Much like the Star Trek CCG, the Star Wars CCG has its own committee that creates new virtual cards to keep the game going. Recently, they posted a bunch of errata to their previously released virtual sets and have also released a new virtual set as well. A lot of people on their forums seem upset with the changes and some are even dropping out of the game altogether. Me, I figure I’m not yet ready to start using the virtual cards as I haven’t played the game since right after Death Star II was released and I haven’t bought cards for almost 9 years.

well, here’s to hoping I can get some more people interested in this “dead” game.

The nice thing about this year as opposed to previous years is that I had some company for the drive and some help with parking and gas costs. Fred was that company, and what great company it was. I had a blast having him ride with me.

We began the con with Wednesday night as Fred needed to get his passes for the weekend. I got to see a few people that evening and even had time to set up the Pulp City boards for early the next morning. Brian was more than glad to help me and I was more than glad to accept. We hung around with Joel as well while Fred was down at the Event Registration booth getting tickets for the things he wanted to do. We ended up leaving around 9 or so, if I remember correctly.

Thursday began bright and early at 8 am with Pulp City demos. Brian and I ran two sessions one hour each serving four people. That’s eight players. The nice thing was that a couple of people who had purchased the actual tickets didn’t show, but we had plenty of people with generics to fill in; one of which was even a local! After the demos, I made my way as fast as possible down to the dealer hall with JR, Brian and some other folks. Brian and his wife had the kids with them, so they had to break off a little early. One of my first stops had to be the Wyrd booth to pick up the Malifaux book and a Fate Deck. Maciej hooked me up with some swag for running demos. I worked a shift in the Pulp Monsters booth from 2pm to 6pm that afternoon doing demos of Pulp City. I got to hang out with the guys from Darkson Designs as well, which was pretty cool. I may need to check out their games. I left the booth at about 5:55 hoping to make it over to the FFG booth to pick up their new Living Card Game (LCG), Warhammer Invasion. I got there and the the tower of boxes was reduced to a mere footstool. I asked one of the booth guys if this was all they had and they told me yes. So, I picked it up. Afterwards, the Wyrd guys were doing demos upstairs in the same room where I’d previously held Pulp City demos for TableTop Gamers (TTG). It was full enough that I didn’t get a demo though. In themeantime Tim and I opened the box and sorted through the rules for Warhammer Invasion. We played a quick 2-player game of Dwarfs vs. Chaos. We found a misprint and had some issues to look up, but it went fairly smoothly. Later, Fred showed up with his Thor on a chariot and we threw down a 3-player game. Some folks at another table were asking us questions as if we were experts, which was pretty cool. Fred’s Empire deck ended up running out of cards the turn after Tim had made two of my sections of my capitol burn to the ground. It was a really fun game even though I normally hate 3-player games.

Friday was again a pretty busy morning with Pulp City demos. Brian again was ahuge help by being there super early and having everything already set up and ready to go. The demos were just as full as the previous day. I spent much of the day just trekking around the dealer hall looking for stuff to blow cash on. I even finally decided on a second crew for Malifaux after asking around about the ones that most interested me aesthetically: Pandora. I was told she was the more “cerebral and annoying” crew, so I was sold right there. Later in the afternoon I met up with Tim, Joel, JR, Morgan and some other folks and we went down to Currito for some lunch. Afterward, Tim walked his bud Kevin and I through the Lord of the Rings skirmish game. I ended up winning the game through making his army break before he made mine break as he had quickly grabbed objectives with Wargs I couldn’t catch up with. Later on Fred showed up with an old school card game called Star Trek: Trading Card Game Second Edition. He said he’d gotten a demo on a whim and that it was a lot of fun. He picked up a starter/booster box for cheap and had been messing around with decks. We played a quick 3-player game with Bryan before he had to start setting up for Ambush Alley. Brian called and said he wouldn’t be coming back to the convention center after running errands due to traffic from the Colts game that evening. I don’t know why they insist on scheduling these things at the same time! Fred ended up going to try to watch Plan 9 From Outer Space, so I tried again to get a demo of Malifaux. I did end up getting to play a game with one of their Henchmen, but he must have been demoed out since he didn’t speak much or help me out with the rules. He did preoceed to beat up Seamus with Lilith and told me that sometimes you have to lose to learn a game. I disagree with this notion, but whatever. Later, I watched a game between Maurice and a guy I’ve met from St. Louis (I hate that I don’t remember his name!). The latter was playing the Pandora crew I’d just bought and Maurice was playing the Zoraida box. I think I learned more from watching this game than the “demo” I’d played earlier. After that I goofed arouns while thinking Fred was at the movie. I found him outside the room sorting through cards, so we headed out.

Saturday morning began with a sigh as no one showed up for the 8 am Pulp City demos. We did, however, have a full set for the 9 am session. It was nice to finally pack up all that stuff and take it to the car. I picked up a few Outcast and Resurrectionist models for Malifaux to supplement the boxes I’d already bought and I bought a box of starters/boosters for the Star Trek CCG to play with Fred. Brian and I did some goofing around and then I had to do another session in the Pulp Monsters booth from 2pm-4pm. Again, it was pretty cool, but a bit exhausting. I then met up with Tim, JR, John, Dan, Brian and Morgan for our big 3,000 point per side War of the Ring battle. Tim brought both of his Mumakils and JR brought the Balrog. The good guys had Aragorn, Boromir, Glorfindel, Galadriel and my first use of the Galadhrim cavalry. Midway through turn 2 I think it was, there was a fire alarm and we had to leave the building. We came back in about 30 minutes (rumor had it the problem was caused by an overcooked pizza in the food court) to finish the game. We didn’t finish until a bit after midnight. That was 6 hours worth of War of the Ring! I ended up in a bit of trouble with the wife as I hadn’t called before 12 like I said I would. Fred finished up at a tournament and then we were on our way home.

As always, Sunday was a bit of a sad day. First of all, Fred and I ran into the biathalon on our way in, which held us up by about 45 minutes or so. To keep from getting too distressed, we went through decks and packs of Star Trek that I’d purchased the day before. Then when we got there, lots of people were vacating the premises. That part is always pretty sad. We tooled around the dealer hall for a while and Fred and I split a box of Star Trek boosters since they were so cheap. We then went back upstairs and sorted through some of the cards. In talking about CCGs, I got my mind set on getting some boxes of the old WARS CCG, which is a bit like Star Wars, but only about $8 per box. I didn’t really buy too much this day, but I did hang out with Bryan, Fred and Joel. We waited around a bit for Tim since he said he’d be around for us to go through the Malifaux rules, but he never showed up. He did say something earlier about having to do some RPG stuff with his wife, so that’s probably where he was. Around 4:30pm, we left the convention center and made for home.

I then spent the evening and all the next day with my awesome wife who never once made a big deal out of me spending money at the convention or spending so much time away from her. How kick ass is that?!

All in all, this Gen Con was one of the best. It was a good mix of hanging out with friends from all over and “working” the convention. Next year will be even better!!

Loot:

• Malifaux: Pandora box
• Malifaux: Killjoy
• Malifaux: Samurai Punk Zombies
• Malifaux: Convict Gunslinger
• Malifaux: Rulebook
• Malifaux: Fate Deck
• Pulp City: Boreas/Seabolt
• Pulp City: Sgt. Bale/Stoner Hawk
• Pulp City: Chronin/Dr. Mercury
• Pulp City: Dr. Red/Howler
• Pulp City: Sister Bedlam/Tangent
• Pulp City: June Summers
• Pulp City: Herald
• Magic: The Gathering: 12 Alara Block packs (4x for $9)
• Dark Age Groundwerks Bases: 2x blisters 30mm, 1x 50mm
• HellDorado: Corvus Tormentors
• WARS: Incursion Starters
• WARS: Incursion Boosters
• WARS: Nowhere to Hide Boosters
• Star Trek CCG: Call To Arms Booster/Starters
• Star Trek CCG: Strange New Worlds Boosters
• Warhammer Invasion Box
• Lord of the Rings: Golfimbul mounted and foot (proxy for Gothmog)
• Armorcast: Dumpsters
• Armorcast: Vending Machines

Thanks to having worked some time for Pulp City and having sold off some minis prior to the convention, the total cost of the weekend was pretty minimal, which is surprising as I’d pretty much purchaed about everything I would have normally gotten.

A few things to note that I wasn’t sure where they fit in chronologically: Apparently, Maciej and some other folks knew what company/individual had picked up Helldorado and were very excited about the continuance of the game. I went by the Alkemy booth to check out the wvae 5 stuff in hopes that I might be interested enough in the game to update the collection. Unfortunately I was not.

My only real regrets were not getting to see off a few friends.

I think that just about covers it!

Oh! As I was talking to Brett, he mentioned the possibility of having an extra Goblinette Hog Whisperer after the con that he’d hook me up with. Later in the afternoon he called and told me he’d be shipping me one when he got home! Sweet!! Not sure if that’ll lead to another crew for Malifaux or just a fun model to paint.

He and I played probably 6 games last night. The first couple were his favorite old-skool deck versus my new R/B Aggro deck. He won the first one because I got stuck on one mana and I won the second one when he had the same thing happen to him. We then switched decks and I played a Lorwyn-block goofy Goblin deck. I won that one due to the speed I could get it going. At this point, I started feeling bad, so we both then played one of his older decks. I had the Spiritmonger deck he’d been playing earlier and he had a W/G deck. I ended up winning that one just based on good draws. I had gotten a couple of smaller creatures well before bringing out the Spiritmonger. Finally, we each then played a Shadowmoor precostructed deck. I chose the W/B and he the R/B. His deck was significantly faster than mine, especially since I got one Plains the first turn and no more lands for like 5 turns.

All the games were fun and so was the conversation. We’ll probably be playing more about every other Wednesday and he seemed interested in Draft when I told him about it.

I did get to eyeball Jeremy’s Crab deck and it looks like there’s a ton of money rares in there that I either can’t find or can’t afford. However, I think with the cash I have spent on the cards I got, I have a pretty decent deck. Now I just need to make time to play it.

I picked up the Lion starter as I’d heard it came with 4 rares rather than the 3 most others have. I didn’t get much to help my deck except the fixed 3x card called ‘A Legion of One’, which helps my Heroes. However, over the course of the evening, I acquired a ‘Setting Sun Strike’ and three copies of ‘Dangerous Reconnaisance’.

Mike Morgan and I played another game, but this time I played Crab and he played his Spider Clan deck.

Early game I was able to buy a Secluded Outpost and put it to good use, getting ‘Hida Manoru’ and the ‘Heavenly Tetsubo of the Crab’ in play and taking a province. Unfortunately for me, he got Daigotsu in play the next turn, which make me really reluctant to go after more provinces. The next several turns were spent building up. I ended up having all three copies of ‘Advance Position’ in my hand and no scouts I wanted to bow to do the action.  I ended up going for his provinces with my whole army and ‘Hida Kuon” was able to take one on his own. However, most of my army got decimated by the Spider’s tricks. Surprisingly, he didn’t attack at my weakest moment. Eventually, he was able to take two of my provinces, so we were even on the province side of things. While most of his people were bowed out, except ‘Michio’ with a couple of attachments and ‘Daigotsu’ with a ‘Balanced Yari’, I decided to go in for the kill. My huge mistake was trying to be sly with Kuon with ‘Fubatsu Blade’ and ‘Imperial Elite Guard’ and not send him, hoping to use his Battle action to get him in the fight before Daigotsu could take him over. I had ‘Sneak Attack’ and ‘Peasant Vengeance’ in my hand. Of course, in deciding not to send Kuon in, I screwed up as he’d just wait until he did move in to take him over. This pretty much ended the game as I’d be all bowed out while his army would be able to attack next turn.

We wnet ahead and played it out to see what would have happened had I sent Kuon like I should have. I would have used ‘Sneak Attack’ to use the ‘Imperial Elite Guard’s’ battle action, destroying Daigotsu’s ‘Balanced Yari’. As a Reaction, he would have played ‘I Carry Two Blades!’ to give Daigotsu a ‘Balanced Yari’ from his hand, thus allowing him to take over Kuon anyway.

It was a good and relatively close game. I need to get a few more cards and a few more games in to help with my tactics, but I think I do okay for not having played in a while.

It seems the new edition of AEG’s Legend of the Five Rings, called Celestial Edition, was just released. Something about starting from scratch with a game I started playing back in Gold Edition is appealing. I seem to do this just about every edition since with me playing the game for varying intervals.

One of the things that drew me back in is the redesign of the cards. Man, they look really awesome now. While I have had a bit of trouble identifying some of the card types, I think I’ll get it under control pretty easily. The cards look somehow more “serious” (except for some of the anime-style art that I hate) and professional. I really dig the new look.

In the past, I have always played Crab and usually played Phoenix as a secondary choice. Back in the end of Samurai, I did the opposite. I’m sticking with that trend in Celestial as I read that the Phoenix have been redesigned a bit to allow for less loss of your Shugenja when doing the Shugenja/Samurai split. So I bought a starter and 5 boosters. In a couple of my boosters I got duplicates of a Crane Personality, which I will likely never use. I was able to build a deck from these cards, though I didn’t have enough copies of some of the more cool Actions (now called Strategies). I was able to throw down a game with one of the local guys, Mike, who had only bought a starter and a few boosters as well to build a Lion “Blitz” deck. I didn’t want to really play any of the guys who bought whole boxes of cards as I felt the playing field would have been too skewed in their favor. At 9pm, we called the game a draw with me having several more Personalities than he, yet having lost one Province.

I really like some of the rules changes in this edition. One thing is that you start with one or two Holdings in play depending on whether you are going first or not. One of those Holdings even allows you to get a new Dynasty draw. Another thing that is a change for the better, is that you start with 6 cards in hand instead of just 5. For the most part, everything else is pretty much the same.

I noticed several cards from way back making an appearance, though I can’t think of them now, so I’ll need to go through my old cards and find copies of those.

I hope to be able to play this game a bit more as I remember our old group from back in 2001 or so having a ton of fun playing this game.