I rested up a little after this year’s con and now my memories of the sequence of events is already fading, heh.
Dad flew directly to Dallas this year and Steve was reffing some D1 volleyball at Ole Miss this year, so it was just Brian, John and I driving down. We arrived about 12:15 and, like last year, I checked in first and got a room while Brian and John had to wait, so we just went directly to the con registration afterwards. Queen Games was a big sponsor this year, offering one of three games for each attendee, based on a ticket draw. Luckily, we each got a different one, so that was nice in terms of the group collection (I got a 2p game called Aton). There was also a secondary drawing in which I got a pick off a prize rack — there wasn’t much left, so I chose a 3-volume hardcover bundle of World of Darkness RPG supplements for grins. I think John and Brian each got extra yellow tickets for the Thought Hammer drawings.
Dad called from the airport about then, so we decided to dink around the vendors while waiting for him. Thought Hammer was actually selling this year for the first time and the crowd there was substantial. We would learn later that it was because their checkout process was quite slow. They basically had a laptop set up and were processing transactions through their own website. Makes sense, I suppose, since they are an online retailer only, but it was sure slow. They also didn’t have prices on their products (they were offering their standard web prices), which I understand was partially due to having a lot of their stuff shipped directly to the con, trying to get last minute items like Essen games there in time for the con. Anyway, I hope they have some good lessons learned if they sell again next year, such as having a cash-only line and possibly multiple POS laptops. I had a gift certificate to them from the guys for my birthday, but decided to hold off on buying anything just yet from them. (I later ended up buying God’s Playground by Martin Wallace, and a 2p game I hope to get D to try called Day & Night.)
Instead, we wandered over to the ZMan area and I spotted a game called Shazamm! that was on my wishlist, for only $10 (I think — I’m already getting fuzzy on the prices). I couldn’t even remember what the game was about, but it was on my spreadsheet as a “3″ (Like to Have), so I grabbed it and Campaign Manger 2008, the latest from Jason Matthews and Christian Leonhard, for $30 (I think). The guy was up-selling me by offering a ZMan tote bag with a $50 purchase, so I talked Brian into buying Saboteur for $10, heh.
Dad arrived and he got through registration. He also got Aton from Queen and a pick off the rack. I suggested Cluzzle to him, since it is sort of party-game-ish and might be something they could play with friends back home. He hadn’t eaten yet, so we ran over to Denny’s for lunch, before returning and checking out The Adventurers from the game library. Speaking of which, the library had a major upgrade in efficiency this year. Gone were the tables piled with games and the manual library card checkout system. The games were now in wire racks, grouped alphabetically by title, and barcoded for near-instant checkout. A++ to the new system.
The Adventurers was pretty fun. I’m not going to regurgitate my impressions of all the games, necessarily — I’ve already covered them in an after-con geeklist. We tried another AEG game next, Arcana, which was something of a disappointment to us. It wasn’t bad, per se, but it didn’t do anything for us. More games for Thursday include a horse-racing game called Long Shot (great with 5+ players), a worker placement game with some extra Western chrome called Carson City, and one of the games I brought with me, Dad’s copy of Pacific Typhoon. We played that during an event that got us prize tickets for GMT games, and Dad actually won a major game – Combat Commander: Pacific, which I hope we get to play during Christmas when they visit.
Everyone else went to bed after the midnight prize drawings, but I let Rodney talk me into staying up till 2am playing that Carson City game, so I was a little tired Friday morning. Friday’s games included: Ivanhoe (wouldn’t mind getting this), Jamaica (another good game, and probably a good gateway game — Brian got a copy from his Secret Santa), Dungeon Lords (solid Euro game, Bman bought a copy), Triumvirate (great 2p trick-taking game, I bought a copy off the designer), Summoner Wars (CCG elements mixed with tactical miniatures play = fun), Crokinole, Witch of Salem (Arkham Horror lite), Nottingham (from the designer of Bohnanza), and of course, our annual game of Struggle of Empires. Astoundingly, Bman won this for the third straight time; he should probably retire from SoE competition at this point, lol. We were up till 3am finishing this thing, too, which was brutal.
Saturday was a little slower. People slept in a little more, plus there were distractions like completing the Math Trade. There was more Ivanhoe (and on Sunday morning, too), Jamaica, Long Shot and Dungeon Lords. Brian and Bman played Battlestar Galactica twice with the Pegasus expansion and had a lot of (intense) fun with it. I got to try out one of my wishlist trade games, In the Shadow of the Emperor, which I liked quite a bit (winning is always nice, too). I showed To Court the King to Brian and Rodney, which I also got in trade after playing it with Dad a couple years ago.
Speaking of which, I was mega-happy with my Math Trade results this year. To avoid getting too many of one game type like I have previously — like light games and gateways, for example — I built my want list by using duplication protection on whole classes of games. This means I only got 1 light game, 1 wargame, 1 “like to have” game, 1 abstract, plus several of my more desirable games.
Brian and I also played Martin Wallace’s Waterloo, which we had planned ahead of time to do during the con. I was the Allies and lost horribly, even faster than in our first/previous game. I think the Allies really need to be defensive until the Prussians arrive at 3pm, but that doesn’t sound historical? I’m not sure, I’m not a Napoleonics guy.
The drawings on Saturday were at 7pm, along with announcing the Golden Geek Award winners, so I don’t think we stayed up all that late that night. We took it easy Sunday with Ivanhoe and then, after Dad headed for the airport, wrapped up with a game of Infinite City that I bought from the AEG booth. We called it a con and headed for home, stopping at Snuffers to try what Brian claimed was the best cheese fries evar. Well, it was damned good, maybe the best I’ve had — better than Eskimo Joe’s and maybe even The Brook’s.
All in all, another great experience. I wish Rodney had gotten in on our annual SoE, and I didn’t get to play a single game with Matt after he arrived late Friday, but there was plenty of gaming to be had, so all’s good. They are adding a day to the event next year, starting on a Wednesday instead of Thursday — D isn’t too keen on that, haha. We’ll see how that goes.
bgg-con, session-report
