Magic..

I had a second game of age of sigmar yesterday. It was awesome. Very close. Btw, it seems there is very little AOS being sold around here. May have to go all the way to the GW store.

Thanks for the color ideas. I think i may have to experiment. Perhaps on some orks!

4 pages of rules and we got half of them right...

It was fun though. I'm looking forward to hopefully more. After all, I've got all the models. It would be nice to put them to use.

As to the color scheme, I would think greys and muted browns. Maybe some blues in there, with flashes of green and yellowy green as interior pockets of foresty magicky power blob light sources.

Trees in winter always look grey to me. And the leaves all over as brown like they are dying seems to make sense.

Or go just Yellow and Pink..Just saying!

That would make for an interesting tree, for sure.

Look! I started something. I gathered all of my age of sigmar things. I put some together and repaired many. I started dusting the old stuff and I based a handful of them. I think the plan is to base them all and prime them. I doubt I'll paint them all but I think I'll select some to work on and just have fun with them.

Look at some pictures of boreal forests and animals... that should give you plenty of ideas. Not everything in the winter is white.

https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/threeSixty/99120204018_KurnothHunters3360/01-01.jpg

This is something from the GW website. Maybe something like this.

I searched Boreal forest and there were pictures of birch trees and evergreens.

The AoS army looks like a fairly big project. Sounds like you've got the right approach with how to tackle that many models (I.e just 'having fun with it').

EDC

Thanks for the ideas guys. I think that all of this is going to require some experiments to find what I like. It may be time to get out some orks to use as test subjects.

I have not been sitting idle the past few weeks. I have been putting together Sylvaneth. Basing the old stuff. It is coming along quite nicely. I will take a picture tonight and post it, otherwise I am sure you will all demand proof.

Sunday is a battle. 1000 points. Three way game. More pics! The ice board will be in use. The river will be dusted and used. I am getting excited.


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Blam! As promised. My goal is to have the Dryads build by Sunday. I have another treelord and wych that may have to wait. Once these are put together, they will be primed. Then the experimentation on some orks will begin. Still not sure where I want to go with the painting yet.

Okay, we had an awesome game today. I got my butt complete kicked but it was a lot of fun watching it happen. I have an idea for a little story to go along with this but my wife keeps bugging me to play other games so that'll have to wait. Here is a few pics from the game.


This is set up. I brought 900 points of Sylvaneth and my team mate brought 900 points of skaven and chaos. Our opponent brought 1800 points of High Aelves, (how do we spell it now?)


Close up of my side. Rats on the end. Slyvaneth in the center. Rat Ogres in the river. Lord of Plague off by himself.


This is was the majority of the Aelf situation. 50 archers, repeater, silver helms, griffon, mage, and sword masters. He had Reavers and Tyrion on the far side.

There are not to many pictures of anything else from this game but here was the break down. We ran forward, he bogged us down with silver helms and sword masters, meanwhile his archers DESTROYED us. This is the end of turn two.


You'll notice all 30 Dryads are gone. You'll notice the skaven are basically non-existent. Not only did the enemy kill us. Every time the skaven player took a chance at wounding himself, he completely killed himself. In fact both his engineer and warp thrower killed themselves on the same turn. It was frustrating and hilarious. My rolls were one catastrophic failure after another, but it was still a blast. I did however learn a lot. I learned that I need to be using the rules from the sylvaneth book, not the Book of Order. I learned that Durthu is awesome but still not nearly as effective as a bunch of cheap troops with bows. I learned that playing Sylvaneth is really hard when you don't have any terrain that you can call woods.

That being said, I can't wait to play again. Hopefully in a few weeks. In that time I need to put together another Dryad and a treelord. Then a crap load of priming and to the painting. At some point during this I will also have to figure out how to make some forest looking ice features. I already have some ideas, some really good ideas.....

Nice to see the Ice board in action again .. still alot of Grey on the table!... hummm