Gencon Follow-up: My First Time in the Iron Arena!

If you were following a bit of my run up to Gencon posts, you might have noticed that within the last year I've really gotten back into Warmachine with my brother. Luckily for me, I had pretty much hung on to almost all of my minis from the Mark I version of the rules, including Cygnar, Trollbloods, and Mercs (mostly dwarves). Of course that didn't stop me from picking up a small force of Retribution (elves) as well, but that's more of a digression at this point.

We decided that we were going to try to play in the Iron Arena this year at Gencon. We had spent the last year playing between a half and full dozen games against each other trying to brush up on the rules, and we were having a TON of fun with it. Lots and lots.

Let me go over the format real quick, but Iron Arena is a unique way to play the game. Basically you purchase a ticket for the entire day (or days - 2 in our case). You report to the Privateer Press area and register yourself and what state/country your from. This part is important and you'll see in a bit why.

Then you play pick up games pretty much the whole day with other Iron Arena contenders! You can play any faction, any size game, any number of players, whatever your heart's desire.

For each game you play, for every hour, you can report the results, and you end up gaining skulls. You can earn skulls for playing 50 point games (the tournament standard), a fully-painted army, for playing on a scenario table, for playing someone from a different state or country from you, for playing an army composed of forces specifically designed for your warcaster/warlock (known as a "tier list" which basically grants special rules for your army on the condition that you limit the units you can build your army with), and several more things.

You can then spend your skulls on items like art prints, dice, measuring templates, and in the most skull-intensive items, "extreme" alternate sculpts of big models. It's a pretty great selection.

So the strategy here is two-fold. Obviously you want to play a fun list because all these games are for-fun. The other half though is to figure out how to maximize your skull income. That leads into the prep work for the con!

Gencon 2015 - Here are the games I played!

I thought as part of my Gencon 2015 recap it'd be fun for me to write (and hopefully you to read) a review of what games I played. I tried to take pictures of every game I played and in almost every way succeeded!

For the purpose of this post I'm leaving out London Dread which I wrote about in its own post. I'm also going to leave out a summary of the Warmachine games I got to play as I'm saving those for a future post about playing Warmachine at a convention like Gencon.

Those two disclaimers aside, here's what I played!

The first game (and not in order of what I played, just the first game I'm writing about) wasn't actually quite a game yet. Look to the right of this text right now. See that face on that little box? Those adorable GIGANTIC kitty eyes? All the folded up little boxy kitties on the table in front of it? This was my game that I most wanted to learn more about.

Kitty Tower doesn't have a lot of info out about it. It was at the IDW Games booth, and the only info that had to share was that the game is hopefully coming out next year with full rules. For now, it was as simple a game as could be - just stack a bunch of kitties! I played against my brother and sister to see who would get to the seventh kitty stacked. I'd like to think my experience with my own two kitties (who are notoriously difficult to stack in real life) gave me the experience I needed to win. At this point I'm hoping to get a lot more info about the game, but stacking cats? You had me at hello.

Gencon Impressions: London Dread

I survived Gencon (mostly) again once more this year. It was a great time, albeit a little different than normal since we were staying in a different hotel from years past and the Hopeless Wife couldn't attend. I've also heard murmurings that they set once more a brand new attendance record. For my two cents, it was definitely crowded at times, but Indy continues to adapt and offer new experiences for the ever-expanding crowds.

For my first post-Gecon post I wanted to focus on the game that excited us most coming away from the show. On Thursday my brother and sister, along with yours truly, got a chance to sit down for a full introduction session of a brand new game called London Dread by Plotmaker Games. To be honest, there's not a whole lot of information out there other than it's a Danish game and what I took away from playing it at Gencon.

First off, the game is a lot of fun from a first play-through. It's 100% cooperative. We played with four people, but apparently it plays 2 to 4. I imagine solo play is definitely possible, but there's a timing mechanism that makes that a TON of information for one player to handle.

Gencon in one week!

I can't believe we're only one week away from Gencon. Thank God though, right? I've been frantically trying to paint up a 50 point Cygnar army for the Iron Arena on Friday and Saturday. This will be my first time playing Warmachine at Gencon in over ten years. I've been doing a lot of studying of the rules and have played some practice games with the Hopeless Brother, but I genuinely believe we're both ill-prepared. Aw well. It's a casual format, and I look forward to being schooled in the rules so I can actually learn some of the more nuanced rules.

Of course I'm excited for other things as well this year, but for the first time since she started going, the Hopeless Wife will not be joining us. It's going to be a big adjustment as she was my travel buddy as well, and so I don't really know what to expect this year. At the same time, while I'm excited to see lots of new things, I don't really have anything specific in mind that I'm hunting after.

I think I'm in a place where I'm just kind of a little out of the loop and thus open to discovering some new stuff. I don't know what I'm looking for, which in a way is a weird place for me to be. I've been into Warmachine/The Iron Kingdoms very heavily for about the last half year. I'm working on writing my own RPG, and I've had scant chance to actually play board games since last Gencon.

So where does that leave me? Well, I want to play some demos. One thing I'm actually wanting to try in specific is the second edition of the Game of Thrones LCG. The original CCG is was got me into card games, but they lost me with the LCG release since it really focused on multiplayer versus head-to-head. I'm hoping the new edition gives fun play to the "joust" format as it's known.

What else? I think I'd like to find a new RPG to read, something I've never heard of but with light rules and exciting setting. Something that grabs me right away with its originality. I don't know what that looks like, but I'll know it when I see it.

I do have a few RPG's I'l be playing as well, which I'm really looking forward to, including a game of Friday night Dread. Nothing better. Of course there's the Gencon Auction as well. That's a perennial favorite.

What are you excited for?

Preparing for War! Basic Miniature Basing.

Hey fellow hopeless readers! Long-time no see. I realized I've been doing a lot of gaming stuff and not talking about it, which is of course a waste of perfectly good blogging material.

I haven't been doing nearly as much role playing in recent times simply because I've been away from my group since moving and don't have a bunch of possibilities locally. That being said, I've rerouted my gaming fuel into design and have been working on a few different games for a while. Maybe one day I'll finish one. Maybe.

In other news, I've gotten back into Warmachine big time, which was a game that I basically grew into a gamer with when I was younger. I've always loved the lore of the game and thought it would be great to play a Role Playing game in. Recently I ran the intro adventure from the Iron Kingdoms Unleashed Adventure Kit. I highly recommend it as everyone had a good time regardless of their familiarity with the setting.

I've also always wanted to be a good player. I've been doing a lot of research and following on general strategies nowadays. I'm not good, but I'm learning, and having a lot of fun doing it.

One thing I've always been terrible at and generally assumed I just had no skills in was painting miniatures. Lately the Hopeless Wife has given me some tips and tricks, and I've really taken to painting. Like to the point where I actually have some pieces I'm proud of and paint a bit each day. It's actually quite addicting.

One of my favorite parts of painting miniatures is getting the bases complete at the end. Each time I've done it it feels like it really ties the thing together. In Warmachine, every model generally has a front and back arc, so as you see the photos below you'll notice the bases are all colored.

I thought it might be useful for those of you who want to get into this part of the hobby to see just how crazy easy it is to do a simple, good-looking (in my opinion) base.

Step 1: Getting your materials together.

I go for a basic gravel/grass kind of terrain for my bases at the moment, and for that, you don't need much in the ways of materials.

Here's what you need:

• Mod Podge - basically Elmer's glue that you can pour out, available anywhere hobby stuff is.
• A Small Paper Plate - or something you don't mind glue drying on. You're going to pour a little bit of the Mod Podge onto this as your pallet, so to speak. 
• A wide bowl - you're going to pour your basing material in there, so it helps to have enough room to maneuver the miniature.
• An old paint brush - one you can have some control with but don't mind ruining.
• Basing Material - for my stuff, I use Woodland Scenics Blended Turf (the green stuff) and Medium Ballast (the brown stuff) because I got it cheap from the Gencon Auction store. I believe this is actually a model train brand, so it shouldn't be too hard to find this stuff or something similar. There are tons of options out there for this ingredient. 

You'll of course need miniatures, which I have a picture of the four I did this morning at the top of this post! Pour a puddle of Hod Podge onto the plate, and you're ready for step 2!

Select Painting Competition Models from Gencon 2014

The Gamer Wife is a big fan of painting miniatures. It helps that she's a much better painter than myself, but we both appreciate a pretty mini. She likes her some speed painting as well, and if you're a hobbyist when it comes to miniatures, Gencon has a wonderful area with tons to do, including the fun paint-and-take where the group gives you a mini to keep and you can use all the supplies you might need to make it pretty!

I decided to take some photos again this year of the competition miniatures. Check out the photos below!

Gencon 2014 FFG Booth

We here at Hopeless Games are long time Fantasy Flight Games fans. They always steal the show at Gencon, and a big part of that is their skill at saving up some big announcements and then pacing themselves in the lead up to Gencon and, most importantly, their Friday afternoon In-Flight Report seminar where they get to the nitty gritty and first announce something big, usually their biggest game of the year.

Two years ago we got the Edge of the Empire beta rules announcement, and notoriously, everyone in attendance at the seminar got a copy. Last year we got some new games, but they gave us a disclaimer right at the beginning of the seminar not to get our hopes up for free stuff, but at least we got the announcement of the Age of Rebellion beta being releases (the second of their three-game Star Wars RPG series that all share the same mechanics but emphasize different kinds of Star Wars stories).

Anyhow, in the lead up to this Gencon we got two big announcements. Both made me really excited at first word and then when I dug a bit deeper, sadly found out the games wouldn't be for me. Great for some, but not for me. Keep reading after the jump for more info and tons of photos!

Gencon 2014 Privateer Press Booth

So in my last post I talked a bit bout how Warmachine is synonymous for Gencon with me, and that it's been the focus of more cons than not in my life. I'm not a competitive player and can't see myself ever getting into that mindset, but I have a really great time reading the fiction, thinking about painting different color schemes, and playing casual games with my brother.

As always, the Privateer Press booth at Gencon is one of the busiest every year with a wave of pre-release items available for purchase. The lines are always crazy as people clamor to get the hot new figures, and lucky for us, this was a Hordes year of releases. We'll probably eventually wander back into playing some Hordes, at least me with a good 35 points+ of Trollbloods from years back, but for now we're sticking with Warmachine.

Below you can find some of the models that were on displays at Privateer's booth, both studio models and some models for the P3 painting competition.

Gencon Means War(machine)!

Wow has it been a while since I posted anything to The Hopeless Gamer, and for that I'm sorry. I decided enough was enough, and in anticipation of going to Gencon next week, it was time to get back into things.

I notoriously take a long time to get excited for Gencon every year. This will by my 14th Gencon in a row/ever, and finally, just a few days before setting off from Iowa to drive to Indy, the excitement is building up in my quite rapidly.

A big part of that is that my brother emailed me out of the blue the other day asking if I was interested in getting back into Warmachine for a bit. My first reaction was "absolutely" followed a few hours later, after flipping the house upside down to see what I still had of my Cygnar, Trollblood, and mercenary forces after three moves and years of absence from the game, was "hell yes!"

Since then, just last week, I have been in a whirlwind of getting myself acquainted with the Mark II rules, which was actually the last book I bought for the game, conveniently. I went to Privateer's site and ordered a bunch of updated character cards, and have been putting together some army lists.

My brother sold off his Protectorate and random Hordes stuff a few years ago, so he's diving back in fresh, but this time with Khador, and I'm absolutely stoked. I still have my templates, dice, focus markers, measuring tape, the whole deal, even down to my old army transports bag.

And all this is going to be packed up for Gencon, ironically, not to play in any official capacity, but just to get some gaming in with my brother. Sure we see each other several times of the year and play games, only living two hours apart, but there's just something special about Gencon for getting together with people and playing some good games.

For the first seven or eight Gencons I attended, it was synonymous with Warmachine and Privateer Press. I've been a loyal Cygnar player (when I was a player at all) the whole time, and I can't be more excited to get back into the game.

All this coming week I hope to be bringing you posts and lots of pictures from the convention, so be sure to check back from time to time. It's good to be blogging again!

Gencon Report: The Saturday Night Charity Auction

The single event we look forward to the most every year since the Gamer Wife has joined us for Gencon is the Saturday night charity auction. The Gencon auction runs for most of the day Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. All items are brought in by attendees of the convention, and it's certainly possible to make a good chunk of change by selling items through the auction.

Friday night is the big collector's auction. We had an epic game of Call of Cthulhu Friday night this year, so we couldn't make it, but we never schedule anything for the charity auction. This year was no different.

Gencon Report: Fantasy Flight Games

This year was one of the best Gencons the Gamer Wife and I have had for a long time. We played three 4-hour RPG sessions that were all satisfying in their own way, demoed some games, found some new games to love together, and picked up some amazing deals. We weren't planning on getting much this year, but this really felt like the year of the bargain, so we ended up getting more stuff than we have in the past but still not spending all of our budget. Not a bad deal!

Today though, I wanted to share what I learned about and saw at both the Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) booth and in-flight report seminar I attended Friday afternoon. It was the first year I actually attended the seminar, and the room was packed. I felt a little bad for FFG because I think a lot of people were anticipating something BIG and FREE after last year's seminar where Stormtroopers flooded the room and they gave each attendee a free copy of the beta rules for their brand new Star Wars rpg Edge of the Empire.

Thursday Morning Gencon Rush!

This morning was probably the biggest cried to get into the vendor hall in my 13 years of attending Gencon.

It was a mass of people and heat, and toy can see the crowd in the attached pictures.

So far the Con has been great if not busier than ever before. We are very impressed with the Will Call line which seemed to move just as fast as people joined it.

In now standing in line at event registration to pick up some generic tickets for some games-on-demand which seems like the perfect time to write a blog post. Gencon originally inspired the creation of this blog, and every year it reinvigorates me to want to write more.

More to come in the future.

Gencon 2012 Aftermath: Fantasy Flight Games

Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) will always hold a special place in Gencon honor for me. Back in high school, before I was initiated into the cult of role-playing, I was all about collectible and competitive games. I got my way into tabletop gaming thanks to an older brother who got me excited about Wizkids' Mage Knight (the original stuff, I can still remember him telling me about the Lancers release tournament and then a couple months later playing in my first tournament at the Whirlwind release tourney, but I digress!).

At our first Gencon (or maybe it was our second?) the Game of Thrones CCG debuted, and my brother, well-read of Ice and Fire, bee-lined right for FFG's booth to pick up a starter or two from the original set of the game to give it a shot. I had never really played a CCG before (unless you count sort of playing Overpower as a kid, which I do), but I was game for it, and picked up a Stark starter. It was glorious, and it got me addicted to the game for years, essentially following along with it through out college.

Since then, FFG has released tons of goodies of all sorts of game types. Visiting their booth every year is still and will hopefully forever be a highlight of the show. That's really the main reason I've saved them for last. FFG did not disappoint this year and brought the goods with them. I hope you enjoy the pictures and enjoyed all my Gencon coverage this year!

Paizo and Privateer Press Gencon Photo Fun!

I'm almost through with my Gencon follow-up posts, but I'm exceptionally excited for today's post. I've got pictures from two of my favorite companies and the cool mini's they had to show off. I'm not going to waste time writing a lot about these other than to say that neither Paizo nor Privateer Press disappointed this year with their displays. Check out the rest of the post below for the photos!

Gencon Aftermath Picture Post - Mini Painting Extravaganza!

Hey everyone, hope you're having a good pre-Labor Day week so far! I've still got a bunch of photos to get through from Gencon. As a result, I've made a decision to combine two of the posts into one thematically larger post! It still works, trust me!

Gencon is jam-packed full of amazing artists and artisans of the gaming world. There are more mini painting competitions than you can shake a paint brush at. For today's post I've combined two of those competitions. First you'll see below some of the miniatures entered into the grand Gencon painting competition. It's the traditional one sure, but it's still worth taking a look at.

Gencon Aftermath Picture Post - Sedition Wars

Today's my first post in a series of picture posts from Gencon 2012. I have a couple of different themes to go through, but today's is about the single game I'm most excited for (that I'm aware of) coming out in the near future. The wife and I backed the Sedition Wars kickstarter big time because A.) we believe in it and the McVey's and B.) it was a great value. We're getting two of the base games along with all the extras and a couple of add-on minis.

Gencon 2012 Aftermath in Brief!

I've got a ton of pictures to share in the next couple of posts to wrap up Gencon 2012, but before I get going on a roll, I thought I'd write a quick bit about my experience and share some of the random pictures that don't fit anywhere else!

I can't convey what a great time I had this Gencon. It was number 12 for me, and the last couple of years have been a little lackluster. Honestly, it's taken me a few days each for the past couple of Gencons to finally relax and enjoy myself. This year was all different however. While it started out a bit of a nightmare, it set the tone for a whackier, less structured vacation experience, and I feel I benefited all the more from it.

What am I gonna play at Gencon?

In my last post I talked a little bit about what I'd like to be able to purchase at Gencon. For the quick follow-up post, I'm gonna dive a bit into what I'm hoping to play at this year's con. I always have the best intentions of playing a bunch of games at Gencon. The plans don't always come together, and usually I have to go back and get reimbursed for my tickets for a game I can't attend. Let this be a note to you that if you want to get in a game but missed registration, get there early and you might just be able to jump in when me or someone like me can't make it!

This year's going to be different, no really, seriously! That's the goal at least. Since moving two hours away from my gaming group, I've really been looking forward to getting some good gaming in for a couple of days in a row. The fact that I've been away from the blog for a while is not a coincidence with the fact that I haven't been doing any real gaming. It's 50% that and 50% trying to do some writing for my own sake that I hope to some day share with the world, but that's for another day.

I have high hopes both for events I'm signed up for and events I hope to crash. First, and most importantly on my list, is lots of Call of Cthulhu. There's nothing better for a one-shot convention game than Call of Cthulhu. Dread comes close, because Dread is awesome, but I get nervous around having to play a Jenga tower (hence whey I love GM'ing Dread), and it's hard as hell to actually get into a game of it since so few people run the game. Anyway, Cthulhu is one of the all-time best role-playing worlds. I know I don't have to tell you that, but some power beyond me compelled me to do so. You gotta listen to those powers beyond you, right? Right.

The other thing that's got me really stoked is the chance to play in another game of The One Ring. I got to play Words of the Wise, the first adventure Cubicle 7 released for the game special just for Gencon (and later a pdf that's since been removed mysteriously - probably from one of those powers from beyond, they're so tricksy!). It was a blast, and reminded me of why I love exploring Middle Earth. Should be good times this year as well. Hey, if I only get to play the game once a year, I can't really complain. It's more than I get to play most games I own, have read, and dearly love.

What's got me really stoked? Indie games on demand of course! There's just so many games I want to play! Broken down into two-hour slots. I know that sadly, even with three and a half days of gaming, I won't have enough time to get to all the games. I'd love to make each one of them a priority, but it's just not going to happen since I know there's literally hundreds of games and things to do vying for me attention. Still, I'd love to play a game of Swords Without Masters (a conan-style game from the designer of Dread!), Jaws of the Six Serpents (my current gaming obsession and hopefully first real foray into design my own game soon with the PDQ engine that runs it), Mouse Guard, Dungeon World (a game I was more than happy to Kickstart), and more. Seriously, it's an indie gamer's haven, and I want to very badly expose myself to some real gaming experiences in some of the games that stimulate my gaming mind the most.

So, what are you excited to play this Gencon? Is it an old favorite? Is it something you've never played before but always have wanted to give a shot? Is it a game the rest of your normal group just hates and hates you a little bit for liking it so much? Whatever it is, hope you get to your game on time and that it's everything you've ever hoped for! See you at the con!

It Can't Possibly Be Time For Gencon 2012.

Happy to report that this has not happened to me in a dream... yet.

I know this must happen to hundreds of people every year, but it's finally happened to me, this year, this Gencon - how did time move so quickly for Gencon to only be a week away? Something evil is playing at the edges of reality. Don't trust the things that move (or don't move in a conspicuous manner!) at the corners of your vision. It's gremlins, gotta be gremlins. Of course it could be leprechauns. Not the nice kind that give you gold, but the evil kinds portrayed in a long run of perpetually-poorly made sequels and prequels. You get the idea, something wicked this way comes, etc.

Regardless (not Irregardless - that'd be evil gremlin talk), Gencon being a week away means it's time to get to business thinking about what this year's gonna mean for me. Usually I start Gencon preparation in two ways - what I want to play, and what I want to buy. I'm happy to say that the what I want to play greatly outnumbers the what I want to buy category for this year.

Gencon Photo Fun Finito!

I mentioned on Monday that I had just a few more pictures left to post from Gencon. Today's the wrap-up of all the great new stuff I got to check out while at the convention, but I warn you, it is quite the random collection.