His list:

• Sheik Araoui Ibn Khalid, Khaliman Diplomat
• Sorhna Oracle
• Malikh Jaraya
• Malikh Jaraya
• Suleman Ghulam
• Malikh Tuareg
• Malikh Meharist

My list:

• Tamel’Seh Far Eye
• Crow Thunder-Warrior
• Auroch Totem-Warrior
• Auroch Totem-Warrior
• Wolf Thunder-Warrior
• Toad Thunder-Warrior
• Toad Thunder-Warrior

Scenario: Jin posts.

Per the usual, I don’t remember all the details of the game, but for me it was mostly a refresher anyway. I did lose to Joel’s Khaliman and his superior tactics. The Meharist is one quick mutha and was able to take control of one of the Jin Posts very early and then come support the effort at the middle Jin post later on. We finished at 9pm rather than from playing a certain number of turns, unfortunately, as one of my Auroch Totem Warriors was in charge range of his Sheik.

I do still like Alkemy as a game, but the lack of releases makes it difficult to make it anywhere near the top of my gaming list. However, if anyone asks me to play, I’d be more than willing to do so.

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.

Here’s my Aurlok Nation list:

• Tamel’Seh Far Eye
• Auroch Totem Warrior
• Auroch Totem Warrior
• Wolf Thunder Warrior
• Crow Thunder Warrior
• Toad Medicine Shaman

Round 1 (Jin Posts) vs. Andy’s Kingdom of Avalon: With the exception of a second Crossbowan in place of a Templar Novice, Andy’s army ended up being nearly identical to Jim’s army, which I’d played before. The big fear for me in this game was getting my guys shot up on the approach to the Jin Posts. With as little scenery as we were using, this was a definite possibility. Also, having heard of, but not seen the effects of the Deacon’s “Corruptive Bonding” formula, there was fear of that as well. I deployed my forces mostly to my right side of the table in hopes of controlling one Jin Post definitely and contesting the center one. I don’t think in 200 points one has enough figures to cover all three. The first 3 rounds consisted of one or two activations and a pass on both our parts. Andy ran the Deacon around to collect as much components as possible. He was full up at 12. This game was very bloody. I ended up running one of my Aurochs into one of his Crossbowmen to try and minimize their effect and maybe cause some confusion. It didn’t really work all that well. The other guys hung around the Toad Medicine Shaman to build him up for his damage spell. In the end, we drew, but I’d lost all but a couple of figures.

Round 2 (Informants) vs. Doug’s Khaliman Republic: I’d never played this scenario before, but as it turns out, the army I built is perfect for this scenario. It’s all about speed and TamelSeh can hand it out while being pretty quick himself. I decided before the game began that my strategy would be to run full out and try to get the 5 VPs before Doug does. Doug used the Shiek’s first turn of activations to shoot at my army. The Wolf Thunder Warrior and TamelSeh ended up taking a couple of wounds each. This wouldn’t matter for the scenario and Doug would later say he regretted doing it. In the end, he tried to kill TamelSeh with the Shiek while TamelSeh was standing “on watch” next to the 3-point Informant. After two successful cover saves, it pretty much ended the game. We ended up spending the last 30 minutes chatting about all kinds of stuff. I ended up with a win and no minis lost or enemies killed.

Round 3 (The Chests) vs. Jim’s Kingdom of Avalon: I’ve played against Jim’s army before and so I had some idea what to expect. This scenario, however, I’d only played once. There wasn’t all that much eventful, unfortunately. Jim ended up successfully opening one chest and claiming a total of 7 VP in the end. I had 3. A good number of my figures were killed and several of his as well, due partly to the Deacon’s “Corruptive Bonding” spell. I ended up with a loss.

I came in 4th place and apparently was very close with 3rd, but my Goal Average broke the tie in Mark’s favor even including my bonus points for turning in my list on time and being the only one with a fully painted army.

The prize support was excellent and since only 6 people made it, I believe everyone walked away with something. Personally, I picked up the Khaliman starter.

While there were several well painted figures in the painting competition, I ended up winning with my Toad Medicine Shaman. This entitled me to my choice of LE figure when prize distribution came around (though, that painting DVD was sounding good, Doug! ) and I chose the Khaliman LE.

Sryth picked up the Khaliman Tuareg box and hooked me up with it with the promise I’d “hook him up” with something sometime.

All in all, the tournament was a blast and it was great getting to see the guys from St. Louis again. I look forward to the next time we can do something like this. And thanks, Doug, for bringing prize support!!!

After that, Joel and I sat down to a game. I played my tournament list:

• Tamel’Seh Far Eye
• Auroch Totem Warrior
• Auroch Totem Warrior
• Toad Medicine Shaman
• Wolf Thunder Warrior
• Crow Thunder Warrior

I was thinking that based on my last few games that I haven’t been gathering all the components I should be and I haven’t been using the Toad Medicine Shaman to his fullest potential.

He played:

• Sheik Araoui Ibn Khalid
• Oracle of the Sornha Family
• Ghulam of the Suleman Family
• Jaraya of the Malikh Family
• Jaraya of the Malikh Family
• Malik Tuareg

This was a really good game. Not really a close game, though, since he jumped on two of the Jin Posts before I did and got an early lead. He and I controlled one of the Jin Posts on either end of the table easily and quickly while we fought back and forth for the middle one. My one big mistake was not running everyone closer to the Posts on the first turn. Instead, I moved the Toad Medicine Shaman slowly and behind everyone to benefit from his “Empathy” ability and to build the setup for his “Animal Fury” formula. I did end up getting the formula to work, but it failed to killl anyone. All in all, I think that was my big and really the only game-changing mistake I made. In the end it was 3-0 in Joel’s favor. In the end all of his remaining figures were in the red while the figures I had were mostly pretty well off health wise. A very fun and good game.

I have all my minis painted for my army and I feel like I can run it pretty well now, so let’s see how the tournament goes.

There seems to be some confusion on my part as to whether there’ll be a painting competition at this tournament. I thought for sure there was, but the organizer seemed to be unsure since he doesn’t know what prize support will be there. Oh well.

That leaves four other Alkemy figures I own that need painting, which are the least detailed (Toad Thunder Warriors and Thapioca).

• Tecum’Seh, Crow Sachem
• Auroch Totem Warrior
• Auroch Totem Warrior
• Toad Medicine Shaman
• Wolf Thunder Warrior
• Crow Thunder Warrior

I’m not sure what Jim was using, but here’s my guess:

• Deacon Leodegarius
• Countryside Priest
• Avalonian Recruits (x2)
• Templar Novice (x3)
• Knight Errant

We had toruble setting up the tinted terrain as usual because the wording is a little bit confusing, but since we were both using Earth, it didn’t really matter much. There was much discussion about whether the alchemist needs to be within 1″ of the terrain piece or within 1″ of the (tiny) marker to gather elements, which according to this thread, shows that it’s by the marker. I also suggested we use a little bit more LoS blocking terrain outside of the six tinted pieces of scenery since shooting seems pretty powerful in this game and my army doesn’t have much in the way of shooting. So, we used 8 pieces of scenery total as a compromise.

My mental block with this game seems to be how to use my alchemist. Seems like every game I end up with my Toad Shaman way in the back trying to gather components while the rest of the army is moving in to complete the objective. I feel like if I spend the first turn gathering components and protecting the Shaman, I am sacrificing the objectives of the game. If , however, I only gather components once, I’ll only be able to cast any of his spells once or twice. Not to mention the medicine Shaman’s “Empathy” ability that only works if he’s within 6 inches of his buddies. I guess I just need more practice.

It was a really good game. There wasn’t anything really all that notable in the game, however. It ended up coming down to a draw that really could have gone either way had we played as long as we might have in the tournament.

Now to get my army painted for the tournament!