TrashFest NW 2014

For years I've had to endure yearly posts about FATties gathering en masse for the tribal rituals called TrashFest; a call that brought FATties from all parts of the globe including my beloved Canada. Even the bloody Brits got in on the act a couple of years ago and they don't even have dentistry for Baal's sake. Well rest easy friends, all my pent up angst was finally quelled on Feb 15th of this year when I held the NorthWest’s first TrashFest in Vancouver, BC.

The Fest got underway at 9am, when two of my gaming buddies showed up (one of them being the ribaldly hilarious Keith of the awesome Ask Keith Anything blog . Being that it was early morning, naturally we wanted to ease into the day with something light so we chose Blast City’s Mushroom Eaters (c’mon this is a TrashFest, what the fuck did you expect Mediterranean Spice Merchants?). I have a review of it in the works, but I will say it’s a really good old school Euro game with a unique movement sequence.

FATtie JonJacob arrived later with his buddy Noel and they launched into a game of X-Wing, while at another table Rampage was set up with the inevitable carnage to follow.

At this point Mushroom Eaters wrapped up, more gamers arrived and new games were started. I ended up with JonJacob, Noel and Shannon (founder of Vancouver’s newest gaming con Terminal City Tabletop Convention ) in a tight game of Clash of Cultures.

Here Merchants and Mauraders was being tabled with my regular gaming crew of Mark, Scott, Vuong and his buddy.

Keith, Brendon and his lovely wife Bree were going head to head…to head with my second favourite deckbuilder , the lamely named DC Comics Deckbuilding Game. Rune Age, my favourite deckbuilder unfortunately didn’t make an appearance that day.

As the day went on people came and went but gaming was consistent throughout.  
Small games like Perudo (yeah!) and Ricochet Robots (blah!) were busted out.

Two dudes were introduced to the crazy ass world of Magical Athlete and loved it of course. What other roll and move hobby game can elicit such amazing reactions like laughing and cursing so consistently? None I tell you.

At some point a few of us were drunk-taught A Study in Emerald. That’s a TrashFest requirement, no? I had no idea what to do in the game but I’d be willing to give it another go in the future, albeit without the drunk instruction (love ya Rob!).

By the 10th-ish hour what had once been at max 14 people was down to 6. That meant bringing out a group favourite, Total Rumble the wrestling card game. I was cool on it in my initial review, but since then it has risen sharply on my non-existent top 5 filler game list.

In the end, the Blacksmith (Vuong) walked away the Champ with the Strap in tow.  

TrashFest NW came to a close the way it started with myself, Keith and Mark. We battled it out kaiju-style in King of Tokyo.

My wife asked if I thought it was a success and I honestly couldn’t answer her. I really hope people had a great time and I was overjoyed that even one person showed up let alone fourteen. My reasons for doing this were purely selfish ones; I got to play a shit tonne of games and hang out with people new and old that I really really dig for 12 STRAIGHT HOURS!

So I guess my answer would be; hell yes. See you bitches next year!