GenCon 2015

[Harkonis]

oh my, I will buy both of those in a heartbeat

[Zarathud]

Exhausted after my trip and dealing with work/family/weather issues after getting back. I'll try to put up some thoughts later this week, but I had a lot of fun hanging out with hepcat, harkonis and seppe.

I ended up with a few lighter games, along with a fair amount of loot for the kids (which they're not getting for a few days due to their behavior in my absence).

I am quite happy with Welcome to the Dungeon and will be looking for my X-Wing order to arrive in a few weeks. I won a copy of Clockwork Kingdom, and picked up the Mage Wars Arena: Battlegrounds Domination expansion. I picked up a set of Broken Token card trays, and picked up the space exploration game Emergence Event.

I'll have to try Ortus Regni when it comes out on iOS (or Windows) later this year. It's a gorgeous, high-production full-set deck builder that looks like a Tower defense game -- and may be one of the few games worth buying after learning the rules on an app.

[hentzau]

Ooh...Clockwork Kingdom!

[hepcat]

Another Gencon has come and gone. This year I went a little overboard with purchases. In my defense though, I did bring about a half dozen or so games for the auction…all of which sold.

Games acquired at great personal risk:

SOS Titanic – a small box solo/coop game about saving passengers on the Titanic by Bruno Cathala.

Cthulhu Realms – A Lovecraft themed version of Star Realms. The rulebook is frustratingly bad, and I still have numerous questions about the game after about 4 plays, but there is fun to be found in the game. I think it will get better after I get my questions answered on boardgamegeek.com.

Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn – A card game like Magic and Mage Wars, but with dice that provide resources. An impulse buy. Still need to try it out.

Legendary Encounters: Predator – It’s no secret that Legendary Encounters: Alien has been my surprise hit of the year (even though it came out last year). An incredibly simplistic deck builder that manages to transcend that limitation by being one of the most thematic games I’ve ever played. This entry in the franchise included cards that allow me to integrate it with the Alien version. Numerous variants (play as humans, play as predators, hunt humans, hunt predators, hunt aliens) means a ton of gameplay.

Deck Building: The Deck Building Game – A deck builder about building a deck for your house. That’s all anyone needs to know.

Two Rooms and a Boom – Werewolf for people who don’t like Werewolf. This received rave reviews as a party game by the Shut Up and Sit Down guys.

Francis Drake – This was my prize get. I found a ding and dent copy in the coolstuffinc booth for 30 bucks (actually, I was on my way out with a 40 dollar copy when one of the booth workers grabbed my arm and shoved the cheaper one at me. It simply has a dented corner. Everything in the box is unpunched and new.). Then I grabbed the expansion (which allows for 2 player and 6 player games.) later that day. I played this at Origins and really liked it. Worker placement-like with the ability to change up your approach from turn to turn (explorer, pirate or merchant). The game is roughly the size of a small dachshund.

Firefly: Shiny Dice - I bought it on a whim. I wish I hadn’t had that whim.

I regret not buying The Voyages of Marco Polo, but I was a little out of control already. I had to rein it in a bit.

[SpaceLord]

Another Gencon has come and gone. This year I went a little overboard with purchases. In my defense though, I did bring about a half dozen or so games for the auction…all of which sold.

Games acquired at great personal risk:

Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn – A card game like Magic and Mage Wars, but with dice that provide resources. An impulse buy. Still need to try it out.

I got Ashes last Tuesday, and I've played it 6 times since. It's really good, and it reminds me of a cross between M:tG and Mage Wars, as your said. Imagine M:tG if, instead of needing to draw lands, you have 10 mana every round. However, each time you cast anything, your opponent gets to react. It's a lot less random than M:tG, however.

[hepcat]

The only complaint I've heard so far is that the game is very much a "paper, rock, scissors" design. But II haven't had a chance to even read the rules yet. Hopefully this week I will.

[SpaceLord]

The only complaint I've heard so far is that the game is very much a "paper, rock, scissors" design. But II haven't had a chance to even read the rules yet. Hopefully this week I will.

I haven't heard that at all. In fact, I'm not sure what the elements would be. Creatures? Spells? Running your opponent out of cards? Of the 6 basic PhoenixBorn, only 1 of them doesn't focus on creature damage to win the game.

[Harkonis]

Grabbed

Mice and Mystics: Downwood Tales
Legendary Encounters: Predator
Firefly: Shiny Dice
Cthulhu Realms
All the Star Realms expansions
7 Sins
Dead of Winter
Ashes
A few Doomtown saddlebags

Happy with all of the purchases so far, haven't played the M&M, Predator or Dead of Winter yet. Sorted all of Predator and realized the 'conversion kit' that they told me I need to fully integrate Predator with Aliens is actually the Aliens objectives and locations that you would already have if you have that version. Definitely a bit tired of people 'helping' at the con that don't really know the answer to things but act like they do. lol

[Harkonis]

The only complaint I've heard so far is that the game is very much a "paper, rock, scissors" design. But II haven't had a chance to even read the rules yet. Hopefully this week I will.

I haven't heard that at all. In fact, I'm not sure what the elements would be. Creatures? Spells? Running your opponent out of cards? Of the 6 basic PhoenixBorn, only 1 of them doesn't focus on creature damage to win the game.

I'm probably where he heard that from. My first game was vs my fiancee and we took two of the preconstructed decks to play. Her deck was a direct counter to mine and it truly felt like there was little I could do to get past it. The general basis of my deck was to give 0 attack creatures that hurt their controller to my opponent, her deck was great at pumping the attack value of creatures. End result was if I gave her a creature she was more than capable of doing great things with it despite it's 0 attack, then could either get rid of it or just take the damage and not care.

Hopefully this is just an outlying case. One complaint I have read is that the precon decks suggested in the manual are actually quite good and well tunes which is unusual in most games since they want you to work to figure out what works best.

[hepcat]

Grabbed

Happy with all of the purchases so far, haven't played the M&M, Predator or Dead of Winter yet. Sorted all of Predator and realized the 'conversion kit' that they told me I need to fully integrate Predator with Aliens is actually the Aliens objectives and locations that you would already have if you have that version. Definitely a bit tired of people 'helping' at the con that don't really know the answer to things but act like they do. lol

First off, sorry to dis Shiny Dice after our brief try at a game on Saturday night. I was just in a food coma and the numerous dice powers were frustrating the hell out of me. Plus, your fiance was falling asleep on your arm while playing it, so it added to my courage in asking if we could move on.

I will give it another go solo though and see if perhaps I can enjoy it when I'm in a less catatonic state.

As for the Predator "conversion deck"...really??? Damn idiots told me the same thing. "You need this to make it work with Alien" were their precise damn words. Now I'm pissed at Upper Deck.

And yeah, I was referring to you specifically when I brought up that quibble about Ashes. But I didn't want to bring your name into it in case I misunderstood your point when we discussed the game on Saturday.

It was great to get to spend some time gaming with you folks! Sorry we couldn't connect on Sunday, though.

p.s. I posted some questions about Cthulhu Realms on the BGG site a little bit ago. Stop by and maybe you can clarify my muddled questions.

[Harkonis]

One thing I did notice when I got my own copy of CR was that the deck of cards you refill the buy lines with is face up so you always know what will replace what you buy. Not sure why they did it this way, but that significantly changes things, especially in 4 player game since the next card is the same for all 4 players.
7 Sins was a surprise game for me. Couple local friends had made it so I demo'd it late on Sunday. Very fun light party game and the only one of my games that was quick and simple enough that I would feel ok asking my parents to play with me

The playmats they had were also amazing. They looked great and also added to the game.

[hepcat]

Really? I must have missed that when I read the rules. That does seem odd.

Oh, and damn...I forgot to look for that booth you guys told me about that was selling the Doomtown saddlebags on the cheap.

[Harkonis]

further inspection shows they are the same named cards, with slightly different text to reference predator rules. So maybe not a complete waste after all.

[Zarathud]

Plaid Hat Games is producing a new tactical miniatures game in the Mice & Mystics universe called Tailfeathers. The mice are flying birds and engaged in arial and ground combat to take objectives and secure trees as territory. During planning, he birds swivel on top of a peg to select their direction of movement. When birds ram each other, they get into deadly combat and are tipped back to show it.

The players add objective/event tokens to the play field. Events can be rescue objectives, decoys or even traps. A bird can fly over a token to reveal it, and choose to interact with it by it swooping down after pivoting their bird down. The rotation will make it feel very interactive and unlike X-Wing, D&D Attack Wing or Star Trek.

The cheese system (where you get a cheese when failing a roll) allows players to bring back units as reinforcements, so small numbers of miniatures feel like much bigger armies. The theme will even follow the current storyline. Looks really nice and ETA by year end.

[Harkonis]

definitely picking up Tail Feathers ASAP as well, loving most of what Plaid Hat has had to offer so far.

[Archinerd]

I preorderd They Come Unseen (terrible name) which apparently debuted at GenCon, to be published in October by Osprey. It's a 2-5 player asymmetrical submarine game that plays in 2 hours-ish. It had me at "asymmetrical" but the $35 preorder price sealed the deal.

From the publisher:

Submarines and surface fleets battle for dominance of the seas! One team must use submarines to sneak troops into enemy ports and destroy vital strategic targets, while the other team deploys a surface fleet to hunt down the subs and protect their crucial supply lines.

Designed by retired Royal Navy Officer and submarine commander Andrew Benford, and developed deep beneath the waves, They Come Unseen is an asymmetrical strategy game of bluffing and deception that uses two boards: one for action on the surface, seen by both players, and one for movement underwater, seen only by the submarine commanders. The game also comes with specially designed control panels to aid each player in tracking vital information such as fuel, ammunition and current cruising depth.

[AWS260]

They Come Unseen (terrible name)

Yeah, you really want to turn the lights on for that.