FallCon 22

WellFallCon 22 has come and gone, and to quote Tony the Tiger, it was grrrrreat!
Attendance was really good, I think there were more people there on Friday night then I have ever seen before. The place was cram packed! It was a little different then previous years, the auction filled up two hours after the auction opened...I started my FallCon adventure with a game called Glory to Rome, it won the People's Choice award and I was asked to moderate it. I really like the game, I just hate explaining it. There are so many things you have to explain for the game, and each one rests upon another one. I did manage to get through the explanation and then the game started. We played two games of it, and a winner emerged, a player that had never played it before. This was surprising because usually the winner has experience in the game. Glory to Rome went until 11 or so and I helped out around the booth and the game library until midnight, then I went home.

I arrived at 7:30 Saturday morning to help set up and ensure all the games were ready for the morning events. I had no games scheduled that day but just tried to helped things go smoothly.
I took over running the games library for awhile as well and played a game of Roll Through the Ages 2 player and lost badly. I like the game, so much so that I will probably purchase it. It is a unique filler and ends before the mechanism is wearing. The game is based on rolling dice to build your civilization. The downside for me is that it might as well be solitaire as there is no player intereaction except for the race to build wonders, you get more points for building a wonder first then your opponent.

I stayed at the games library for awhile and played some games with my friend Leah from Medicine Hat. She schooled me in Lost Cities and then she read the rules to Finca while I helped people check games out of the library. We played a game two player as we both learned the rules, she proved to be an excellent teacher by allowing me to beat her in the game. It is another interesting game that I will probably pick it. There is some depth to the game, and it plays in about 45 minutes.

My afternoon was spent helping pirates play Railroad Tycoon (Saturday was International Talk like a Pirate day) and then prepping for the auction.

The auction deserves special mention because of the games that were available this year. We had several people drop off large amounts (127 in one case) and the games were for the most part high quality. I would guess over a hundred were still in shrink and bidding for the games was fierce. One difference between this year and last was that there were far less miniatures (maybe 12-15 items) and magazines (2) then in previous years. This was due to the speed that the convention filled up. I saw several gamers haul their games back out to the vehicles because of the speed the auction filled. I purchased three games this year; Turbo Taxi, Fresh Fish and Android, and I missed out on Die Macher by a dollar!

I left at about 11:00 Saturday night, being too tired to stay longer and I wanted to finish my prep for my tournament the next day, BattleLore. I also used the Hundred Years War expansion for Battlelore as well. This expansion is great for tournaments because it removes the council and presets the Lore deck, which is great when you are teaching the game at the same time. There were an uneven number of players so I played as well. I won my first game 9-5 and had a shot at winning the tournament (which I don't like doing) but fate stepped in and gave me no centre cards in the second round, causing me to lose the game 10-4 (yes I was squished like a grape). The tournament was fun though and I really enjoyed playing it.

Afterwards we cleaned up and went for beer...
I had a really good time and everyone that was staying at my place for FallCon (there were 6 people) all agreed that it was great.
We have started planning for FallCon 23 already. So come on over for a weekend of gaming!
All the pictures were taken by The Bit, a real photographer.... for FallCon.

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Fallcon 20, in words, no pictures

Well Fallcon 20 was upon us already and I had a great time.

Tim from Saskatoon came down for some miniatures games at the tournament. You can read his report on his blog, so I will let him talk about the miniatures games that he played.

I was signed up for every session but one of the games got cancelled so I played an open game in it's place, but I get ahead of myself...

Friday night was the Railroad Tycoon tournament, and I was in the same group as my friend Alex. I told everyone at the table they should be prepared to lose (because he is very good) and he just laughed. The game was surprisingly high scoring for a five player game with the winner, neither Alex nor me, I did finish second though, which put me in the finals. The winner had a score of 101, whereas I had 94, but I made almost 40 points in the last two turns including completing my Tycoon Objective.
The finals was a tough game, at one point I commented that "I feel like a minnow." because I was probably the only person with less than ten games played. The map was a messed up one too, it had red cubes in Chicago, Charleston and New York and precious few outside it. The high score for the tournament was ~85, and I only scored 70, good enough for fourth only.

Saturday morning was RoboRally, a game I am not particularly fond of, and I was slightly surprised I had signed up for it. I did poorly, worse then the previous year, and scored only 12 points (last year I got 17). I ended up second last. It is an ok game, just not one I am good at, or enjoying playing too much. I find the game a little too mechanical.

Saturday afternoon I was invited to go play a pickup game of Roads & Boats, something I had played the previous year for the first time and loved. This time it was a four player game and I still finished last. The game is a tremendous logistics game, there is some screw you mentality, but very little. It is about being as efficient as possible.

Saturday evening was the auction, it was a bittersweet event for me, for one it was a chance to buy some new games, for the other it was the last of Ken's games being auctioned off.
I ended up purchasing 2 games, one was The Really, Nasty Horseracing Game for 6 bucks, the other was 221B Baker Street for another 2. Ken's games sold for over 700 dollars to the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

I finished the night with a game of Savage Worlds a quasi rpg that uses miniatures rules. Tim was the ref for this game and we had 4 players that all worked together to find and recover the Golden Idol, Billy Idol is the silver one...
I ran Marcus Andres, fearless first mate of the SS Persephone as well as the crew. Will ran Jock MacDonald, the drunken brawler from Scotland, Jerry was Nathaniel Smith, a rugged adventure and the guy whose name I forgot played Professor Donald K Stephenson. Tim played the evil Nazis as our opponent. The crew found the idol and we had to slug our way out to the boats. Tim's blog will give a better explanation of the game (with pictures!) so all I will say is Marcus is still working on his plan to create the SBS... He never did anything outstanding, but he was calm cool and efficient at killing the Nazis, almost as if he enjoyed it...

Sunday was the BattleLore tournament that I was running. I had 18 players sign up for it, with 8 dropping out before the tournament (including me) with 4 more signing up for a total of 14 players. We played only two scenarios in the six hour time slot. The scoring went as I mentioned in an earlier post. The winner won both his games, his second by 7 points to finish at +9 and in first place. I was surprised that some of the players that played had never used Lore, really the biggest difference between it and Commands & Colors: Ancients. The game did have some interesting twists, with some players I expected to win, but did not. New players did ok, with them winning some games, losing others.

Preparing for Fallcon, in less than a week.

I am running the BattleLore tournament at FallCon and I have been playtesting my scenarios, created using the BattleLore Scenario Editor and I must admit that the scenario editor is pretty cool.
My current plan is a set of five scenarios, with each player playing 4 (or 5) of them and the best record winning. I have 6 hours so I figure I might as well try to keep everyone entertained for the full 6 hours. The way I am planning on doing the tourney is you get points for winning and points for your margin of victory. As an example, if you win your first half 5-3 and lose the second half 5-1, your record is 0-1-0 and -2. If you win your second game 5-3 and 5-3 you are 1 win and +4 for that game, which makes your record 1-1-0 +2.