Attendees:
- Peter F. Guenther
- Rick Hallman
- Greg Kramer
- Jason Spears
Guests:
Overall Picture Directories:
Rick Hallman
Jason Spears
Report by Peter Guenther
About the Con
This was the second F-Con where we've run Lego games, but it's the Con's first time in the Lansing Center, a very nice facility. They put us front and center, just behind the registration desk in the exhibit hall the Con was in. They had a vendor area with more than a dozen vendors off to one side, tables for official events, and tables for just playing pickup games; the Origins Game Library was also on hand for people to pick up and check out different games for free.
At F-Con's request, we had layout--a Castle/medieval town layout which ended up being 8'x7.5'; we also left the games set up on tables between sessions, so attendees could see a BrickQuest dungeon, some BrickMechs duking it out over simple terrain, and a road through the woods where a cart would get waylaid in BrickBattles. In all, we scheduled 22 hours of gaming in the three games, and ended up providing almost 100 actual player-hours.
Rick Hallman set up a small Warhammer 40K-ish scene including a Dreadnought, which occasioned a number of positive remarks. Tim Hunt, one of the Con's organizers, also provided a 20"x30" model of a gaming convention, with gamers, vendors, and costumed attendees.
Setup
Peter got to the 'Con about 3 pm, to check out the lay of the land in advance of his 4 pm BrickQuest game. He did a cursory setup, waiting for the game itself to reveal the bulk of the dungeon, but no one showed up for the game. Attendance was sparse on Friday and not a lot of games went off. The 6 pm BrickMech game likewise went unplayed, so when Jason and Colin pulled up around 6, Peter was free to help set up the layout.
As we wheeled everything into the exhibit hall, Jason asked Peter if he had the baseplates--which he didn't, thinking that Jason had gotten the baseplates at GATS along with Ken's buildings. Since Jason wasn't at GATS for teardown, he hadn't. Peter got in touch with the Leaches and Saturday morning picked the baseplates up bright and early from Chris Leach. By the time he got to the show, Rick had arrived and set up the Warhammer 40K scene, and Jason and Colin arrived soon after.
The Con
Peter scheduled 5 sessions of BrickQuest (3 of which went off) and 4 sessions of Brickmech (3 of which went off); Jason scheduled 4 sessions of BrickBattles (3 of which went off).
All the sessions of BrickMech went very well; 4-10 people played in each, and some people came to more than one session. The first session of BrickQuest didn't go so well; Peter had allowed 8 players, which made the table and the dungeon too crowded. Between that and several players spending more time scheming than fighting in the dungeon, the group didn't get very far and did not succeed in their quest to retrieve a magic sword from the tomb of the Wizard Laeron (who turned out not to be resting in peace). Most players enjoyed the game enough to play it again either later Saturday or on Sunday, so they eventually got the full BrickQuest experience.
On Colin's advice, Peter downplayed the backstabbing aspect of the game in the second Saturday session and it ran much more smoothly with six players; the players did retrieve the sword and one ended up escaping with it.
In the Sunday session of BrickQuest, Peter added a set of tentacles in a well; this attack severely weakened the party and killed off the rogue--and without a rogue or a dwarf, the group couldn't locate the potion-vending machine that Peter added to balance off the new monster. They did manage to defeat the lich and his guardians, however, and two players escaped... the elf with most of the treasure and the barbarian with the magic sword and shield chasing after him. This game actually ended within the allocated 2 hours, which is rare when players start infighting.
For BrickMech, Peter brought a bunch of green and blue baseplates to add a little more strategy to the game; the layout included a very square river running through and a bridge over it. After the first game, a pair of players stuck around and added green and tan plates to try to make the river look more natural. In every single game, players blew up the bridge, which worked against players who relied on melee attacks. In at least one game, a melee-strong mech did go all the way around the river, ford it at the shoals, and hunt down and destroy all the other mechs.
For Brick Battles, Jason ran a standard version of James Brown's scenario, with four parties attacking a cart and trying to get the gold. Jason made up 4 bands for the players to choose from, although they were technically the same. Each band had 2 figures armed with crossbows, 5 with basic weapons and 1 hero with a basic weapon. The first Saturday session had 4 payers, all of whom had a lot of fun playing. None of them got close to getting the cart with the gold off the board, instead a complete free-for-all broke out and the player's bandits tried to slaughter each other. This turned out to be a trend for the next two sessions.
Jason was still getting the hang of the rules system, so the first two sessions were a little choppy, but by the Sunday session, Brick Battles ran smoothly. However, the players spent more time attacking
each other than worrying about the cart. At the end of the third session, only 4 figs remained, one team with two and the others with one apiece. In the final turn, the four paired off and killed each other, leaving a three-way tie with everyone's forces decimated.
Comments we got sick of hearing:
"You guys have too much free time."
"Can I get on the table and be Godzilla?"
"Does it DO anything, or just sit there?"
Of course there were lots of wows and lots of favorable comments about the layout, and the games were very well received.
Teardown
Jason and Colin began tearing the village down after their last BrickBattles game, and wheeled everything out by about 5:30. Peter had packed up BrickMech before the final BrickQuest game, and BrickQuest took about 10 minutes to pack up after the game finished, so he was out shortly after 6.
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Event Pictures:
Space Display
Castle Display
BrickQuest
BrickMech
BrickBattles
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