|
Attendees:
Peter F. Guenther
Rick Hallman
Larry Pieniazek
Nik Pieniazek
Overall Picture Directories:
Larry Pieniazek
Peter Guenther
Report by Peter and Larry
This was our first appearance at F-Con 2004, held in the Holiday Inn
Express Conference Center in Okemos MI. We'd been approached by them
at the May 2004 Motor City Comic Con but it didn't look like we'd
have much of a presence at the Con until a conflicting MichLUG event
fell through. With just a few members, we were able to offer a
pretty full track, with 4 different games and 7 gaming sessions.
Setup, Saturday Morning
setup was a unique challenge, we had to tear stuff down and put other stuff back up in a window of 1 hour, twice. (Brick Battles got set up, ran, got torn down, BrickQuest got set up, ran, got torn down, Brick Battles got set up again and ran). We had four tables at one end of the Conference Center lobby. We got a fair amount of foot traffic and people were interested in our games.
Saturday Games
Brick Battles:This was a slightly modified version of what James Brown has run two years
running at GenCon. The difference was that instead of a forest crossroads,
it was a small town centered where the roads crossed. The building interiors
were off limits, they just provided cover and decoration... The basic setup
is that a wagon (with 4 guards and a driver) has gold, you start at your
campfire and try to take it. So do the other bandit teams.
We had Dean as a paying player, as well as a succession of different dealers
and people that wanted to try for a bit so we let them rotate around. 4
teams total.. Dean (the team with the castle torsos and the flat brimmed
helmets) Mike (a dealer at the con) and friends (the team with Xtreme Team
torsos and kepis) Nik (the team that used Bothan torsos) and myself (the
girl team).
It was interesting because some teams had helmets (giving them a +1 defense)
and some did not, they just had shields for the non archer teams.
From the pictures, you can tell that it was a gory battle. At the end Dean won
but only because he and Nik lasted to the end, Everyone else died, I mean
everyone, there were 4 guys left out of 28 player guys and 5 NPCs. Nik did a
lot of tree climbing to get height and range advantage. We need to put a
stop to that tree climbing I think.
Nik also did a lot of throwing things. Trees. Wagon wheels. Bodies. Helmets.
Swords, you name it, he tried to throw it. Sometimes it worked and sometimes
not, with often hilarious results.
Mike I have to give high marks for tactics, he used the cover of the stable
to great advantage. But because he left and his squad got played by a lot of
people, the tactical advantage he achieved was squandered. He had control of
the wagon for the longest time of all the teams (everyone except the Amazons
had a driver on it at some point). Also I was disappointed he didn't try to
steal a horse.
The game almost runs itself once you explain the combat mechanics and do a
few rounds. I liked having the buildings, gave more cover. Also the taller
trees add a lot to the scenery I think.
BrickQuest: Peter arrived a little before 11 and began setting up BrickQuest on
the other end of the table from Larry, who was tearing down
BrickBattles. The BrickQuest modules travelled well, so Peter only
had to do minimal reconstruction--so he made a couple trips through
the dealer room before his game.
There was only one non-MichLUG player, Dean, for the first session of
BrickQuest, but Rick Hallman wanted to play too. Each player took
two characters and were largely up to the challenge of the dungeon
scenario, which involved a tomb with skeletons, ghosts, and
eventually vampires (trapped by water running through the tomb). The
party gave in to internal squabbling fairly quickly, though, with
Rick's dwarf attacking one of Dean's characters and later Dean's
cleric cursing Rick's wizard--with the result that the cleric got
fireballed to death. The vampires were too much for the remaining
characters to face, so the greedy dwarf ran out the front gate.
No players showed up for the second session, so Peter got to run out
for a late lunch.
We had four players (counting Rick) for the third session, which
turned out to be lively. The team got along longer than in the first
session, although they got bogged down with the ghosts because they
didn't bring either a cleric or a fighter into the dungeon, and
killed the first two vampires they met through repeated fireballs.
They ran into a bit more trouble with the last vampire, though,
particularly when Rick's wizard teleported him back to a lever
earlier in the dungeon and sealed the other characters into the inner
tomb. The vampire killed both the elf and the dwarf, turning them
into vampires; the rogue managed to escape across the water, find the
release to the secret door, and open it--where he found the wizard
had fallen victim to his own greed, having drunk once too often from
a fountain where the first drink healed but later drinks harmed. The
rogue escaped the winner.
ESPG: I didn't get very many pics, I was very tired and I forgot. We ended up
going for 4 hours as there were a number of players that were doing quite
well and so we just kept going.
It was a standard battle game, castaways on the islands, some treasure if
people dug for it. Two ports at opposite kitty corners (made from the castle
buildings, which came in handy!)
We started with just Nik and Mike (the dealer guy again) but we had a couple
of walkups join in around 7:30. It turned into a 4 way free for all. Then
Mike left but his ship was captured by Nik. One of the other guys blew away
his friends ship, so it was looking like it was going to be Nik with 2 ships
on them with 2. Both had found a litle treasure and ran for ports and got
more guys. Around 9 PM we were joined by a father and his two sons, who
played one ship total. They managed to with a fresh start completely rake
both of Niks ships with grape, one after the other. But meanwhile the other
fellow was doing quite well and was sailing in to clean up the battle
remnants when we decided to call it on account of time. I declared him the
winner. My bad, I never did recall his name.
Probably about 60-80 pirates died during the course of the game.
Sunday Games
BrickMech: Peter arrived shortly after 11 and began setting up his BrickMech
materials. He brought three microfig buildings this time to provide
some cover. Rick arrived a little while later with some foliage for
the game.
No gamers showed up for the noon session of BrickMech, so Peter and
Rick faced off in a brief game. Rick ran away with the victory and
Peter was left to curse his defective orange dice purchased at
GenCon. The game attracted some interest from people walking by.
Since we had a table left over, Rick had one of his friends stop by
his house and pick up several ships to display. Convention visitors
were very excited, especially about the large one (Rick--name?).
Dean of Brick Battles and BrickQuest fame returned to play the 2 pm
session of BrickMech, and a man with his preteen son and his son's
friend also joined in. Dean managed to blow the arm off the mech of
one of the younger kids and put him at a severe disadvantage, but the
kid closed in so that Dean's longer-ranged weapons couldn't come to
bear. The other two combatants spent the game pounding on each
other, until one of them--Joe--realized he could mount the arm the
other kid lost and improve his own stats dramatically. After this he
had a clear advantage and began to blow parts off the other mechs.
We let the game run a half hour over, but time still ran out before
Joe could claim complete victory. With a devastating 8 Long-Range
Attack Dice and most of his armor intact, though, Joe's black and
yellow mech clearly commanded the field.
During the course of this game, a number of people stopped to watch
and seemed impressed with the rules. Many people took copies of the
rules home with them. Overall, the system seems to work very well,
though Peter has a list of things he'd like to improve about it.
There was no tear-down to speak of, and Peter and Rick left before 5
pm. We've heard from Foundation Games that we can have much more
space at their next Con in April, so we can have a display and leave
various games set up as attractors.
|
Event Pictures:
|
