So last year my brother moved to Indiana. I came to visit him this summer, and timed my trip so it would give me the option to go to Gencon if I wanted. I figured this would probably be the only time I will ever be in a position both financially and time-wise to get to go, so took the opportunity. Flew across the pond and hoped for the upset of the year, by winning Gencon (not).
Well, I'm glad I went. It was quite the experience.
First off, my SWM Championship report: I brought Mace and GOWK, supported by Captain Ordo, and ARC Sniper and three Rodian Diplomats and Doombot and a couple of uggies. My map was Peaceful City.
Game 1 vs. Wes Morgan (Morgen?)
I lost map roll and we played on the Cantina map. I had never played this map before. I set up on the left, I think. I basically decided to charge into Gambit and get my guys in a position that I could rush out and deal damage when I needed to. Wes played his regional winning squad with Corran, R2PO and Cad Bane. I ran Mace in, based Corran and R2PO and made the decision to target R2PO first. I got no Crits, but all three attacks hit, killing him, removing any disruption. Wes said this was probably the most important thing I did, because he lost his bodyguard with that, and lost the twin attack for his TBSV. After that, we battled it out and I managed to win within the hour. 3pt win. I thought about quitting the tournament there and then, leaving Gencon with a 100% win record...
1-0
Game 2 vs. Trevor Payton
I lost map roll again and we played on Cantina again. We got into positions around the door above the actual bar, and I was so concerned positioning GOWK for an amazing Force Push, that I forgot Trevor's GOWK could do the same. Bam, most of my fodder gone. It was a complete ROFLstomp. He took me down in about 30 minutes. I did maybe 10 points of actual damage to him.
1-1
Game 3 vs. Jim... McNally? Darthjim.
I lost map roll and we played on Anchorhead, one of my favourite maps. He had his Cad Bane swap squad. I haven't played against swap in a while. At the end of round one he swapped out and killed Ordo. Game basically over there and then. Round 2 beginning, he kills my sniper. I may have killed a Wookiee, but I'm not sure. I got trampled. I got very humbled to think I could ever qualify for the final 8. Jim was very nice and kept asking how I was doing throughout the day. He also made sure I got my S&V boosters even though I slept through the event. Top fella.
1-2
Game 4 vs. Rich. Forgotten the surname. He had an Atlanta team uniform.
I won the roll and chose Peaceful City. He had an annoying Yobuck with Dr. Evazin to heal him, and Mace. I put a lot of damage on Yobuck after his first run by, but he swapped him out and started healing him. I decided my plan should be to camp in gambit and let Yobuck destroy himself charging up on my squad. I tried to position them so he had to pass GOWK or Mace first. I just waited and killed his swap fodder until he had none left, when went in for the kill. The game almost ran to an hour, but once he lost his Mace, he ran Panaka and that in so I could kill them. Quite the gentleman. 3pt win.
2-2 Hopes soaring again!
Game 5 vs. Bill Haven.
We played on Peaceful City again. His squad is very annoying. His deathshot, splash Mando Crusaders, I think, were very annoying and took out most of my Rodians and damaged GOWK and Mace. He took an early points lead. I then took the lead with Ordo's splash, and the Sniper. The Verpine Shatter Rifle is good when facing those Mouse walls. Mace almost took out HK47, but didn't, and then took a hideous 60 damage from him. It was a very close game, and it came down to my 10HP Ordo vs his Mando Captain and Jaster Mareel. He took it right before the hour was up. It was probably the most intense game of the tournament. One of the best games I have ever played, and Bill was one of the friendliest people I have ever met.
2-3 I'm playing for pride now!
Game 6 vs. Will Piggott
We played on Peaceful City again. Six minis games and only two maps played on. Brilliant. He threw HK47 and a handful of IG86s at me, supported by Loathsome. Mace, reduced to only 20 damage per hit, no matter what. Luckily "Droid" only stops crit damage, not the crit itself, so flurry still works. As it was shooter only, I thought my diplomats would be more useful than just a wall. I put them in in case I faced Naboo Pilots. I was too eager with them though, and misunderstood the Diplomat ability. I thought it made them untargetable if an ally was also visible. But it is only if an ally without Diplomat is visible. So I lost one very early. But then I advanced enough so that I kept the other two. I used them to base as many of his IGs as possible, so they would have to move either further away, or closer to shoot. It worked out pretty well. Although Will's dice rolls were pretty annoying for him. He scored many, many near misses. Had he had a BDO in the mix, he would have done a lot more damage. I just slowly chased down each IG and killed them all until Will conceeded. It was a nice win to end my Gencon tournament with.
Final count 3-3. Pride restored. I'll take a 1:1 kill ratio any day.
That was my Friday. Minis took up basically the entire day. But there were other things going on too. My brother had secured me tickets for other events. On Thursday I went to the Pathfinder Beginners thing. It was very interesting. I had joined in on his gaming groups's questing the previous week, but it was a crap adventure in the Temple of Rasmere, or something. This intro was easy, and has made me look at it as a serious thing I might find people to do with.
Thursday evening, or afternoon was something called NASCRAG. I think. It is a spoof RPG. It was hilarious. Our group got really into it and had a lovely old GM. After that we hung around to find out if we made it to the next round, which we did.
At 1am Friday morning we went to do this Artemis thing. Where we are the crew of a space ship. It was on the computers. It was amazingly fun. Although our gunner and pilot were crap. I was communications and had to deal with out space stations complaining about how we are abandoning them to die. That lasted until 2am and we decided we could make it home in time to get some sleep. 2 hours of sleep. I then had to get up and come to play minis all day.
Friday night we joined in on the Pathfinder Society tournament. I got turned into stone on my first encounter and was out of the game. So I had to sit around for a few hours. It was pretty crap all round. We came away from that deciding we would not join the PFS because of how rigid it all was.
Saturday at 2am we had tickets for some Battletech game. Some guy had started collecting an out of print Mech game, but didn't like the rules, so made his own up and ran a Gencon table. It was hilariously fun for something to do in the wee hours. Just making things up as it went along. But eventually we got too tired and went to find somewhere to sleep. It turns out the people don't like you sleeping in the conference centre and kept patrolling and waking us up. We tried arguing with them about how it is 6am and I have 2 hours before my next event, so I want to sit down. If I doze off, then oops?! But they were pretty anal about it, so we went to the car. Three of us in a crappy Ford Probe. We managed to get a couple of hours rest and I missed the S&V Booster even for it. But we needed the sleep.
For the rest of the day we were competing in the NASCRAG finals. Round two was fun, our GM was amazing, but we apparently missed a couple of encounters and that cost us points. We were a reserve team for the finals, and they ended up finding us a GM so we could compete. She wasn't the best GM ever. In fact, she was awful. And we did really badly at some of the puzzles. We knew we couldn't win, but hoped to not come last. At the award ceremony, at about midnight, the team in 12th and last place was announced...it wasn't us! Place 11...also not us. We were ecstatic. Place 10? Team Its Huuuuuge!!! That was us. We took our prizes and divided them up. I took less stuff than the other, more serious RPGers, and still came away with about $50 worth of prizes. Good times.
At that point, it is 1am Sunday morning. We have no events for the Sunday, so call it a weekend. We pack up our crap and head home to sleep for 24 hours.
Gencon is incredible. The deals you can get, the random games you can find and try out. The basement dwellers who only emerge from their parents' basements once a year for this event are a sight to behold. Some of the Cosplay was cool. Most of it was horrible. I don't understand what it is about Cosplaying that makes overweight women forget they are overweight, and think they can slip into a Princess Leia golden bikini, or dress up as slutty Thor and Loki.
I didn't take many photos, I was too busy playing, and there are only so many photos you can take of people sitting around a table rolling dice and shuffling cards... but for those who haven't been, here is a taster...
Giant Settlers of Catan
Giant Chewbacca
Giant Axis and Allies. It is actually another game, created by a dude who felt Axis and Allies was too linear. It will set you back $125 at this point.
The Rio Grande Games booth, made of Dominion games.
The Pathfinder Tournament. I'm in the middle of the room.
