"So what to run for Millennium Con 2016?" Topic

Last year I missed it due to the recent move and having to pump money into my car. Things are a bit more stable and one thing I promised myself after I finished graduate school was I was going to go to a war game convention and run games, shop, and have a good time. Not necessarily in that order. Although sometimes you can do all three at once if you try hard enough.

Anyway while M-Con is not until November I have learned it is never too early to start planing, painting, building, collecting and play testing the scenario you want to run at a convention. So here are some of the things that are tugging at me and I need to narrow it down to just one or perhaps two as I plan to run at least two games and possibly three. I've also learned over the years it is sometimes best to pick one thing and just run it a much as you can and it cuts down on what you have to haul. Still I get bored and might want to run something different during the weekend. Okay here is the working list of possibilities, please offer your wisdom and/or general comments:

Run games of Lion Rampant perhaps doing a weekend long campaign of separate scenarios that impact the next game being run or just demo the game multiple times.

Run games of the Lion Eats Tonight. A great game, a hoot to game master and play and who would not want to be the Rhino that gets the big game hunter? Or the hunter that bags the Rhino?

Run games of The T-Rex Eats Tonight, my variant on Howard Whitehouse's famous (infamous?)big game safari rules only now you get to play either the Saurian big game hunter or you are…well the T-Rex or other prehistoric critters looking to smash the strange monkey with the loud stick.

Go with the classics and run a game of the Sword and the Flame set in East German Africa. (Because those are the figures I have.)

Run Tomorrow's War in both 15mm and 28 mm.

Put on a big 28 mm WW II game using either Bolt Action or Battlegroup for the rules. I have everything I need to run a large North Africa game and most of it already painted. I have the same for American vs Germans for the European theater but much more needs to be assembled and painted to get there.

Okay that is it. What you think lads and lasses?

It's been my experience if you don't already have everything you need to run the game, Real Life (TM) will intervene to make sure that you either can't paint the rest, or will be painting until it's time to leave for the convention.

So,in an abundance of caution, I would say do something that you already have everything for.
BWW

I think the hunter games sound fun!

I am in a similar boat. Not sure what I want.to.run. I'm considering two games of Check Your Six, set in the Pacific theater, to make transport to the con.

What grad school did you finish? I was editing my dissertation in US history at the con last year.

I agree with BrianW. Set yourself up to succeed by committing yourself to run something for which you already have everything. Over time, you'll build up your stock of painted miniatures and terrain and stuff, and you'll put them to use next year and the year after, etc. That's what I've been doing for over 10 years of running games at conventions.

You're right that you can't start playtesting too early, and you can't do too little playtesting (that's the voice of experience).

I recommend running the same game, if not the identical scenario, at one convention. Miniatures games take a lot of work and require you to move a lot of stuff. If you can survive the boredom of graduate school, you can handle the boredom of running the same games system a couple of days in a row, and it's well worth not having multiple checklists and boxes and whatnot.

You can make the scenarios sequential. E.g., on Saturday, Easy Company tries to dislodge the 5te Zug from the village at Tozz Feek Oasis. Sunday's battle will depend on the results of Saturday's, and will use the same table layout. So if Easy Company takes the oasis village on Saturday, it will set up hasty defenses and on Sunday will have to repel a counter-attack by the 238te Panzer Grenadier Kompanie.

On the other hand, if 5te Zug is still in the village after Saturday, Easy Company will be reinforced, maybe with some tanks, and will try again on Sunday. Of course, the Germans will have snuck some kind of nasty surprise into the village over night.

Glen great ideas, you have a devious mind.

Gringnotage I am leaning toward the hunting games. And Brian I know all too well about painting up to the day of leaving for the con.I have most of my African Safari figures and terrain done. There are a few more animals that need to be finished up which would not be too intensive to complete. Most of the work I would need to do at this point is create the character and animal cards and other tokens that you would need for the game. I am quite adept with graphic design so that is not much of a problem other than making time. Oh and of course running some games to make sure I know the rules backwards, forwards, up and down.

I finished my Master's in Library and Information Studies back in August of last year and was offered the job to manage the Government Information Center at the central location of the Dallas Public Library in Dallas, Texas. So in two weeks I had to quickly pack up and move from North Carolina to Texas and I have now been in Dallas for about ten months. I'll have lot of vacation accrued by the time November rolls around and I am trying to save up money to attend the con so I do not have to worry about expenses. Of course I understand there is a flea market on Sunday so that will be one way I will reimburse the trip.

This time I will do better and I appreciate the comments and recommendations gents. The advantage of both the Lion Eats Tonight and the Dino version is it would for the most part use the same terrain. The only change would be from modern African animals to the dinosaurs. Also Lion Eats Tonight plays pretty fast and I could accommodate multiple games for people to play while some of the other options are going to take longer to run from start to finish.

Are you going to be at Texicon this weekend?

Nope I have my best friend flying in and I am on vacation starting tomorrow. Going to do a bit of site seeing down Austin way or maybe brave the heat and head out to Palo Duro and Amarillo. I found out about Texicon a bit late and just was not 100 percent ready to run anything. Plus the rules for game masters for miniature games kind of put me off.

Looking forward to seeing your games in November!

Well,darn. OK then, see you at MCon in November!
BWW

The hunting games sound fun. Whatever you run will be appreciated I am sure. I plan on being there as well and look forward to meeting you. I've been a librarian for 35 years now and it is always fun to see what new stuff you kiddos come up with.

Brian I was going to attend as part of my vacation plans until I learned my buddy was going to fly down. Cost of admission for one day was one factor. Your games look interesting for the con. It also seems that Texicon is more a board game con than a miniature convention so I was concerned that there would not be much support for the miniature war game GMs both by the con and interested players. If you are in the DFW area no reason we cannot get together to game. I hang out at Texas Toy Soldier a good bit. Playing in the the Late War Flames of War League at the moment.

I will have to give Texicon another look for next year since it is…well more or less right here in the DFW area.

Oh and yes chatting with all of you have pretty much sold me on going with the more out of the ordinary game. I think folks will enjoy themselves and what is not to like about a big game safari where the hunter really can become the hunted.

All I know about African big-game hunting is what I read in The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber. That's more suited to a role-playing game than miniatures, I think.

A hunting game would be fun. Every time I go to M-Con I try to play at least one game from an era or rule set that I've never played before.

M Con is one of my favorites. People are great and games very good. Not sure what to run myself.

Historical games are nice.

I am really really really going to try and make it to MCon this year.

Of course, I've said that something like seven or eight years in a row now and haven't been yet.

Oh, and re: what to bring, I suggest something that doesn't require a lot of setup time. The hunter game sounds like it might work for that. The less stuff you have to lug about, the better.