GenCon after action report: Win!

The upright city of St. Piddlin was a hit a GenCon.

We drove up from Atlanta on Tuesday, leaving at 8 in the morning.  Traffic wasn't really an issue.  The drive was uneventful. We got to Indianapolis that afternoon and just had dinner, resting for the odyssey that would be the next five days.  On Wednesday we unloaded the truck.  Grover came by and was a great help with this. Lunch was at the Ram, a Brewpub downtown.  Wil Wheaton was there having lunch. I did not fanboy him.

 

There was quite a lot of work involved in this. We were worn out, so it was time for dinner and home then.  The next day was the opening of the show.  The dealer hall opened at 9 for the people who had paid for early entrance and for the celebrity types.  At ten, the rest of the gaming world descended upon us.  After that calmed down a bit, we met up the guys from 19 and 1, a gaming club in Indy.  We put up 4 gaming tables using MBA 28mm terrain for three and MBA 15mm terrain for one.   This is the 24' Castle into town battle table.  There is a game of bolt action going on in the background while the guys from DGS are running Freeblade.

This is the 16' of middle eastern conflict we set up being used for a zombie game.

There are tons more pics of the terrain and the rest of GenCon on facebook in our albums.  Here is  a link.  While you are there, make sure to like us.  Share us with your network please.

While Kirk and Jim worked the booth, I stayed in the gaming hall, talking about the new Castle Kickstarter and all of the great MBA terrain.  People were really excited about the stuff, and about a million pictures were taken of the castle table. The first day seemed to last forever. Finally six o'clock came, and the dealer hall shut down.

We then headed over to the Rathskeller, a German restaurant in downtown Indy.  Kirk had some of his friends meet us there.  They were the guys he'd served with in Iraq, and their families.  What  a great group of people.  Friendly and outgoing folks, I felt right at home with them.  We had *excellent* food and beer, plenty of conversation, and more than one "no shit, there I was" story was told.

The rest of the Con went by in similar fashion.  We got up early, to the con, worked until six, and then called it a day. On Friday we ran the Open Conflict game on the Middle eastern table.  It was well received to say the least.  The players blew up, ran over and shot each other in quite inventive ways.   The Americans camped in the base while the UN troops left behind the guys whose vehicle got RPG'd and the ISF just got pummeled.  The "BrownLiquid" Contractors were ignored as they whisked the prince out of the conflict area.  The Sunnis and Shias seemed to have the most fun,  ambushing convoys and bus jacking pilgrims.  The big winner of the day was Grover, Bus jacking the pilgrims, killing off ISF forces, and moving his rockets into place.

Saturday came and went in a blur.  Jim did get a chance to talk to an old friend from Iron Wind.

Sunday came and we had a big rush at the booth.  We packed it at 4, and had to wait what seem like forever before they'd let us load the truck.  We headed home then, and after another uneventful drive, GenCon 2013 was in the books.  We had a great time.  You should come next year!

 For those of you who might not be familiar with Gen Con:   It is the largest fan run gaming convention in America.   There were about 40,000 attendees and just about everyone one of them played *something* there.  Coolminiornot was handing out season 2 stuff from zombicide.  It was my first GenCon.  I found it to be an amazing experience.  I got to run the Iraq game, and played about 4 other games that weekend.  The celebrities were almost all gaming related.  DragonCon in Atlanta is larger, but is more focused  on parties and drinking (not a bad thing, just different).  I was pleased to find so many people who shared my interest, not just in Science Fiction / Fantasy, but in Gaming in specific.  Tooooooo much fun, you should try it!