Day Five: The Recollectioning

Yes, I made up that word.  Recollectioning is now a real word I coined it.  If you disagree you can go fuck yourselves.

It was a great trip, as it always is.  Attendance numbers aren't in yet but the estimates put it at 40k. 40k people and I didn't see or hear one altercation.  Everyone waits their turn, no pushing no shoving.  Amazingly congenial and sociable for 40k nerds crammed into a room.  Several rooms actually but you get the idea.

People from all walks of life were rubbing elbows and rolling dice, all ages, colors and creeds.  Not one unfriendly incident, although I estimate 3.7million needless npc deaths.

A quick rundown of some of the game highlights and I will be done with yapping about GenCon for a year.

Penny Arcade Gamers vs. Evil/Rumble in Ryleh:  A pretty fun deck building game with simple mechanics and lots of PA themed fun.  A bit steep at $40 each, especially considering the Fantasy Flight Penny Arcade: The Card Game is available for about $15 and a better game, in my opinion, unless you hate card games that are not deck builders.

Some Fucking Mouse Game:  That isn't the title I don't know what it is called.  You play as mice..with swords, kind of like Redwall by Brian Jacques.  It isn't a roleplaying game, more of a dungeon running board game, but apparently it was hot shit.  45 minute waits just for the demo.  It releases later this year.

X-Wing: George Lucas is a hack.  Avoid this.

Leviathans:  Pick it up.

D&D Next:  I didn't get a chance to playtest this, but the keynote left me hopeful. 4.0 is a trainwreck.  Ever since the combination of D&D and AD&D into one product I have felt WotC tries to hard to make D&D everything for everyone while dumbing it down considerably.  D&D next should streamline the game without dumbing it down.

Ninja Era:  Watch for this on Kickstarter, a simple map exploring ninja fighting game.  Nice artwork, easy to learn and quick to play.

Lyssan:  Kingdom ruling game with diplomacy and intrigue.  Great game and a lot of fun.  Best for three or more players but the two player alternate rules are interesting.  Lots of bluffing.

Netrunner:  This appears to be the new hotness, judging by the amount of copies I saw sold and the lengthy lines for the demo.  Watched it played, but didn't have a chance to play it.  Nice artwork.

Battles of Westeros Baratheon Expansion:  This expansion solves the main flaw of the original by adding rules and support for more than two players.  If you like BoW this is a must have.

Easter Island:  Super simple ruleset with challenging strategic gameplay.  Destroy your opponent's Moai with the power of the sun.  That sounded kind of stupid when I reread it, but it might be the best $5 game purchase ever.

D-Day Dice:  Publisher gaffe aside, this is a fun game.  (The publishers included a kickstarter only expansion that will never be reprinted.  Only problem is they refer to it several times in the core rules.  That has apparently pissed off vendors.)  Kind of pricey for a dice based game, but enjoyable and challenging.  You can pick it up as print and play, but the print and play scenarios are far less balanced and much, much tougher.

Trailer Park Wars:  Manage the traileriest (coined that one too) trailer park to win.  Great fun, great laughs.  Any game that has a random chance to name your park "Gypsy Park Dumpster World" is a winner in my book. (goddamn gypsies)

The Current Number of the Beast:  Match the current number of the beast with your die rolls, or the number of the neighbor of the beast, or the stepson of the beast, or the business acquaintance. Pretty fun with great artwork.

Nigel Sade: Buy his artwork, seriously right now.

Wil Wheaton: Stand up dude.


That is it fuckers, have fun.

Day One

First day of GenCon. Not a lot of cosplay on display. Contrary to popular belief cosplayers must have jobs. Spent most of today wandering the exhibition hall, looking for games to demo.

Fantasy Flight released X-Wing today. A dogfighting board game, obviously set in the Star Wars universe. I mention this because my audience isn't all that hip to SW. Not that I blame any of you, Lucas is a hack.

I digress. I spent last night explaining to Austin why exactly Star Wars is terrible and why I would not trust this game until I saw it in action. Fantasy Flight is almost always a safe bet(with the exception of Privateer, that rock scissors game is garbage. Yup so bad they didn't even include paper.)

So this morning as soon as the hall opened Austin made a beeline for FF and snagged two 100 point armies for X-Wing, to get a shot at the inaugural tourney. Actually probably should call them squadrons. I, being distrustful of all things Lucas, mosied over to the demo.

Here is the scoop, base game is $40 (which is quite a steal for an FF game). This includes a grand total of two tie fighters and one X-Wing. Extra ships 15 a pop. Austin waits for an hour in what may have been the longest line since Russia in 1916. As he waits he slowly comes to the realization that I came to before I even saw the game, he is getting took for 130 dollars. The base fucking game comes with three goddamn pieces.

He left that shit at the booth and picked up six games for less than an X_Wing tourney set.

I will get into those later. For now I am heading to free dinner and beer at the hotel.