So I went to Gencon last weekend. It was my first time there, and my biggest convention to date with Historicon being a very, very, very, small, distant, tiny second. Ten hours in the car later...
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| We arrive at the Crossroads of Cornfields and Forests |
Joe, who was driving up with me, made the comment that Indiana looks like a wargaming table. There's clear, concise lines where the woods clearly start and end. A random house scattered here and there. Hills that make no bearing on visibility at all. And no water features that we could see from the road.
All in all, had tons of fun. Checked out the Firefly board game (I give it a 7/10), demoed Heavy Gear Blitz (might get in to), Wrath of Kings (pretty awful), and some random pretty bad board games that I already forgot the names of. Played in two tournaments, got to hang out with the Hawk Wargames guys a bit, and some other general shenanigans. Anyways, on with the pictures!
If you're looking for....
Random pictures of stuff I thought was cool, it's at the top, so just scroll down.
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| No clue what this was |
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| Bolt Action |
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| Bolt Action |
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| Bolt Action |
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| Malfaux |
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| Malifaux. They clearly bought a lot of extra train tracks... |
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| No clue |
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| Some may remember this from Historicon... |
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| Stalingrad table |
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| More stalingrad table |
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| Infinity |
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| Flying sharks and stuff |
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| Huge game of Catan |
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| Mercs |
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| More Mercs |
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| Something at the CMON booth |
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| Rivet Wars |
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| Relic Knights |
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| SDE studio models |
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| More studio models |
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| More studio models |
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| Wrath of Kings studio models |
I watched some of a demo of Wrath of Kings. I really didn't like it, so I'm glad I didn't kickstart it. Seemed like Warmachine with less flavor.
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| More studio models |
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| No clue |
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| Lifesize warjack |
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| No clue |
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| Me, Joe, Steve, and Jared playing Firefly |
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| GW booth |
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| More GW booth |
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| An army of Trollblood Colossals. I think maybe it was a painting contest? |
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| No clue |
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| Myth |
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| Some of the new Lizardmen |
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| Random four player DZC game on Saturday. |
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| Cardhalla |
Cardhalla was neat. They had boxes of random cards from various CCGs and such, and you could come in and build things out of them whenever you wanted. Then on Saturday night, they had a charity event where you could throw money at it and knock is down, and the money you threw was donated.
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| So many food trucks |
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| Gale Force 9 board |
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| Really just took this one for my wife |
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| Playing with panorama from the FoW area |
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| Some dragon game. Actually looked really cool, but I lost most of the other pictures :( |
DZC New Releases
These pictures were already uploaded to my blog via phone app, but figured I'd repost them in this photodump for consistancies sake.
The new DZC faction, The Resistance, are the human survivors left on the core planets. They have a rag-tag, 40k Orks meets Twisted Metal look to them. They come with lots of extra aesthetic bits so that no two vehicles need to look the same, completing the rag-tag look.
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| Flame throwers and some kind of ATG I think |
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| Katyshuas and missile launchers |
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| AA guns and ATGs. |
If you haven't seen
the new two player starter set, go check it out and order yours today!
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| Plastic starter set |
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| Condor pilot! |
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| Plastic starter set |
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| New artwork for the new starter set |
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| The new Games and Gears DZC board |
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| Demo table+GnG board |
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| The new PHR walker magnetized to fit in the dropship |
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| More starter set goodies |
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| Simplified rulesets for the starter set |
DZC Tournament
We had a small 8 player DZC tournament on Thursday. I took a fun UCM airmobile list, taking only the minimum requirement of ground vehicles. I just think the Falcons look so awesome, and wanted to use my four. I believe I came in 7th, only beating out the other UCM player who took 8th. (Shout out to Jim my UCM brother!)
Round one I played against Ken. Ken is an Indy local. He brought PHR. We played Targets of Opportunity, and I squeezed out a 3-2 win.
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| Kens army |
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| Falcons taking cover behind a building |
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| Field Command moving on the back edge |
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| The PHR walkers taking to the road |
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| Some Snipers, Legionnaires, and more Falcons rushing up the left flank |
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| Some more Snipers and elite Praetorians taking the right flank |
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| The large blob of elite Type 2 talkers emerges, defended from my air support by some walk-on Phobos. |
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| Sabres emerging in LoS of the walkers, but safely out of range |
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| Falcons taking pot shots and Type 2 walkers |
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| The Snipers and Praetorians engage some PHR boots |
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| While the rest of the UCM infantry covers the middle of the board |
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| It's a Raven party over here, right? |
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| Shooting rockets at the building |
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| UCM boots emerge victorious in close combat |
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| Some PHR boots snagged an objective - I shot the dropship down on the board edge, but it crash landed and the infantry got out mostly OK. |
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| Snipers racing off the board with their objective |
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| More long range shooting |
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| The Legionnaires snag a second objective! |
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| Falcons took out one of the two command walkers! |
Round two I played Daniel from Canada. He owns a game shop up there called
Gamer's Vault. He brought Shaltari. We played Recon - I lost 6-5, but it wasn't really that close - I got demolished in the skies. Daniel went on to win second place.
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| His Shaltari |
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| Condor drops some Legionnaires off. |
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| Falcons hiding |
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| The Shaltari move on |
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| Daniel got both of his interceptors in on turn 1. They shot down a Sniper's Raven light dropship, but the snipers landed safely on the ground |
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| Rat Patrol moving up |
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| The Condor got shot down, but the Bear APC survives |
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| Daniel had air supiority throughout the whole game. Remember that bit about me bringing an airborne force? Yeah...that didn't go to well here. |
In the last round, I played Noah, who also had Shaltari. Noah was also a semi-local, I think. We played Land Grab. I knew going in to the event that I'd lose this mission - it requires ground based vehicles and infantry to hold ground. Well, I have three basic tanks, a Kodiak, and four scout buggies, I suppose! Noah won this mission by a bajillion points.
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| They had this really cool, kinda tribal, pastel color theme. |
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| Falcons falconing. |
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| Infantry moving around the far left flank |
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| Field Command hiding behind a building |
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| Snipers putting early wounds on the Firedrake |
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| More Falcons falconing |
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| The walker phalanx emerges |
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| Falcons falconing from two sides! |
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| Battle of the dropships |
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| Noah drops some guys off in a building on my end |
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| Of which I said no. |
After action on DZC tournament: I still love you, Praetorian Snipers. Falcons, you look so cool, and you're the highest AT in the UCM army, but you're still bad. At least for my playstyle. And you killed less than Praetorian snipers. Be ashamed of yourselves.
FoW Tournament
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| The Romanian army that won best painted. |
On Saturday, I played in a 1725 LW tournament being up on by the Able Kompanie guys. (I had also intended to play EW, but had to drop due to a scheduling conflict). I took roughly the same British Armor Car list I took to Templecon, adding some extra AA MGs since I had the points.
Round One I played against Jason, one of the locals. We played Counterattack. I was attacking against his US Engineers.
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| The board. |
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| Deployment |
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| Armored cars moving up around the village. Paras double timed. |
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| Tanks setting up a firing line on the infantry |
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| Turn one, his shermans arrive from reserves |
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| US boots moving in the cover the objective |
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| We're going to have an armored car shootout. (I think he thought my dingos were unarmored) |
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| Firefly shooting Shermans behind it |
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| Armored Cars moving around to finish off the US armored cars |
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| American engineers digging in on the objective |
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| Two US Shermans remain, hunting paras |
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| A ToT 105 barrage bails everything, kills nothing |
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| Two more platoons of US recce keeps arrive and mow down some paras |
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| Long range firefly shot finises off the Shermans |
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| Getting into assault position |
At this point I quit taking pictures as we were low on time. Our game still went a good 8-9 turns, so no cries of Sitzkrieg or anything. It was a well defending position that I just couldn't break through in 2.5 hours.
Round two I played against David. David had a 2ID artillery park list, so I was eating a 10-gun battery of AT 5, FP 3+ each turn. Hey, at least this game wouldn't go to time! We played Surrounded, and I lost 1-6.
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| Deployment |
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| Paras move into the woods, armored cars recce down the board. The paras never really did anything else the whole game, but they kept his one armored platoon defending that flank. |
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| Meanwhile, on the other flank, the other para platoon starts moving towards a battery of 105s asap. |
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| Recce makes it into the woods A-OK! |
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| Ok...one bogged. |
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| Smoking some arty. |
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| A bombardment kills an entire tank platoon in one shot. |
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| Hand of doom energes from the sky. |
I quit with the pictures early on that one. It kinda went like this: Turn 3: Arty kills a platoon. Turn 4: Arty kills a platoon. Turn 5: oh wait, all I have left is a dingo and a daimler. I actually expected to do pretty well in this one - Surrounded is probably the worst list for an arty park to have to defend, but he played it very well. In the end, I only took two arty platoons down to about half strength and couldn't break either one.
Round three I played against Bryan. Bryan brought trained US tanks (jumbos and 76s) backed by veteran priests and boots. Mission was dust-up.
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| Deployment |
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| Boots defending the crops |
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| Turn one arty kills a firefly and bails a 75. That bailed Sherman, with the CiC nearby, didn't remount until turn 4 or 5. |
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| My reserves arrive and plow into his lines |
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| His reserves arrive and attempt to dislodge some paras, but one assault goes very badly for him. |
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| Sneakin' up the road |
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| More sneakin' |
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| Sherman sneaks on to the objective |
FoW AAR and rants/thoughts: I'd consider FoW to be my main game by far. I play it more than anything else, I own more of it than anything else, and I think I'm better than it than any other game I play. But whenever I go to one of these big conventions, it's by far my least favorite thing that I do. Maybe it's because I always do it at the end of the weekend (Templecon/Gencon), or doing it causes you to miss out on so much other stuff (Historicon and the HMGS cons).
Regarding the tournament, it was very well ran. The TO was very involved walking around, checking up on games. The Able Kompanie guys are pretty awesome, and while I probably won't make it out to any of their events other than Gencon (too far!), I look forward to seeing them next year.
Final Gencon musings: It was fun. It's certainly the biggest nerd event I've been to. It wasn't quite as awesome as Templecon, in my opinion, although there was more stuff to do. It was a VERY expensive weekend, and I didn't even buy anything other than lodging/parking/events/food. No new toys :( I would have liked to get a few more demos in (Pathfinder Card Game, High Command), but I was only there for three full days, and two were taken up by tournaments. All in all, it gets a 9/10 in my books!
Thanks for taking all the pictures of the con. Made me seriously regret not going myself.
ReplyDeleteWe'll totally have to drag you along next year, then! (Although I will seriously consider flying over driving next year!)
DeleteGlad you had fun! I didn't get a chance to really come over and say 'Hi.' I had my hands full running Stalingrad all day Saturday.
ReplyDeleteI unfortunately feel the same way about NOVA that you do about Gencon. I went there in '11, and it was a long drive. There are still a few guys from Indy who will be there this year, but my hobby money's drained after Gencon.
I told Mike he should move NOVA, but there is always something that will conflict for someone.
You'll have to try the EW tourney next time. It was fun.
That Stalingrad table was awesome looking!
DeleteIt's ashame about scheduling, but it is what it is. See you there next year!
Wow, a lot of pics! Thanks you. I would have mixed feelings about playing a tournament there. So much new stuff to try out.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with you. Especially since they limit the exhibition hall hours from 10-6, any event that takes up that entire block of time is rough. Here's to hoping for expanded hours in the future!
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