AveoCon

I ended up having a really good time actually. I rented a car, the luxurious Chevy Aveo and we spent the last few days trekking back and forth. Honestly, we got in as much or more gaming than usual. Fortunately I had a lucky break in that a guy in my board gaming group rented a room, and had no problem giving me a key so we could store stuff in there.

Those guys are hard core gamers. They own and play TONS of games, mostly Euro-style. When I was in the room looking at the piles and piles of unfamiliar games I suddenly experienced the Jael-style "dude, how'd you get so many games???" sensation. I don't think these gamers ever spent more than an hour away from the gaming table. Gotta respect that. Anyway, through them Aaron and I managed to try out a few good ones, including one where you threaten each other with foam guns that was a lot of fun. We also got a game of Descent in, which was fun. I was the overlord player and I was completely helpless to even scratch those guys for most of the time. I've played two games of that so far and it's a good game, although takes about four hours so it's a time sink.

Enron and I got in a few good games of Warmachine as well, including the stunning conclusion of our three-game campaign (which somehow took four months to get through). I completely had the upper hand, but in a stunning move he managed to swoop in and use the Renegade to chainsaw poor old Nemo in half. Well played sir, well played.

Warmachine is definitely becoming a very popular game. There were tons of people playing it and several tournaments -- Hordes is big too. One massive tournament had four warcasters and their battlegroups per side with all factions (including Magnus) represented. Some really beautiful paintjobs. Inspired me to ramp up my painting output. The playerbase seems to be growing and invigorated, and generally friendly. While we were playing in open gaming, at least ten people said hello and asked if we were planning on going to the 8 PM Sunday night WM tournament. We didn't go (although I meant to stop by). Also, one or two kids asked us about the game and if it or Warhammer was better.

At one point a group of like six teenagers came by and sat around the table and watched us play and excitedly talked about how certain characters were like ninjas, etc. So for a while, we had an audience and were total rock stars. Until the kids realized that watching miniatures games is pretty boring and walked off. We had them for like 30 minutes though. That's not bad in today's climate, imagine how much MTV would have paid us to advertise to them during that time. One or two of the kids even seemed like they would have watched for the duration, but group dynamics prevailed and they all eventually blew away. I believe in the youth of America!

What else... there was a pretty strong Blood Bowl game going on (Kubla Cup), plenty of DBA, lots of cool historical minis (my favorite was a battle in China with a large river, and a junk on it with gunners firing at the shore from the deck), a solid dealer room, lots of smelly people in that old familiar way, a couple of good ass crack viewings, that racing game you play by flicking discs... good times.

The only thing we couldn't fit in that I missed was having a 34-ouncer at Knuckles (where it all comes together). Due to time and driving requirements it just didn't happen. Maybe it's better that we saved that until more of you guys can make it. Next year, boys, next year.