"Gen Con So Cal First Day report" Topic

Hi All,

Took a day off from work and went to GenCon in Anaheim. Light midweek crowd made it easy to see everything and get in on a number of demo games.

Loads of tournaments. Especially CCGs. The Vs area was huge with apparently a million dollars in prizes going out over the four days.

The miniatures area was small with only two games running and a Warmachine tourney scheduled. Saw a table with VOID running as well.

Played a WWI naval battle game of General Quarters in the Miniatures section then went to the exhibitor section.

Played a nice demo of a miniatures game called Nin-Ganost by Adikor (The paint people). It's a fast action game with a really clever game mechanic. You have a row of colored dice and as you gain strength, you get to use a darker colored die to roll for combat. As the die gets darker, the numbers on the die are higher, so it's a straight roll against your opponent. Highest number wins. It takes all the adding and tables out of the way and makes it a good game for kids.

Played a demo of Warmachine which was fun and had a cool backstory. My friend and I were interested in the I Go-You Go mechanics (without a counter attack opportunity) and if this makes things unbalanced. Anyone have any thoughts on this, I'd be interested in hearing them.

Saw the DOOM3 boardgame. They let you check out the plastic minis and were running a demo. Didn't sit in on the demo, but the minis and board looked nice.

Also, saw a clever card game called Palabra. It's like Scrabble on steroids. Was a lot of fun though. No minis involved, but it was interesting.

Overall, we had a really fun time. Didn't get to try the True Dungeon. Next year, I'd like to go for a longer time.

Obviously you should take another day off and go back.
Tell you boss that I said it's "ok".
If he balks, tell him I said, "I know where he lives".
That should change his mind.

Thanks for the report!

I picked up Palabra a year or two ago (it's a combination of poker, scrabble and rummy IIRC) and it's interesting the first game or two but ultimately, a bit too confusing and muddied to make a continuously enjoyable game. You're basically playing all three games at the same time.

For this reason it's not really playable by kids or grandparents and basically isn't one of those "lets pull out a game and have some fun" sort of games.

Sya, that Nin-Gonost. Did you get a look at the rulebook? I'm wondering what the replayability is like. Is the rulebook large or small? Are there alot of monster/character class types? What did you think of the miniatures?

I bought a copy of the game based on all the schwag you get. It comes with a magnetic modular dungeon tile system with walls, coffins, 4 doors, and floor tiles. It also had 14 miniatures, the dice, rulebook, paint and brush( don't need that), and best of all it came boxed in a really nice wood briefcase. It was $120 on show special... a lot of money, but I liked it enough.

As for your questions nobeer, the basic rules are very simple. The movement system is a little akward, but the combat is very straightforward. The rulebook is not very big, but it appears that the advanced rules allow for all kinds of crazy thing like slamming a door on someone, catching an arrow, etc. All unlikely, but as the rules say "it's worth a try". I haven't read it all yet, so I'll try and comment after the weekend.

Overall, I picked it up to be a fast play during breaktime type game that favors speed of play. In combat, whoever wins with the highest die number (there is also a fate die roll) wins and the loser is removed from the table. In the demo game we played, 10 orcs against 4 humans, we reduced the dungeon to 2 orcs and one human in about an hour playing basic rules.

There are not a lot of figures out yet, but it's brand new and hopefully growing. The set comes with orcs and human heroes. It seems easy to make up your own stat cards and add whatever characters you might want to throw in. I plan on using the Orc Archer card as a generic card and throwing a bunch more in if I want.

For a small company, the miniatures are pretty good. Along the lines of BTD I think. They tend to run thin and tall. Probably bigger than 28mm, but I don't have anything handy to compare them to right now. Moderate flash and the faces aren't the greatest, but the poses have nice character and the weapons all stand out which is something I like.

Any historicals at all this year?

A local group is running games of General Quarters WWI Naval Battles and a 15mm ACW battle all four days. Those are the only ones I know about.

There wasn't much in the way of historicals, just a few games in the morning. Scale Specialties is there - so I bought a "few" minis from them. Also Miniature Building Authority is there. They have there castle walls set and it looked really nice.
My son and I played a game from the History Channel that was rather enjoyable - I just don't know how much reply value there would be for it.
Stop by the Void demo - I don't know if he is still there today, but yesterday it was being run by Mardaddy, a fellow TMPer.

Well I'm disappointed.... I was running short VOID 1.1 demo's from 10:30AM to Midnight in the open tables area and you never stopped by... :(

OOPS, how about reading the LAST post Rich....

**wipes pie off face while simulutaneously removing foot from mouth**

Well, we canceled our hotel reservations and won't be going. Too much work to do this weekend. And the historicals - at least those run by HMGS chapter members - were looking pretty slim.

That's not a complaint; I ought to get off my obese derriere and do something. But since there's no interest in putting on (or even encouraging) awe-inspiring historical games - which ought to be leading the charge with outstanding visual presentation - I've got better things to do than go walk around ignoring CCG tournaments, cumputer games, and various "bouncy" participation gimmicks.

And our tickets were free...

Allen