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You might get some walk-ins.


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Hour and a half in to our seven hour drive- Gen Con has begun for us!

I'll start driving down around noon.

GENCON!

 Alfndrate wrote:
Just finished packing for GenCon, I believe I'm signed up for more events this year, but oddly enough I'm not bringing a single miniatures game for an event I'm in.

Current plan looks like this:
Thursday:
KoW Demo 1-3
Krosmaster Demo 3-4

Friday:
Sailpower 10-1 (I think, ends just before the EFT event that day)

Saturday:
Shadows of Esteren 10-12
EFT tournament 1-4/5

Sadly, I don't think I'll be running the EFT Tournament. We've only had 1 signup, and I'm riding down to Indy with that guy >_<

You should come and play a game of Rum and Bones with me. It's the tits.

Where, fether?

If you happen the chance across a dude wearing a Mack's Prairie Wings camo shirt that's me. Should start camping out the dealer hall a little after seven myself.

Hoping to snag the KD sci-fi Twilight Knight and the Dark Age St. Mary(Mounted). What is everyone else gunning for?

Hope everyone has fun, please take lots of pics !



Remember also that any Dakkanauts can claim a prize simply by recognising Mr. Legoburner, going up to him, kicking him in his false leg and saying " You're to blame for Dakka, and I claim my prize! "

Good sport that he is he'll play along and maybe even pretend you've hurt him but do not be fooled !

Is the false leg obvious? Or should attendees just kick both in rapid succession just to make sure they don't miss out on the prize? I'm not attending but figured the issue may come up.

I'll post some pics tonight when I get back to room.

Blood Rage and Mysterium seem to be the "it" games so far.

I unfortunately won't be making it into the events this year (wasn't able to last year either), but I'm aiming to make it to next year and the year after.

I am trying to get a family pass (to split between my fiancee and a friend) and at least see how things look on Sunday, but I'll be missing a majority of the activities...

Well, I know I can always go hang out on Georgia St! It's free and I'm guessing the place to get some food truck goodness. If anyone would like any recommendations on restaurants, I might be able to be some help as well!

Lot of great buzz on twitter for GF9's WWE Rasslin board game. Same Company that made Spartacus. Hope they make an expansion with some old time Rasslers.

Ghost busters board game has been getting good marks on twitter as well.

And in typical fashion, there has to be political propaganda forced into the gencon convo on twitter. :/

 Piston Honda wrote:
Lot of great buzz on twitter for GF9's WWE Rasslin board game. Same Company that made Spartacus. Hope they make an expansion with some old time Rasslers.

Ghost busters board game has been getting good marks on twitter as well.

And in typical fashion, there has to be political propaganda forced into the gencon convo on twitter. :/

Buddy of mine picked up Smackdown- it's AWESOME. I'm tempted to buy myself a copy too.

 Sinful Hero wrote:

 Piston Honda wrote:
Lot of great buzz on twitter for GF9's WWE Rasslin board game. Same Company that made Spartacus. Hope they make an expansion with some old time Rasslers.

Ghost busters board game has been getting good marks on twitter as well.

And in typical fashion, there has to be political propaganda forced into the gencon convo on twitter. :/

Buddy of mine picked up Smackdown- it's AWESOME. I'm tempted to buy myself a copy too.

I'm going to pick it up eventually.

Possibly in the winter when there is nothing better to do than play games :p

Searching facebook, twitter and bgg number of people saying it has been their fav. game of gencon

Just wish Cena wasn't plastered every where.

I saw that today while leaving the vendor hall.

Ended up picking up GoT LCG 2nd edition, the new Netrunner box, and two products for Shadows of Esteren, an awesome Frech RPG. They personalized my cover of the book I bought .

GEN CON!!! I will be inside of you tomorrow!

Safe travels to everyone on their journey home today!

Gencon wooooooooo!

Whew, had to leave early Sunday due to an emergency in our driver's family, and it was still a hell of an adventure.

Unique attendance of 61,423 and total turnstile of 197,695!

Post show report-
http://www.gencon.com/press/2015postshow

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Unique attendance of 61,423 and total turnstile of 197,695!

Post show report-
http://www.gencon.com/press/2015postshow

That's astounding, it did seem more crowded this year than the past three.

So how was everyone's haul?

I spent a lot of money...

Great times.

I ended up grabbing the KD pinup release, Dark Age minis(new St. Mary, Mounted St. Mary, Forsaken book, and the free Bane mini), a box of 3 minis from a game I don't remember at the CMoN booth, EFT minis(Male and Female Dragoon, plus the Summoner), QuickStart rules to Eclipse Phase, signed Jim Zub stuff, and random free loot from random booths.

Here's my personal Gencon experience-
New for 2015:
Wednesday isn't too bad for will call- but I'll probably still have my badge shipped.

Circle Center Mall restaurants usually have a shorter wait time(other than the California Pizza Kitchen).

Eating St. Elmo's on Wednesday ruined every other meal for me. It was too good. I started to expect too much.

1D concerts make everything miserable. Harder to park, more crowded to walk outside the con, and longer wait times for lunch and dinner.

India Garden has a nice buffet(served 11-3).

Circle Center Mall has a pretty good arcade and mini-golf course to kill time with, especially if you have to show up Wednesday to pick up someone's badge.

The Burlesque show held every year is pretty good- the crowd is not. Expect a few socially awkward individuals who get too "into it", and several drunks who have snuck liquor in(and constantly be loud and obnoxious).

With the increasing crowds, Saturday has become the best event day to avoid Dealer Hall Madness. It has become far too crowded to make it an enjoyable experience.

5-year experience:
The Hentai Cafe is a bad idea.
Park by 9am. If there's a 1D concert no later than 8.
No events on Thursday. That's dealer hall day.
No late events if you want to get up early the next day.(for those not in attached hotels)
No early events if a few people in your group don't have them, and avoid late events for the same reason.(for those not in attached hotels)
Be at the dealer hall by 7am if you want to guarantee you get the con exclusives/early releases you want on Thursday.
Don't be one of those people who brings a giant stack of cards to get signed by an MTG artist. It just makes everyone else miserable who wants to look at/buy prints when there's a crowd stacked up because you had to get every copy of Brainstorm you own signed.
Give yourself an hour and a half to eat(minimum) if you want to eat something other than con food or the food trucks.
Eat early(right at 11), or between 1-5 for lunch to avoid the crush. You'll just have to expect a crowd at dinner.
Avoid Steak n' Shake.
Back of the dealer hall is a fast lane to get from one end to the other- there's alway less of a crowd.
The Palladium booth is a good Eye of the Storm in the middle of the hall if you need to get out of the crowd. The book aisles are usually pretty empty, and the staff is friendly too.
Expect a line to get in to the FFG booth, unless you get there very early. Same with the Paizo booth, but they eventually open it up after Thursday.
Skip True Dungeon, unless you like playing DnD with 10+ people. You can get knocked out in the first/second rooms, and then get to watch everyone else play until the group gets to an exit you can leave from.
Saturday is when the items in the consignment store are cheapest. It's a good idea to spy what you want Thursday/Friday, and get there early Saturday if it's still there.


I'll add more when I remember it, and hopefully eventually make an article out of it(I'm pretty lazy though, and forgetful too. Did I mention I was a procrastinator as well?)

What has everyone else learned?

We need to bring a fan for setup next year, holy feth was it hot in there Wednesday.

I received my yearly stipend of EFT minis from OTL, and a hardcover of our first expansion which I did a large chunk for, so yay .

As for new non gaming things, I picked up a Dark Souls tshirt and a gundam model kit.

Gaming wise: I picked up 15 metal coins for Shadows of Esteren, the Con cover for Book 2: Travels for the same game, the Black Rose (a social deduction game in the Shadows of Esteren world), and got my books personalized by the art staff from Esteren.
The images of the art they put in my book:


In not Esteren haul, I picked up GoT LCG 2nd Edition, Data and Destiny expansion for Netrunner, and WWE Superstar showdown and a vinyl mat they used during demos. The humorous thing about the WWE game is my buddy and I went to get a demo of it to see if it might be a game his sister and her husband would enjoy, and we ended up buying a copy each >_<. It's really quick, and pretty fun. The system is as such that it could probably be adapted for fantasy minis if you wanted to have like gladiatorial combat.

Lessons learned from this convention:
No late events. I was out until 1:30 Thursday night (friday morning) because my buddy and I were the ride back to our hotel for the third person in our room who works in the gaming industry and was conducting some deals at the tilted kilt.
Plan at least 1 major event a day. My buddy and I noted that the weekend seemed to fly by, because we were almost always doing something that took 3-4 hours.
Carrying a disassembled metal gridwall up an escalator is extremely dangerous, especially when you're in the person going up first...

When did it become a thing to bring your damn luggage into the dealer's hall? I saw this more this year than all other years combined.

See this? It's too big for the dealer's room.


[

When there are 30,000 people in one place, you DON'T GET TO BRING YOUR fething LUGGAGE! Every hotel has a place you can leave it if you arrive early. Put it there, you prick.

Also, wagons for kids. I get strollers. I understand you want to spend time with the kiddos. But you don't get a fething wagon! And if you insist on a large stroller, then put your fething kid in the god damn stroller! If he's wandering around, walking 0.00005 MPH in the middle of the row, next to you and the 4' stroller, then you and your wife are fething donkey-caves.

I noticed the rolling luggage more this year too, and two-sweater strollers. It slows traffic down having to navigate around that crap.


Kid leashes were in style as well I saw. MrChurch13 came upon a parent browsing the RPG books, while the kid was across the lane at the other booth nosing around, and the leash was pulled taught in the middle.

Just be mindful and considerate of others. There are thousands of people in the dealer's hall.

 Cyporiean wrote:
We need to bring a fan for setup next year, holy feth was it hot in there Wednesday.

Isn't that that the truth. It was a damned hot box.

I was barely in the dealer hall all weekend, as I was running the CMoN Gaming Area in hall C all weekend, which was busy pretty much the entire time.

We ran a ton of demos, a few tournaments, and did a beginners Rum & Bones tournament Friday night that was really well received.

As for the GC stash... It's pretty large, and I was able to trade for most of it.

And I was able to mule for a few other Dakka members.

All in all a good show. Glad I took today off.

 kronk wrote:
Just be mindful and considerate of others. There are thousands of people in the dealer's hall.

Never! I touched everyone when they weren't looking! MWAHAHAHA

Actually I didn't but you aren't my supervisor.


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Cyporiean wrote:We need to bring a fan for setup next year, holy feth was it hot in there Wednesday.

I did stop by the booth but between the heat, something I ate, you being out of the starter sets, and my forgetting your name I just went and sat down for a minute.

kronk wrote:When did it become a thing to bring your damn luggage into the dealer's hall? I saw this more this year than all other years combined.

I saw that as well and not sure why it was a thing, but it did make getting around more of a pain.

On the plus side, We had a lot of fun this year. I sat in on the In Flight report. I'll have to wait until this weekend to do the write up. Too much going on at the Kronk house this week.

Played Star Wars Imperial Assault's campaign for 3 missions with my friends from Houston. FFG is doing this one absolutely right. I just don't have a group interested in the campaign in IL. We also played 3 sessions of Pathfinder. We played Dead of Winter zombie game that a buddy has. Typical Zombie game, but it was cooperative and had an interesting hidden agenda mechanic, as well as an "I'm not the Psylon" feel to it.

I picked up Dungeon Dwellers Linky, as that was my Wife's favorite game that we play tested. Fun little semi-cooperative card game.

I also grabbed a few cheap GW terrain boxes from the War Store (the Manufactorum and the Administratum). I was tempted to buy the set that had all 4 pieces in it, but at $100, it was just a bit too much. I decided that I really only needed 2 pieces to complete my table.

We ordered Secrets of the Lost Tomb, along with the expansion that adds the campaign rules and extra dice. I'm really excited about that one.

I picked up a few of the newer Chaos plastics (bolter Chosen guys from the Dark Vengeance starter) and an old Chaos SM Champion. This guy, but he's missing the head and power fist. I have plenty of weapons and heads, though.


For grins, I picked up enough Sisters of Battle to make an 8x sister squad with 2x flamers.

Odds and ends include some dice sets, some d6's with middle fingers on the 1's, talking ourselves out of the other 6 games we demoed, a nice Paizo dice bags, and some old RPG books to flip through (Rogue Trader at 50% off, KenzerCo's Frandor's Keep (I have and LOVE Little Keep on the Border Lands by KenzerCo for HM 4th edition), and something else).

Spent lots of money, drank some wine, hung out with friends. On Friday night, we played Pathfinder in my hotel room which overlooked the AAA baseball field, and they had fireworks after the game. On Saturday night, when my group was playing some B-52 game until 2 AM, my wife and I bowed out and played the Dungeons Dwellers while watching the baseball game out of our window, listening to the live feed on the iPad, and drinking a nice bottle of Cab Sav. It went 13 innings and the home team one. Fun times!

I was able to meet Alfindrate and Cincydooley in person to make some trades and pick up kickstarter preorders..

Spent my life in the Board Game Hall E for Game Salute .. my daughter and I tag teamed teaching Nothing Personal and Alien Frontiers

I got some targeted strikes into the Exhibitor Hall, and got some boardgames I wanted.. no miniatures this year.

Also did the BGG GenCon Math Trade and ended up with 4 more games..

 Cyporiean wrote:
We need to bring a fan for setup next year, holy feth was it hot in there Wednesday.

Apparently GenCon decided it would be a good thing to not turn on AC Wed, since the doors would be open for long periods while supplies were shuttled in by FERN and booths were being setup. Sure it saved them thousands of dollars in AC but honestly surprised there wasn't accidents due to unsafe conditions of the heat or people hit with heat exhaustion. Unfortunately by Thursday I did have heat exhaustion, nearing heat stroke so I had to take a break. Normally Thursday would be freezing cold because the AC is left on, with no one in the halls it gets the room cold. So by Thursday when they did turn the AC on, they had it set to a normal temperature instead of turning it much colder to account for weather/body heat. It didn't finally become cooler until Sat but even then the Exhibitor Hall compared to the Game Hall was still hot.

I wish I had more time to do things, tournament area was a mess since they poorly labeled Hall B, C, D, E again. It didn't seem as busy this year so they either got better at organizing some of the lines, or there was an impact due to Indiana's new law, WoTC and WizKids pulling out of GenCon. You can tell Magic and D&D area just how much space was lost due to not having that extra backing. Overall was a good experience, made some new networks, got a few things accomplished and made a lot of trades despite having to work a good portion of it. I was able to get into the Exhibit Hall for the first hour or so usually, thank goodness for an exhibitor badge otherwise I probably would not have seen or gotten much done. I wish I had more time to meet up with more people but scheduling was a bit hectic.