"GenCon 50" Topic

Just around the corner in Indianapolis,IN; next week. Am planning to be there and hopefully get in a Team Yankee tournament,one of my buds is in an FoW tournament,and I also hope to add to my Aerodrome 1.1 score.

Just saw that it is sold out.

I'll see about some generics,then.

I'll be running the Union Station, and meeting up with some of my publishers (Phil Smith from Osprey, Bob Murch, Nocturnal Media, etc.)

Tom Reed:
Just saw that it is sold out.

Yeah, that caught me by surprise. I usually go at the last minute, so don't pre-register. Not an option this year!

Gentlemen,

All Gencon Badges are sold out.

They are NOT I repeat NOT doing onsite registration this year.

I managed to get in 5 COC games and an Infinity. Missed out on the Tractics as I didn't see it. Should be a fun con if we can move at all in the crowds.

Come join HMGS-Midwest as we support 50 years of Gencon. My first Gencon was VI, in Lake Genva. This is where I spent every cent I had on GHQ, and Minifigs. Thus staring a long love affair with miniatures.
HMGS will be paired up with the Ottawa Red Shirts, (A Gencon Premier Gaming Group). Look for us by the giant red shirt, in the minis hall. Hope to see you there. Although all of our events are sold out, we always have room for walk-ons.

Thursday:
The Attack on Huppy; France 27 May, 1940: Kevin Cabai
Operation Barbarossa 1941: Dennis Bulawa

Friday
1805: Napoleon's Triumph at Austerlitz: Steve Fratt
The Attack on Huppy; France 27 May, 1940: Kevin Cabai
Invasion of the Wainriders, 3rd Age 1944: Kevin Cabai
Operation Barbarossa 1941: Dennis Bulawa
The Road to Smolensk, 1812: John Bobek (Twice)

Saturday
1815: Ligny/Quatre Bras – Napoleon's Last Victory: Steve Fratt (Twice)
Invasion of the Wainriders, 3rd Age 1944: Kevin Cabai
Operation Barbarossa 1941: Dennis Bulawa
McClellan on the Peninsula, 1862: John Bobek (Thrice)

Sunday
1815: Ligny/Quatre Bras – Napoleon's Last Victory: Steve Fratt
The Road to Smolensk, 1812: John Bobek
Orc's Drift: Kevin Cabai

Good thing I clicked the "Will Call" button on pre-reg then. Had a bit of a time remembering my username on the site,but they were quite helpful.

SNAFU on the "Will call" pickup of badge. And since it was sold out of the onsite badges, a bud drove me back home. I was clearly disappointed,and a bit bugged. I likely will avoid any future GenCons. Also the Team Yankee tournament was cancelled too.

Here is a personal after action report from Gencon, from my perspective. There are a thousand stories about Gencon (more like 60,000 plus) and this is one of them.
It takes some weeks of preparation to get ready for having HMGS-Midwest, travel and put on a variety of miniature events. Fortunately we are collocated with the Ottawa Red Shirts, and with their administrative assistance have become one of Gencon's premier gaming groups. This year we have 4 GM's running 21 events that totaled 915 player hours.

The trip for my 45th Gencon began by packing the car, and getting on the road by 9:30 am. We have a traditional stop at Arby's in Hebron, Indiana, and already we meet up with some old friends, Bill and Sue who had the same idea. He is the Terrainaholic, terrainaholic.webs.com/, you should catch his instructional youtube videos, they are amazing.
Well the adventure has started out with a good omen, and we pulled into Indy by 3 PM local time. A quick offload and we settled into our area. We had a prime location at the corner of two main aisles. We had two HQ tables, and four 16x5 tables for the whole con. The halls were already crowded and people were doing pick-up games everywhere.

After setting up for my first game (Thursday 4 PM), we went to the block party. They shut down 3 blocks of George Street, and have a variety of food trucks, stands and beer tents. They rolled out the official brew for the con, Dragons Delight. The highlight was the tribute band Lez Zeppelin, an all-girl band that was fantastic. Zeppelin has more than a few songs that refer to Tolkien and fantasy in general, but the go all out in one of them. When the lead guitarist traded her acoustical guitar to the bassist, we knew it was coming. She soon started to pluck the strings of the bass, and out flowed "Battle for Evermore" The crowd was awestruck. We passed the rest of night the talking with old friends and a couple games of werewolf.

Thursday morning came, and some last minute tweaks for my game. Dennis Bullawa, was already set up for his Barbarossa game. A really well done, homemade strategic miniature game of the invasion. He was to run this four times during the con, and the people loved it. Each event was sold out, and he was able to take on a few extra players for each one.

Then was my time for the dealer hall. It was so immense this year, it took me three hours to traverse the entire floor. link
Granted the majority of the vendors there may not interest the miniature gamer. But out the hundreds there at least, 50+ that would. We were able to make inroads in getting possible additional vendors to Little Wars.
From there it was back to the minis area in Hall C. Where I was to start the first running of my Battle of Huppy game. I would run this 15mm using my Jagdpanzer rules. At the same time John Bobek arrived and began to set up and run his Road to Smolensk, 1812 game using his "Games of War" rule set. He would run the three time and each was filled with players. Now as an educator John goes all out, for his events and this time he donned a French Marshall's uniform.

Friday morning came early, as well all had late nights resetting for the mornings games. The three of us all ran events in the morning, and despite the early hour had sellout crowds once again. At this time Lorraine came back a little dejected after twice not making the qualifications for the Formula D finals, but soon enough she was off to a series of X Wing events. Friday afternoon came and Steve Fratt was able to arrive and beginning setting up his Austerlitz game using his FrattNap rules. Complete with 6 foot tall banners flying, his 3mm armies fought it out. John ran his 3rd Smolensk, game and Dennis took a break and played some Axis and Allies.

I quickly tore down Huppy, and set up my second event, Invasion of the Wainriders, using the original Chainmail rules, in 28mm. By 5 PM I was running the first of these two events. Again there were more than enough eager players.
Friday was a late night as John set up his McClellan Peninsular Battle and Steve, changed over to his Quatre Bra/Ligny game. We did take some time out to hike over to the Lucas Stadium where the Gencon museum was set up. Painstakingly researched by Paul Stormburg and Kevin Maurice. A physical time line of all the Gencons, with memorabilia from each one and even a mock-up of the Horticultural Hall. The majority of this will be recreated ay Garycon X, in Lake Geneva. Lor went off to play werewolf until the wee hours.


Saturday morning was very busy with all 4 of us running games at the same time. I know this is starting to sound mundane. What it does not accurately reflect all the questions, comments, and inquiries by all the passersby about our games and the HMGS-Midwest organization. Brochures and cards were given and received, members from HMGS-East, South and PSW came by and visited. We even started a volunteer roster for the next Little Wars.

Saturday night Steve and John started their 2nd round of games for that day. Dennis took a well-deserved break. Lor had one an Astro Smash game with a Tier 3 fighter, and then downed 2 Sopwiths in a mega (50 airplane) Wings of Glory game. During this time the Costume Contest paraded down our aisle. I do not know the exact count but there were at 500 participants. Every comic book, sci-fi/fantasy movie or show you have heard of was there. As well as many custom creations, and yes there were a large number of historical uniforms on hand as well.

We were off to the charity auction, stopping by the Balloon Guy first. He was doing the finishing touches on his balloon dragon. A tradition he has done for the last 4 years. He donates his time and materials to build huge balloon dragons, which are the slaughtered by the highest bidders, along with scores of children. This and other charity events were this year going to the Children's Advocate Fund of Indianapolis.

The Charity Auction is run by Jeff Hammerlund, Harold Johnson, Scott Douglas, Tim Kask, Frank Mentzer and a host of other old TSR Staffers. It is a five hour event where precious vintage gaming artifacts, and scores of games from the vendors are donated. It is a testament to all who attend that every one of these items sells for far above retail. Some items are even bought and the recycled to be auctioned again. Truly exorbitant sales are rewarded by a Twinkie tossed from the podium. A $10 USD stuffed dragon was to be given to an 8 year old little gamer girl. But not before $520 USD were collected by the hat from the audience. There were even feats of embarrassment impugned on the staffers which added to the charity coffers. All told the amount collected by the auction was over $20,000. USD A good night's work.

Sunday morning cam very quickly with 8 AM start times, John and Steve were on their last running of their events and I did my convention closer Orc's Drift. I game I developed using the original chainmail rules, and I ran it for the 53rd time at this Gencon. Imagine the movie Zulu, where the Welsh (24 soldiers) are defending against Uruk Hai orcs (240 of them). The rifle fire works pretty much the same, but it is a different story when it comes to melee. Instead of loincloth, cow hide shield and wooden asagi, its chainmail, iron shield and battle axes. That day the English prevailed.

Then came packing up, and a multitude of last goodbyes as everyone seemed to return to our area to wish us farewell. Very tired we pulled back into our driveway by 7 PM. I would say we all were exhausted, as our group GM'd more hours than we slept, by a wide margin.

I am sure you have heard about the crowds and lines and are probably turned off by the idea of going. Let me give you an example, Gencon is like New York City, massively populated. However as NYC is broken into boroughs, so is Gencon. There are the minis, CCG, RPG, LARP and board gaming areas and most never see the other unless you go to that specific arena. With 915 miniature events alone, Gencon is the Super Bowl of conventions, it has everything and sometimes more. I have been a regular since 1973, and the overall level of excitement and electricity can actually be felt. My only regret is I have to wait a year to go again.

facebook.com/genconindy
This report is, I admit, very limited in perspective. But there are many more facebook pages and blogs that will cover the con as a whole.

I am sure you have heard about the crowds and lines and are probably turned off by the idea of going. Let me give you an example, Gencon is like New York City, massively populated. However as NYC is broken into boroughs, so is Gencon.

But NYC is never "sold out".

Perhaps NYC should be sold out at times. It is unfortunate that Able Kompanie had to cancel the TY tournament, for lack of participants.

Perhaps NYC should be sold out at times.

Don't see the point you're making with that comment. It's just odd that you are enticing people to go to Gencon and showing what games you are putting on (and a fine group of games they looked to be, I might add) when others earlier explained that the con is sold out. That's all.

Let me give you an example, Gencon is like New York City, massively populated. However as NYC is broken into boroughs, so is Gencon. There are the minis, CCG, RPG, LARP and board gaming areas and most never see the other unless you go to that specific arena.

NYC is nothing like Gencon. NYC is always open, never shuts and has something for everyone.

Gencon gets a few extra people and they shut admission down.

Bowman, if you checked the dates of my posts, I was inviting people to go to Gencon, before they sold out all the badges. The other posts were actually after the con, so it was an inference, to sign up for the con next year. They do give you a 100 days to get a badge. I am sorry if it was confusing. A side note they have never sold out of GM badges.

Bowman, if you checked the dates of my posts……..

I did.

Bowmen, so you saw my initial posting date and compared them to the sell out dates for Gencon,and still think your statement is valid?!?!?!?!?

This was posted Aug 14th-Badges:

Sold Out for Historic 50th Convention

As announced today on gencon.com, Gen Con 50 badges are now completely sold out. The convention will not sell badges on-site and attendees, as in prior years, will be asked to display their badges while attending the show.

The message was also directed to those who did some prior planning and we going to be at Gencon.

Someone told me it may have been from a directive from the fire marshal,to cap the numbers allowed to participate.