Games of Gencon

This is just going to be a few brief notes on some of the new games I played at GenCon. I pretty much enjoyed most of the games I played there, but these are the ones that I hadn't played before that stand out in my memory.

On Thursday I played a few rounds of Khet with a guy called Jason. Khet has an Egyptian theme, and the aim is to use the mirrors on the pieces to shoot your laser beam onto the opponents pharaoh. Each turn you can move a piece one step or rotate it 90 degrees, and then you shoot your laser beam. If you hit a piece other than on the mirror, it gets removed. The advanced version which includes a beam splitter for each side makes it even more interesting.

On Friday I got to have a go at the Battlestar Galactica board game, which is a pretty well done game. It is for the most part a cooperative game, where all the players work together against the game itself, with the complication of that at some point some of the players will be working against the other players and be trying to destroy the ship. Each player takes the role of a character from the show, each of which has strengths and weaknesses appropriate to their character. In this game I played a pilot character, and so mostly worked on protecting the ship from the enemy, and was not able to contribute as much to the crisis portion of the game, where the group has to work to resolve a problem. In the end we did work out who was the cylon, and we managed to get away from the bad guys, making the game a win for the humans.

On Saturday I played Chaos in the Old World, a game based on the Warhammer fantasy world. This is an asymmetrical four player game, with each player representing one of the four chaos powers trying to corrupt the world. I played Khorne, who is good at combat, but not so good at corrupting or manipulating the world. Through spreading my forces thin and not caring whose guys I killed (for the most part, although there was some targeted attacks) I managed to raise my threat level to where I won the game, although it was a very close run thing as one of the other players also got to 50 points that turn, another possible victory condition, and it's only because the threat level victory has priority over the points victory that I got the win. The win was especialy close as I had a terrible battle round that turn and only killed something by the skin of my teeth.

On Sunday I played Red November. This is another cooperative game. In the game, the players are a bunch of drunk gnomes on a run down submarine trying to keep it afloat until rescuers arrive in 60 minutes. As the game progresses fires break out, sections flood, things break down, kraken squash the ship and more. It gets even more fun when a gnome passes out drunk and a bunch of stuff happens with fewer people left to fix it. This is a fun game with a good theme.

GenCon

Most of last week I was doing something or other related to GenCon, which is a big gaming and media convention here in Brisbane (when I say big, I'm grading on a curve). I started out on Wednesday going in to help out with the setting up, but since a bunch of the stuff they needed didn't show up, I didn't do much more during the day then help unpack a truck and a few cars and push some trolleys around. I also got to see just how big the Brisbane Convention Centre is. At one point there was a semi trailer just driving around inside.

Thursday was a bit more organised as stuff was starting that day. Early on I was packing showbags which weren't exactly the greatest showbags of all time, as they contained one program, one catalog, and two business cards. Things like pens and dice and hats had to be bought. After lunch, sneakily provided unasked for by the convention centre and consumed before anyone realised the insane price charged for said lunch. After lunch I started on my main role there, helping out in the board game section. At the start there was just myself and another regular from Critical Mass on Fridays, so we hung around and as people wandered by started a few games of different things, and kept on playing games until it was time to pack stuff up at around 9:30.

Friday was again mostly board games after I got there around twoish as I had to deal with centrelink and pick up my repaired computer. I played one game of Battlestar Galactica which was quite good, and I got into character quite well, but I played things a little too straight for my own good if I'd turned out to be a cylon later on in the game. In the evening while walking around the exhibitor half of the hall I bought a Dread Pirate Roberts action figure and a print of an artist's rendition of the Serenity poster.

Saturday was an easier day with a few games. The days highlight was the Q & A with Robert Picardo, who was very entertaining. The lowlight was when I went across the river to the Myer centre to buy lunch for a reasonable price (the convention centre charges $4 for a bottle of softdrink) only to find out my credit card was missing. Fortunately, I had left it at the subway I'd gone to for dinner the last two nights and the guy recognised me and had the card there.

Sunday was the final day and I did a little more shopping and a little more gaming. I bought a copy of the Battlestar Galactica game for myself, as well as a copy of the new Iain Banks (no M) book. Finally as the con came to a close I helped pack up all the games into the car of the board game area coordinator, and then told to get out as no one gave me a safety jacket which was needed after the con closed.

All up it was a good 4(5) days and I'll definitely be involved next year in some form.