Monday, August 19, 2013

Photodump and AAR: Gencon 2013 (Heavy picture warning)

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...
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.

No clue what this was

Bolt Action

Bolt Action

Bolt Action

Malfaux

Malifaux. They clearly bought a lot of extra train tracks...

No clue

Some may remember this from Historicon...



Stalingrad table

More stalingrad table

Infinity

Flying sharks and stuff

Huge game of Catan

Mercs

More Mercs 

Something at the CMON booth

Rivet Wars

Relic Knights

SDE studio models

More studio models

More studio models

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.
More studio models

No clue

Lifesize warjack

No clue

Me, Joe, Steve, and Jared playing Firefly

GW booth

More GW booth

An army of Trollblood Colossals. I think maybe it was a painting contest?

No clue

Myth

Some of the new Lizardmen

Random four player DZC game on Saturday.

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.

So many food trucks
Gale Force 9 board

Really just took this one for my wife

Playing with panorama from the FoW area
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.


Flame throwers and some kind of ATG I think

Katyshuas and missile launchers

AA guns and ATGs.


If you haven't seen the new two player starter set, go check it out and order yours today!

Plastic starter set

Condor pilot!

Plastic starter set

New artwork for the new starter set

The new Games and Gears DZC board

Demo table+GnG board

The new PHR walker magnetized to fit in the dropship

More starter set goodies

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.

Kens army

Falcons taking cover behind a building

Field Command moving on the back edge

The PHR walkers taking to the road

Some Snipers, Legionnaires, and more Falcons rushing up the left flank

Some more Snipers and elite Praetorians taking the right flank


The large blob of elite Type 2 talkers emerges, defended from my air support by some walk-on Phobos.

Sabres emerging in LoS of the walkers, but safely out of range

Falcons taking pot shots and Type 2 walkers

The Snipers and Praetorians engage some PHR boots

While the rest of the UCM infantry covers the middle of the board

It's a Raven party over here, right?

Shooting rockets at the building

UCM boots emerge victorious in close combat

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.

Snipers racing off the board with their objective

More long range shooting

The Legionnaires snag a second objective!

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.

His Shaltari

Condor drops some Legionnaires off.

Falcons hiding

The Shaltari move on

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

Rat Patrol moving up

The Condor got shot down, but the Bear APC survives

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.

They had this really cool, kinda tribal, pastel color theme.

Falcons falconing.

Infantry moving around the far left flank

Field Command hiding behind a building

Snipers putting early wounds on the Firedrake

More Falcons falconing

The walker phalanx emerges

Falcons falconing from two sides!

Battle of the dropships

Noah drops some guys off in a building on my end

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
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.
The board.

Deployment

Armored cars moving up around the village. Paras double timed.

Tanks setting up a firing line on the infantry

Turn one, his shermans arrive from reserves

US boots moving in the cover the objective

We're going to have an armored car shootout. (I think he thought my dingos were unarmored)

Firefly shooting Shermans behind it

Armored Cars moving around to finish off the US armored cars

American engineers digging in on the objective

Two US Shermans remain, hunting paras

A ToT 105 barrage bails everything, kills nothing

Two more platoons of US recce keeps arrive and mow down some paras

Long range firefly shot finises off the Shermans

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.


Deployment

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.

Meanwhile, on the other flank, the other para platoon starts moving towards a battery of 105s asap.

Recce makes it into the woods A-OK!

Ok...one bogged.

Smoking some arty.

A bombardment kills an entire tank platoon in one shot.

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.

Deployment

Boots defending the crops

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.

My reserves arrive and plow into his lines

His reserves arrive and attempt to dislodge some paras, but one assault goes very badly for him.

Sneakin' up the road

More sneakin'

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!



6 comments:

  1. Thanks for taking all the pictures of the con. Made me seriously regret not going myself.

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    1. We'll totally have to drag you along next year, then! (Although I will seriously consider flying over driving next year!)

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  2. Glad 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.

    I 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.

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    Replies
    1. That Stalingrad table was awesome looking!

      It's ashame about scheduling, but it is what it is. See you there next year!

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  3. Wow, a lot of pics! Thanks you. I would have mixed feelings about playing a tournament there. So much new stuff to try out.

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    Replies
    1. Totally 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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