Origins 2012

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Zarathud
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Origins 2012

Post by Zarathud »

It's time to start planning the next gaming event now that Octocon X is over.

The Origins Game Fair runs from May 30-June 3, 2012 in Columbus, Ohio. I'm flying in Wednesday night and staying at the Hyatt until Sunday. Last year hepcat and I met up with Isgrimnur. We'll probably meet at the bar on the second floor for after hours board and card games again. Anyone else coming out this year?

I submitted a request to run an event of Paranoia RPG (Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory) on 6/1/2012 8:00-12:00 AM. Hopefully, they'll schedule me properly. Last night, I started dreaming about the elements for a new mission based on the Living Dead taking over Alpha Complex. If it doesn't gel as expected, I'll put a few of my favorite scenes together from prior Paranoia modules. Maybe I could get someone to act out looking for the "stealth train" in a cloud similar to Hentzau....

:twisted:
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“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867
“It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by Remus West »

Damn. That is the weekend of both the Michigan youth State volleyball tournament and my eldest Niece's graduation. No way I make it and I would LOVE to play paranoia again sometime. I'd ask you to bring it to the next Octocon but those are for new games and a good session of Paranoia should be at minimum several hours imho.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by hepcat »

This year I resolve to come equipped with sleep aids so that I don't experience the insomnia that almost ruined last year's outing for me.

I also plan on more late night gaming as well....which will end only when the sleeping pills have knocked my ass out. At that point Zarathud will carry me back to my room over his shoulder while telling everyone we pass not to worry and that he always eats what he kills.

At some point I want to break my record for most sauerkraut balls consumed in one sitting. I will NOT be eating at the only indian place we found last year however...let's do the math: ANY ethnic food + ohio = terrifying.

If zarathud demands we play Battletech in those ancient battletech pods outside the exhibit hall that smell of stale cheese and human (?) sweat again, I will just sit in the damn thing and scream the entire time.

Redwarlord will be working the Chessex booth this year. I plan on stripping down to my boxers and just sitting in their tub 'o dice display for one afternoon in light of this.

If I get stuck sitting next to someone while gaming that obviously hasn't showered since the Johnson administration, I will simply ask them politely to move to another time zone instead of standing on my chair while yelling at the top of my lungs for the mighty "God of Odor" to bless this man. That confused security last year.

Lastly, I hope to get a chance to show off my new Pink Power Ranger costume to folks who will appreciate the work that went into it.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by RMC »

I might be going down to Origins for one day. It depends on my crew up here, and what my wife says I can do.

As the date get's closer, I'll keep checking in and seeing what/where everyone is up to and if I can hook-up with you all for a beer or gaming..

:)
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by Zarathud »

Awesome. I'll be arriving late Wed night and post my heavy schedule of events like usual. I'm waiting to hear whether the Paranoia RPG event I'd like to run will be on the schedule Fri 8-12 am.

Things wind down on Sunday so Friday or Saturday are best for a 1 day trip. Leave a few hours to spend in the dealer's room. It's a highlight of the show.
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein
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“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by RMC »

Zarathud wrote:Awesome. I'll be arriving late Wed night and post my heavy schedule of events like usual. I'm waiting to hear whether the Paranoia RPG event I'd like to run will be on the schedule Fri 8-12 am.

Things wind down on Sunday so Friday or Saturday are best for a 1 day trip. Leave a few hours to spend in the dealer's room. It's a highlight of the show.
Yeah, a bunch of us went down for the day last Saturday. It was a ton of fun. And cemented me going to Gen Con last year.

This year, no gen con as I don't have the extra $$ this year. But Origins, is only a 1 1/2 hour drive down to Columbus, and a day out. I might just go for the day and bring my oldest daughter with me, she is only 8, but might like the show room, and getting out for the day away from her other 2 sisters. :)
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by hepcat »

RMC wrote:
Zarathud wrote: But Origins, is only a 1 1/2 hour drive down to Columbus, and a day out.
How the hell are you getting from Elyria to Columbus in 1 1/2 hours??? Do you use Nitrous Oxide in your car?
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by RMC »

hepcat wrote:
RMC wrote:
Zarathud wrote: But Origins, is only a 1 1/2 hour drive down to Columbus, and a day out.
How the hell are you getting from Elyria to Columbus in 1 1/2 hours??? Do you use Nitrous Oxide in your car?

I work in Elyria, but live close to a town called Lodi. Which is right by I-71. So I jump on I-71, and then drive right on down to Columbus.

If I don't stop for pee pee breaks, I can be there in 1 1/2 hours. If there is too much traffic, or construction it might take 2 hours. But 1 1/2 is the normal time from my house to Columbus.

And I have flames painted on the sides of my Mini-Van, and they are RED flames, so my car goes faster...
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by hepcat »

Ah, I see. Fun fact about Lodi, it was the hometown of the Grand Wizard of the KKK (or so he claimed) who passed away earlier last year.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by RMC »

Really? Lodi is like the home of the local discount strip mall thingy, not a place you would think would have a KKK grand master..

Where do you get this information? Or do people see your full head of hair, and just give you the information?
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by hepcat »

I had a friend in college that was from Lodi. He hipped me to it. Plus, I was born and raised in New Philadelphia, so I am a local.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by Zarathud »

When you see Wil Wheaton, make him sign your copy of Smallworld!
COLUMBUS, OH – April 17, 2012 – Origins Game Fair is proud to announce a full slate of guests for 2012.

Please join us in welcoming our amazing lineup of Special Guests: Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, and Adrienne Wilkinson.

Adding to our wonderful slate are our Guests of Honor: Game Designer Robert Schwalb, Game Designer Jeff Tidball, Artist Sandra Garrity, and Author Aaron Allston.
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein
"I don't stand by anything." - Trump
“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867
“It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by RMC »

Zarathud wrote:When you see Wil Wheaton, make him sign your copy of Smallworld!
COLUMBUS, OH – April 17, 2012 – Origins Game Fair is proud to announce a full slate of guests for 2012.

Please join us in welcoming our amazing lineup of Special Guests: Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, and Adrienne Wilkinson.

Adding to our wonderful slate are our Guests of Honor: Game Designer Robert Schwalb, Game Designer Jeff Tidball, Artist Sandra Garrity, and Author Aaron Allston.
Think he would sign it? Or would he only sign a picture?
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by Isgrimnur »

Zarathud wrote:When you see Wil Wheaton, make him sign your copy of Smallworld!
:doh:
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by hepcat »

Redwarlord and another friend of ours hung out a bar during Gencon a few years ago based on the rumor he was going to show up that night to run some open gaming. He never did, but we were so sloshed by 9pm that he could've walked up and run us through a full night of board games and I don't think we would've realized it was him.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by hepcat »

Whoo hoo, events are posted. Grabbing my copy of the tabletop gaming list now.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by Chaosraven »

Amazingly, my fur on four off schedule has these four days OFF for this year. Should I go?
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by Isgrimnur »

I enjoyed my trip last year. Do it.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by RMC »

Anytime you can come to Ohio, you should do it.

Ohio is after all the 'Heart of it all' - It's true.. :)
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by hepcat »

Chaosraven wrote:Amazingly, my fur on four off schedule has these four days OFF for this year. Should I go?
You already know zarathud and myself. Issie came up without even that much knowledge. I say yes. You've got my phone number. Just give me a holler if you do.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by Zarathud »

Chaosraven, you should come out. The convention is slow on Wednesday, gets going Thursday and the magic is really on Friday and Saturday. The cheapest way at the convention is to get the Board Game Ribbon and the 4-day pass. You'll get access to the game room with its massive library of games for one price, and sometimes the event sponsors give out prizes or food.

It turns out I'm running a session of Paranoia the same time Friday morning as the guy who wasn't able to make the past few years. :x I'm running Paranoia event #6434 Friday 8-12AM, but I'll also be playing #6212 THUR 1-5 PM. That will probably take care of my RPG needs, but Origins has a great contingent of Call of Cthulhu RPGs.

I'm tempted to go back to the old standards of Race for the Galaxy and Battlestar Galactica. I might try Sunrise City and Befort, and getting in a game of Discworld: Ankh-Morpork. I don't see any events with Eclipse, but there are 5 sessions of Eminent Domain scheduled.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by Chaosraven »

RMC wrote:Anytime you can come to Ohio, you should do it.

Ohio is after all the 'Heart of it all' - It's true.. :)
seeing as my ex lives in Elyria and my oldest daughter goes to Oberlin, I have spent plenty of time down there in the last 22 years...
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by RMC »

Chaosraven wrote:
RMC wrote:Anytime you can come to Ohio, you should do it.

Ohio is after all the 'Heart of it all' - It's true.. :)
seeing as my ex lives in Elyria and my oldest daughter goes to Oberlin, I have spent plenty of time down there in the last 22 years...
Dude I live like 20 minutes away from Oberlin. And there is a great Magic/Gaming store right by the Oberlin campus. If you ever need a place to crash while visiting Oberlin, give me a PM. I can give you one of my kids rooms for a night or two. :)
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by Zarathud »

Revised event lists were released over the weekend, and event pre-registration starts tomorrow at noon.
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“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867
“It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by miltonite »

I would love to go to Origins. Sadly the trip from Louisiana would be a pretty big one and all the games for sale would probably drain my bank account.

Maybe one day when I can stifle my urge to buy every game.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by LordMortis »

Chaosraven wrote:Amazingly, my fur on four off schedule has these four days OFF for this year. Should I go?
I'd say I'd think about it but I already committed to Danzig and someone else bought my ticket for me. I'd be a total douche if I backed out.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by Zarathud »

My Paranoia event filled up and overbooked in the first 30 minutes, even though there was a competing event at the same time!

Now I have to finish integrating and editing the story lines of the missions I'm going to borrow from. If you have any suggestions on how to hose the Troubleshooters, post them over here.
Last edited by Zarathud on Tue May 08, 2012 10:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein
"I don't stand by anything." - Trump
“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867
“It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by hepcat »

Can you work in the plot of Gigli? People really seem to like that Ben Affleck kid.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by hentzau »

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Re: Origins 2012

Post by hepcat »

I'm going to shoot them an email and tell them I'll help out with Core Worlds as I love that game.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by Zarathud »

I'll finish packing the bags tomorrow night and arrive Wednesday night. If anyone else will be there, send me or hepcat a PM!
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“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867
“It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by hepcat »

Well hell. 5 in the morning and I've slept about 90 minutes since 10:30 last night. I freakin' hate insomnia....

Looks like I'll be chuggin' coffees my first day of Origins. :cry:
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by hepcat »

Okay, insomnia aside, I made it through with very little in the way of rough spots.

Thursday: Got in 4 1/2 hours of sleep, so I was able to make it there and spend a whole day playing/running around without too much trouble.

First up was a game of Strike of the Eagle from Academy Games. Fun, but I'm not sure it's something I'll add to my collection. Then it was a late game of Sunrise City. A new tile placement game with role selection. I enjoyed it but it did have a bit of a learning curve.

Friday I got up early and perused the dealer room for a bit until it was time to play Zarathud in A Few Acres of Snow. I fell in love with this one and really enjoyed it. The deck building mechanic was married to the area control aspect of the game flawlessly, imho. I may have to pick up a copy for myself, or at the very least pester Hentzau to play his.

Then it was a game of Yggdrasil, which I really enjoyed. It's almost like a lighter version of Ghost Stories with a better chance of survival...although we actually lost. Since I have it on the iPad I probably won't buy the board game, but I will play the digital version for sure.

Afterwards we met up with one of the owners of Chicagoland Games and headed over to try out something he was interested in. Turned out to be a Richard Borg Command and Color entry called Samurai Battles. I played with another con goer while Zarathud and our FLGS friend opposed us. About halfway through the game I look over at the very nice, older gentlemen who has been demoing the game for us and glance at his name tag...it's Richard Borg himself. I was a bit dumbstruck at first as I've played so many of his games over the years (the C&C series, Memoir '44, Battlelore, etc.), but the man is such a nice guy that that was quickly dispelled. His love of gaming is infectious and when we finished, he let me take a photo with him.

Image
(time for yours truly to lay off fried foods, by the way :oops: )

The next day I stopped by his booth and bought the game. I asked him to autograph it and he did...then, as I was about to leave, he started dropping free extra minis in the bag as he believed I would have more fun with extra archers and spearmen. The game retails for 80 bucks but you get 122 1/72 scale plastic minis that are freakin' gorgeous, as well as two award winning rules systems. The Art of Tactics (the designer for THAT was there too but I didn't realize this until later) and the C&C system. The AoT is really cool too and I look forward to playing it. You have to assemble almost everything, but the amount of stuff you get is staggering so it balances out. But even if I don't play it that much, I still feel happy with the purchase thanks to the experience behind getting it.

We rounded out Friday night with some open gaming in the board game room.

Saturday I wondered around for a few hours and then played Super Dungeon Explore with Zarathud. I had heard good things about the game but hadn't had a chance to try it, plus the look of it turned me off a bit. I have to say it's a really fun game though. When you're looking for a sillier version of Descent that plays in 3 to 4 hours, SDE is a fantastic alternative. We won against the DM (or Console, as the game calls him), but just barely.

We even skipped our game of Nightfall as we were enjoying ourselves so much.

We ended the night in the boardgame room again, where we learned Puzzle Strike from our friend from the game store. I really liked it, but I think we screwed up the rules towards the end as it was apparent that Zarathud and I were just going to go back and forth for a very long time before any resolution to the game was found.

Sunday I browsed the vendor room for an hour and blew some of the money I made on the auction before heading out.

I have to say that overall, this year's Origins was a disappointment in terms of dealers and attendance. Moving it to the date they did really screwed them up I think. The list of vendors for last year covered two full pages in the con guide...this year it covered one. I believe they're going back to the original schedule next year though, so I hope it picks back up.

edit: well crap, I just found out Richard Launius was at Origins. I would've liked to meet him too.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by Isgrimnur »

Sounds cool. I wish I had it in the budget/time off to make it again. But I still have plans for OctoCon and GenCon in the plans.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by hepcat »

I'll be at gencon tormenting seppe, zarathud and probably redwarlord in august. I think I'm going to enjoy gencon more this year. I've certainly scheduled more games, that's for sure.

I swore last year that I would stay at a hotel near the convention, but the lowest rate i could find was over 200 bucks a night. I opted to stay at a hyatt place near the airport 10 minutes away for half that.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by hentzau »

Yeah, the room rates for nearby hotels over there are brutal. I was so happy that I got a free pass to GenCon last year. That free pass ended up costing me about $900 in the long run.
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Re: Origins 2012

Post by Zarathud »

I flew in Wednesday night and was surprised at how many people were already at the convention. I debated over time in the BattleTech pods, but work fatigue demanded an early bedtime.

On early Thursday morning, I had a great time playing Belfort. It's a nice little worker placement game that combines territory control as you build locations in the 5 sectors of the city. Unfortunately, the shipment of the new printing was delayed on the boat so I'll have to pick up a copy later this month.

I played Team Leader in an excellent Paranoia XP game of Through the Pipes, with a great group who role played the character quirks well but still fumbled over each other hysterically. I learned a few tricks from the GM, who appreciated that I dropped a few hints on engineering the Tube Crawler and my joke that it would be easier to remember the character stats if we were playing the same character. I think he's going to use the idea next year to have the players play 6 clones!

Thursday ended with Sunrise City. It's basically a competitive version of Sim City where each player drafts 3 different roles to play in the 3 game turns. Each role gives a bonus to the zoning, bidding, construction or scoring phases of the game, and decides turn order. You start the turn by laying down 4 new foundation "zones" (residential, commercial, industrial, park, mixed or community bonus) where anyone can build, then each player bids 1 of their 8 chips to control an empty foundation zone. The player who makes the last bid controls the zone and scores extra when the 1st floor is built that turn. Then each player lays 4 floors that are the size of 2 zones. Building the floor requires placing on the same zone type (or a wild). If placed as the 1st floor, it scores bonus points for the player who controls the zone through the bidding. If placed as a 2nd floor or higher, it scores +1 point if an odd-numbered floor. The floor pieces created a nice 3d visual effect as the city was built. Points are converted into "stars" whenever you score 10 points, but you get a bonus star whenever your score ends exactly in 10. This made for an interesting mechanic where sometimes it was better to build and score less points, but get a second star. I liked, but I'll wait to see if I can play with my family before buying.

Friday morning was my game of Paranoia. I ran a streamlined version of the "Communist Cafeteria Conspiracy" where the players received 6 different missions about how to fix the unhappiness and mind control caused by the Commies in the Cupcake Cafeteria. The players were assigned to be the Venture Villains (Monarch, Dr. Girlfriend, 21, Phantom Limb, Dr. Killinger and Underbeit), but nobody even tried to play the roles. I learned that convention players are a mixed bag, as 3 players eventually ran with the whole premise of running the cafeteria into the ground while the other 3 just weren't engaged. Perhaps it was giving out too many forms and giving them a visual with miniatures, but they brilliantly handled the sequence of filming their propaganda film and "handling" a vicious alligator in a box identified as "BE SCARD." I had to skip over exciting fun spots of mayhem because the players were too cagey to bite on any of the plot hooks.

After cleaning up and watching 10 minutes of a crazy RPG where the players were GMed by an improv team in a custom RPG to play kids with crazy imaginations and mega-props, I met hepcat for A Few Acres of Snow at the Mayfair area. Mayfair does a poor job at Origins, basically running a game rental room where usually nobody is available to teach the game. A gamer stuck around to teach hepcat and me, and I'm very grateful. hepcat is absolutely right that the deck building works just right with the area control, and I loved how the options played out. hepcat played defensively collecting gold, while I built up my cities and started the only sieges.

I skipped my session of VivaJava to have dinner with hepcat before Yggrasil. It's a beautiful game that looks indecipherable at first but turns out to be really simple. You select elves to get a +1 bonus after combat or send the Valkyries to randomly choose 3 tiles from one of several bags to get up to 3 warrior souls that give a +1 bonus when used before combat. You might have to thin out the tortured souls in a bag by drawing 5 and discarding any tortured souls. Loki will bring out the Frost Giants that penalize you until you defeat them, and the 6 evil gods will advance and get stronger unless you fight them back. You lose the game if too many advance past certain points, or any 1 of them gets to Odin's throne. You win the game if you can beat them back until you run through the movement deck for each of the evil gods. We played on Saturday night on my iPad at the bar, and the digital version makes it really easy to play.

I was very happy that I skipped out on my scheduled game of Revolution! to hang out with hepcat to play Samurai Battles. The demo made war gaming approachable to a military newbie like me, and we almost had hepcat on the ropes as our heavy infantry and cavalry rode in to decimate the enemy center as our right flank was starting to fail. A strong (and lucky) counter-attack resulted in the early death of our second leader to win the day, and the demo crew enjoyed watching the results as much as we did playing. It was incredibly enjoyable watching hepcat's spit take as he realized that the enthusiastic gentlemen explaining the game and the depth behind it was Richard Borg. Just a few minutes earlier hepcat was waxing about how much he loved Memoir '44 and other games in the C&C series, so the look on his face was priceless. The fanboi picture just doesn't do the moment justice.

On Saturday, I spent more time in the Mayfair area and was fortunate enough to have a teacher (who looked like Santa Claus) for Pillars of the Earth. It was a straight forward euro with some bidding, resource drafting and builder placement. I liked, but the territory control in Belfort was more to my taste than the arbitrary nature of the "bid for advanced craftsman" mechanic. Another surprise hit was Super Dungeon Explore, a cutesy anime nod to 16 bit gaming similar to Descent but just too silly to be taken seriously. The miniatures were painted gorgeously by the GM's wife, and I might buy it in a few years to introduce my kid to adventure board games. I was suprised when hepcat wanted to blow off Nightfall for dinner, and on the way back I had the chance to play a few turns of Kingdom Builder in a demo.

Then I insisted on getting over to the Mayfair area to play Discworld: Ankh-Morpork. It's an enjoyable light asymmetrical territory control game, but I ended up teaching the game mechanics to a group of hard core Pratchett fans. My goal as Commander Vimes was to get everyone through the deck, while the other players were Ventinari (win with 1 player in districts) and the territory control Lords (win with control of a majority of districts). We were so busy chatting about the fantasy humor/satire genre and the convention that one player asked how the control mechanics worked again, and then immediately announced that he had just won the game. Not my best gaming moment.

I snuck in a game of Ascension with the gal running the competition (she beat me by only 8 points), and watched a few rounds of Nefarious (looked very interesting). Later that night, hepcat and I learned Yomi and Puzzle Strike. I was surprised at how much game there was in each. Yomi is a fighting game where you have to ignore half of the card image to focus on the rock-paper-scissors aspect of choosing the right bluff to land a hit, then turn it into a combo to deal massive damage. Puzzle Strike is about racing the clock to push the gems that are falling into your player board into the player boards of the next player over. I'm pretty sure it's one of those games where you need to overwhelm the other players, because hecpat and I ended up in a stalemate where I had to do mega-damage to fill hepcat's board and he didn't have anything left he could hurt me with. I'm pretty sure we missed something or played wrong. We ended up with beers over a digital game of Yggdrasil that we would have won if we hadn't run into a bug.

On Sunday, I picked up Thurn and Taxis as a classic to play with the family and Kinder Bunnies to play with my 5 year old. I watched demos for Carnival (looked fun), zpocalpyse (looked grindy), looked at Empires of the Void (which seemed a bit light), Conquest Tactics (impossible to read type) and talked with a few people about RPG mats/computerized D&D helpers. I talked for a while with the Chicago guy working on Titans of Industry which has a clean look and promises worker placement with an early 1920s economic theme in the style of Le Havre -- he promised to get demos/release events at both friendly local game stores. I had hoped to pick up a demo of Mice and Mystics but couldn't get in, and the Cambridge Games Factory booth wanted to teach me their new game Montana instead of Glory to Rome. I also found out that the BattleHive mini boxes I liked from Crystal Caste were again in stock, and picked up a bunch of crystals for use as the spice and circle markers for armies in my Dune game. I ended the day watching a few rounds of a Leviathans battle, then looked at the art show where the highlight was the booth with the evil My Little Ponies. Not too bad for walking around Sunday before a 5 PM flight back.

The energy was down, and the gaming crowd reflected the conflict with school. There just weren't many high school or college age kids until Saturday, but there were tons of old geezers like me with their families. The retailers scaled back their presence generally, and the booth were much larger with more space in the aisles. It wasn't a bad thing if you like elbow space, but it really did lower the energy. Mayfair and Rio Grande were as busy as usual, and the board game room was just great. Gamesalute and Cryptozoic had good areas, but the mass of old games from Crazy Igor was missing. The lower retail presence did impact my purchases, and I walked out with only a few pre-painted minis, Thurn & Taxis, Kinder Bunnies and 4 stuffed animals for the kids (a Rainbow Unicorn Pegasus, Godzilla, Darth Vader and Chewbacca). I would have bought Belfort, but I'll order it before attending GenCon.

I had a good time with plenty of events. I wish I had picked up a more engaged group of Paranoia players, but one did give me his e-mail address to play again back in Chicago. I'm expecting GAMA will learn some lessons and do better next year. Getting Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day to attend was a pretty big score for them, but they failed to capitalize on the opportunity with advance publicity.
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein
"I don't stand by anything." - Trump
“Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867
“It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
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