Gen Con 2014

Bull, both of those sides are around 150 points---200 if you use the most expensive versions of them. Normal game is 300 points. My guess is a normal size game has 2-4 capital ships. But remember---we still haven't seen the Imperial size Star Destroyer (the iconic one from the films) nor have we seen the Mon Calamari cruisers, which are about the same size. I wouldn't be surprised if those were 200-250 by themselves.

Every Eric Lang CCG looks identical to me.

I think Munchkin Panic looks pretty neat and I bet they're going to set some new company sales records with that game. I passed on Dead Panic but if I ever see Munchkin Panic on deep discount I might get it. Then I shall have to make the most difficult decision I've made in ages: Which Panic game to keep, Castle or Munchkin?

IMHO Castle Panic is a great kids game, but they need to do more with it to make it an interesting adults game besides as a drinking/pay no attention game.

Gary Sax wrote: IMHO Castle Panic is a great kids game, but they need to do more with it to make it an interesting adults game besides as a drinking/pay no attention game.

Highly recommend trying out the Wizard's Tower expansion if you haven't yet. It's the only way we play.

UDE announced an LCG version of Vs. System. Early word from Vs. experts is the cards seem to be mostly reprints, at least the cards they showed, they were all Marvel, and the cards had different backs.

This is kind of a weird choice of a game to ressurect unless they're planning on supporting it with a tournament scene again. Vs. was very popular and fairly recent, so the cards are pretty easy to come by (unlike Netrunner and Deadlands). Keeping an eye on what's up, but I have a few white boxes of Vs. I hope this is successful though just so it's easier to find opponents.

Got back from Gen Con today. I had a great time and got to hang out with tons of great people, including the fellow you see below. He's a Princess among men.


My cooperative card game will almost certainly get picked up by a publisher, which of course makes me very happy. Another project also got favorable remarks from a publisher. More work needed there.

Met Mr. Superfly Circus himself but completely forgot to take a picture with him. Next time, Pete. Also Mr. Dave Roswell, who graciously purchased my True Dungeon ticket that I couldn't use.

I observed a demo of D&D Attack Wing today. It looks really neat. I won't be getting it because I know I'd never get it to the table, but if I could play it, I definitely would.

Today I walked by Wil Wheaton and said "How's it going?" and he said "Good." We are friends now.

edit- sorry for the pic rotation. My email screwed it up and I didn't fix it.

edit 2- I forgot to mention my acquisitions:
1. Duel of Ages II Master set, for $82 which I considered a steal. I am overwhelmed by the contents of this box. I had to specifically walk it back to the car after purchase because it would have killed me to carry it around.

2. Adventure Time Munchkin, purchased for the kids. Haven't opened it yet.

3. Some dice I needed and a whole lot of dice I didn't need.

4. Some Minecraft junk and Team Fortress 2 shirts for the kids.

One purchase I considered briefly, but didn't make, was a shirt you could call "3 Grumpy Cat Moon." The sales lady sang to me, which almost sealed the deal. Probably would have bit had I not just splurged on DoA II.

I just watched the Shadows of Brimstone off the BGG Live Stream on the page now. It starts around 1:45 or so. The game looks pretty promising.

It is the DM-less dungeon crawl game set in the late 1800's mashing cowboys with Lovecraft style stuff, I think the second core set and future expansions though will have other types of monsters and bad dudes to fight.

The game does have the look of a very random game, the dungeon is laid out randomly from a deck of cards, enemies are random, dice based combat. All very trashy. The AI seems pretty straight forward also.

What jumped out at me is that it seemed intuitive without creative or fancy stuff shoehorned in to seem clever.

A neat feature is you can come across a portal to another world, for example the core set highlighted has you diving in an old mine and the other world takes you to this frozen region in another solar system. If you get the second core set when you come across a portal you can draw randomly and possibly end up from the mine in that other world.

Also each monster has a list of "specialties" so when you encounter a group you roll to see what the skill is so the same monsters have slight tweaks each time you come across a group. Straight-forward d6 based combat with the target "To Hit" number and then roll for damage. Rolling a '6' causes a crit.

This one I think I'm going to follow a bit closer. And solitaire play is a plus.

The theme sounds incredibly dippy but at least they ditched the '80s shopping mall Old Tyme Photo/Glamour Shots shit.

The theme sounds awesome, I don't have an old west/horror game, but I have a few high fantasy games already. I'm looking forward to seeing what this game's about.

It is essentially an updated and improved Warhammer Quest with campaign play and skill trees for your characters. The character advancements, campaign play, and wild west setting are the reasons I gave SoB a second look. The lack of sepia-toned photoshop filters on the character cards and game art is just a bonus.

Good times.

The FFG booth might as well have been the LucasFilm booth...it was all Star Wars all the time, really. The Imperial Whatever game is absolutely a re-skinned Descent. It is the piece of tan-bark in a very nice package labelled "Wookiee Shiitt". I'm sure it's a fine game, as Descent is a fine game. It's just nothing that I'd buy in 100,000,000 years.

The Armada game, however, is so mind-blowingly awesome that I have already accepted that I will be spending a grand on it, all of its expansions, et cetera. I mean, fucking perfect game, almost. The little fighter ships actually look more bland and boring in person, but that's the price you pay.

One thing of note: Of all the years I've been going to conventions, the FFG guy who was giving the Armada demo was the most arrogant, totally fucking dickheaded pseudo-human cunt I have ever been around at one of these conventions. WOW. I mean, I get along with pretty much everyone but after a minute of talking with him, I just had to go. Seriously, this guy was the pinnacle of everything wrong with people in the world.

Zombie 15' is the game of the con for me. I know that Dead of Winter sold out in TWO FUCKING HOURS and was most people's game of the con, but honestly, Zombie 15 was so awesome that despite knowing I'd have to listen to a sea of horseshit from my wife for overspending, I bought it. Fucking awesome fun. It takes the things I don't like about Escape from the Cursed Temple (too light, too random, no body count) and turns it into something just as fast, frantic, and exciting, but that has everything I want. Yes, it's Zombies. I can see past that. I'd have preferred them to be aliens, but such is life.

There is a Marvel Legendary game using the "Aliens" (Ripley, not E.T.) theme. I saw it and after about 3 seconds realized it was a huge missed opportunity. Not a huge fan of the art and it doesn't have the appeal of Legendary.

Found out Dust Tactics is now a Gale Force 9 game. New rulebook (courtesy of GF9) that I am now obliged to read, sadly, and report on. FFG really fucked up on this one.

Played SONS OF ANARCHY. It's a worker placement game where the workers buy and sell drugs and shoot other workers in the face. I was astonished that you could tie that theme to a worker placement game. LOTS of fuckery. LOTS of negotiation. Most important, it's pretty fun. Not fun enough for me to buy, but fun enough to play. The bits are really great, and reminiscent of "Blood Feud in New York". I still think I'd rather play Banditos.

Lots of other shit. My annual GenCon Magazine should be out in a week or so. I've had 15 hours sleep, literally, in the last 8 days, so cut a brother a break.

Google Superfly Circus Facebook for all the con pics. LOTS of con pics.

As an aside, I think I managed to convince a guy to sell me 2-3 thousand pounds of pewter from a guy...I think I managed to talk him into going plastic. He was talking about how he wants to sell quality and pewter bits are the way to go...I responded that Star Wars X-Wing was plastic and is the gold standard for quality. Said that for the price of the pewter, he could buy a high-resolution MakerBot, lower his costs per unit, and be able to expand the game overnight....I think he might. I think, honestly, I did him a huge favor. Look up "The Amega Weapon", and I shit you not, I asked the guy how long it plays, and he says "4-5 hours". I had to explain to him that if he wants to sell more than 2 copies in his lifetime, start saying "It's a 1 hour game, but can be scaled up to 5 hours". To his credit, he is like Chaostle-guy...took a shitload of his money and printed a game. To his detriment, the game seems to be utterly terrible in every conceivable way. "I didn't print the back of the money cards because I want people to be able to turn it upside down and hide the amount." UGH.

Purchased:
Defenders of the Realm (again)
Dungeon Run (again)...sort of, traded it from Dave Roswell for a meal
Zombie 15'
Dark Minions (10$ for 100 wood cubes is a great deal, and I understand it also comes with a game)
Lots of drinks, LOTS LOTS LOTS
I also got a new CCG from AEG as a birthday present from a friend. Romance of the somethingorother. Might be good. I'll find out.

Really not looking forward to quitting GenCon, but next year will be my last. I'm changing my brand of choice to WBC, probably. I think there's a less-commercial vibe there, and I'm just kind of sick of seeing a sea of shit to buy but only playing 4-5 games in a 3-day span. I'm still on the fence. I have a LOT of friends at GenCon, and I will likely almost never see them if I don't go. I'm talking "lifetime buddies", too, so it will be hard. Maybe alternation is the key.

Awesome report, Pete! I appreciate it!

Can't wait to see the full report Pete...you knocked it out of the park last year!

Quick thoughts on Gen Con:


I'm glad I went with 3 friends as it allowed me to buy nothing but play lots of new games.

Abyss was surprisingly good. A lightweight Euro whose theme comes through a tiny bit. Easy to play and solid.

Ran two scheduled A Fistful Of Dinero events which went very well. Two people actually went online to pre-order it after playing which was awesome instant validation. We gave away alternate art cards as promos to the participants and three or so people actually wanted me to sign their card. I knew my wife would find that hilarious so when I got him yesterday and told her she couldn't stop laughing.

Sheriff Of Nottingham was awesome. We played two exceptional games of this and I'm going to pick it up. Very awesome negotiation/bluffing game.

Battle At Kemble's Cascade was very cool. Played two turns before having to duck out. I think I'll need to play this a few times to solidify my opinion though as it's very unique and different. I also talked briefly with Zev and he was very friendly.

Chimera, the three player climbing game by Z-Man, was pretty interesting. I've never played Tichu or these types of games but enjoyed it. It's a 2 vs. 1 game which is very odd, but I can't find any faults with a game where I'm up by over 100 points at the end.

Dead of Winter was excellent. Going on my to buy list immediately. It does not replace BSG but the Crossroads deck mechanic is ingenius. One of the best way to have scripted narrative events I've ever seen.

Five Tribes was pretty good. This was one of the hardest games to get at the Con (sold out in less than an hour each day) but a friend managed to pick it up. It has some really ingenius mechanics and is pretty unique, but I dislike that the theme is pasted on and that the game is very conducive to analysis paralysis.

Played two rounds of Sons of Anarchy and really enjoyed it. It has the full-fisted negotiation and screwage of Spartacus and the theme feels well integrated. A little sad that this wasn't really selling at the Con (and surprisingly neither was the Blue Sun Firefly expansion). I have a copy of SOA on its way to my house.

I don't know if I'm just trying to be negative to convince myself to not buy it but Armada did not impress me. Each capital ship has four dials, the manuever tool was clunky, and I hate the little wheel/click bases which are very hard to read (and I have 20/20 vision). Miniatures were beautiful though and I don't mind the unpainted fighters. I'm thankful FFG announced Imperial Assault though as it lets me completely ignore Armada and focus on that instead. I'm all in on that.