Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Con Report - Gateway 2013 Saturday (Ron)

The boys will be having their own con reports from Gateway 2013, the last of the Strategicon 2013 events. This is my personal experience.

Not being able to go to the Con on Friday really locks out the most popular RPG events. Even though we made it to the con at 8:30, got our badges (Strategicon is the best badge for media I've come across so far, took all of 2 minutes!! NICE.), and headed up, only to find out that nearly every game we REALLY wanted to play in were already full. So we signed up for alt spots, but weirdly enough, people showed up for those games anyway.

I was really looking forward to playing in Chris Czerniak's Doctor Who Time War game, but since it was full, I headed down to play some miniature games.

   I had Seen SAGA being played at At Ease, so when I saw Octave Vilare (sorry if that's misspelled Octave), doing demos for it, I had to give it a try. He had Welsh and Anglo-Danes as the two options, me being Welsh in descent it was a no-brainer, Welsh it was. Welsh in saga are very good at throwing pointy sticks...as in they all have javelins. The system used in Saga is VERY interesting, no tracking wounds, and you need to plan out your attacks using the battle board, and the Saga dice (sold separately, and quite expensive, though you can use normal d6...1-3, 4-5, 6 equalling the standard rolls.). The game was no going in my favor at first, I lost 2 elite hearth guard units, and his warlord ended up attacking me, however he lost and I ended up driving him back from me. Where during my third turn I used 8 warriors t launch a fusillade of javelins at him with "deadly precision" ending up in 4 hits, he immediately absorbed on of those hits, sacrificed the last warrior with him, and promptly failed both armor rolls resulting in a pincushioned Warlord, which Octave said was the first time he'd seen a Warlord die to a ranged attack...very nice.

   I had gotten Rezolution by Aberrant, last year at Kingdom Con, with the premade battlebox. I have this issue with reading and comprehension, unless I've seen it in action, sometimes, I get confused, so I decided to give the Rezolution demo a try with none other than Tony Knealy himself. . It was a 2 turn game, turn 1 I lost initiative, and so Tony went first. He moved up his troopers, I moved my psyker, and tornadoed his troops, killing two and severely injuring the other 2...this was my downfall, I didn't get him close enough for cover.But yes, normal troopers, have a hit track...making this game quite interesting for the less casual wargamer. It is skirmish based but incorporates some RPG style feats into the game, giving it more depth. Tony moved his hero up, missed my hero, but when initiative came up for the 2nd round, he didn't miss...he killed my hero, and EVERY SINGLE one of my other units Failed their Command roll, and fled the battle. I definitely need to play this some more.

  While I was playing the Rezolution demo; Sean and Ian came back down...Ian REALLY wanted to play Warlands, so he and I faced off in a car+buggy on car+buggy match that resulted in a 4 car pile up, where my buggy ACTUALLY bumped both of Ian's cars twice (each!!!) since he was pretty much pinned in there....hilarious...until my car cruised out of there, and whipped a Bootlegger reverse, and shattered both of Ian's vehicles, the buggy exploding and crashing backwards a full 6 inches. As always, a fun fun game.

  We went and cruised the dealer hall for 30 or so minutes before we went up and did the Short Order Heroes RPG demo...let's just say "Gonzo" was the order of the day. So with the GM free-forming, we decided on a Post-apocalyptic Steampunk game...Ok..My character was dealt Complicated, Nosy and Sneaky, so I instantly formulated a plan, I was on the train incognito as an agent, So I started out as the lady Josie James, but in reality I was REX HANDCANNON (it's complicated...), the nosy Pinkerton agent, and master of disguise. We were on the train with a merchant protecting a priceless piece of Romantic art, which I promptly steered the game toward calling it the "Velvet Elvis", hilarity ensued as the entire party started maneuvering to their own agendas...probably the most Gonzo hilarious game this side of Paranoia....I'll let Sean and Ian describe their experience with "SOH"

Anyway, to bed with me...more on this later.






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