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Back from Midsouth Con. I’m tired, but not terribly tired. I unfortunately do not have all that much to report.

I went to the con, but didn’t really have much interest in playing many games. I’ve been kind of meh on new games lately and haven’t really been interested in anything. And the games I’m really interested in getting played. (Age of Steam/Power Grid/Tigris & Euphrates) It seems like nobody wants to play those anymore. At least, in my area and at this con.

I didn’t even see a single game of Battlestar Galactica get played this year.

So, what did I play… Well let’s see.

Friday, I played one game of Race for the Galaxy. A game I really like but hardly ever play here in Oxford, I believe mainly because I don’t have it in the box, and when I go to look for what to play, I don’t see it. (I really need to print some game sheets with my new database of games).

I played one game of Cosmic Encounter with the new Races and Tech Cards. It was a full six player game, which can kinda make Cosmic Encounter drag a little, and basically makes the tech cards worthless anyway, since it takes to many turns to get around to you.

And I played one game of Werewolf. Then I went to bed around 12:00. (I actually went to bed quite early both nights, if you can call 12:00 early)

Saturday, I woke up having to run one of my only two scheduled games for the Con. I ran Dungeon Lords, a game I have been quite enamored with lately. It’s a really good game, one of the few new games I’m actually interested in playing. I don’t know how long it will stay that way, but it’s still going strong for now.

After that, I wandered the dealer room for a little while and goofed off looking at people, popping in to the art room, etc. I picked up a copy of Are you the Traitor? in the dealer room because I had been wanting to try it as it had some roots in Covert Action, a game I enjoyed but kind of thought got broken by the fact that there was no known information at all in the game before you played.

I wandered back into the Boardgame room and found a few people that were willing to give it a shot with me. After one small restart when we discovered we were playing one rule wrong that broke the game, we started again and I had a pretty nice time with the game. I’ll give it a few more plays, but I still am not sure it’s worth the $15 bucks that this game will cost you. It will probably end up on my trade pile eventually, but alas, so having problems finding that ‘small group’ werewolf style game. If only I had liked Shadow Hunters… Maybe I should give that game another shot.

After this the same group of players decided to play a game of Small World. It’s an alright game, I tend to play it quite a bit, and bought a copy because of circumstances, but I’ve never been all that thrilled with the game. I have a nice time playing it, but the game always feels to samey to me, and there are no tactics at all with map locations and the like. I really want to print out that variable map, I want to bring location strategies and bottlenecks etc into this game, which doesn’t exist out of the box.

I had wanted to get in on a game of Stronghold which was being demoed later on Saturday, but got caught up after Small World wandering the halls and such instead of in the boardgame room. By the time I went back, it was time for me to run my last scheduled game of the Con: Last Night on Earth.

We ran the ‘Get in the Truck’ Scenario. I actually didn’t play the game, I only moderated because five people showed up to play and the game is better with five than with six. So I gave up my seat (as a good con GM should) and ran the game with the better player number. The game ended up being a pretty tough one for the Humans. They went through at least half the deck but could never seem to find the keys to the truck. In the end, the Zombies got to the third human one turn before the end anyway.

I played a quick game of Bang before heading down to the Masquerade which was so fun last year I wanted to see it again. This years Masquerade had some nice costumes, but I think last years was a little bit stronger.

After the Masquerade I went down and Moderated about two or three games of Werewolf before going to bed sometime around 2:00 I think.

On Sunday, I woke up kinda tired, wandered down to the boardgame room which was dead, and mostly played a game of Medici. We had to call it a tad bit early because some scheduled games that players were in were starting up and some players had to check out of the hotel. But I was in a solid third out of four places after the second boat and wasn’t to broken up about having to stop the game.

I played another game of Race for the Galaxy then to kill a little bit of time before wandering back down to the dealer room to try to see if anything was there or pick up any games I wanted. It was a futile effort because I just don’t see any games out there that I really want. New or Old. I’m becoming jaded with my purchases… So Jaded.

I went back up to Boardgame room where a friend taught me Ninja vs Ninja. A game I needed to learn because I’m teaching it at OMGA Gameday pretty soon. It was a quite nice little filler game, would work quite well with children. We’re giving a copy away at OMGA Gameday if you’re interested.

After that, we pulled out the Library copy of Polarity and gave that a whirl. I’ve seen the game before and it always seemed so gimmicky but I rather enjoyed the game and the owner of the library copy said he wanted to sell it and gave me a really good price, so I bought it from him on the spot. I still owe him two dollars too, because I didn’t happen to have all of his asking price in my wallet, thankfully he knows I’m good for it. I’m kind of excited to try it out with Val or Sarah and see what they think. Or even KF or CA.

After this, I sat around and talked for a bit before heading home.

So in the whole con, I only picked up two games. Polarity, and Are you the traitor?
Oh well, it was a pretty fun con, a little light on the gaming, and nil on the pictures as I didn’t take any. I took a little bit of video at the ‘Great Luke Ski’ Concert but that was essentially it. I’ll try to grab some stills of whatever I did take and maybe some other friends pictures and get at least a couple of things on here later. But for right now this will have to do.

written by Chris \\ tags: Boardgames, Masquerade, Medici, Memphis, MidsouthCon, Polarity, Race for the Galaxy, werewolf

Just wanted to do an official recap to MidsouthCon 27.

Day 1
Took half a day off Friday and headed up around 2:00. Got there and checked in by 3:30. My first scheduled game of the night wasn’t Battlestar Galactica until something like 7:00, so we grabbed a couple of hand games and went to the Con Suite to check it out.

With the Premium Sticker (Always recommended for MSC) I grabbed a Killians and sat down with some more of the Oxford Contingent and played a few games of ‘No Thanks’ while we were killing time and reading through the Program Book. Had maybe another beer or two, and went back to the Boardgame Room to set up for Battlestar.

The Boardgame Room was kind of nice this year. It was a narrow but deep room, which allowed for two roomy rows of tables. Found my table, setup Battlestar Galactica and got ready to play. There were no new players at my game, so we got to jump right in and play (Always Nice). I ended up being a human, and despite it looking good early on, we ended up losing on Fuel. The funniest thing about this game was the number of people that came by asking us why we were playing BSG while the Series Finale was going on?

After BSG, I found some Dinner, and started lining people up for Werewolf. I love Werewolf, and will play it for the rest of my life. It has become very popular at Midsouthcon, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why they won’t schedule us our own room for it. Two rooms, that are quiet and close to each other are perfect. Even if it’s one big room. But I don’t think people that don’t play understand how loud the game can get. So, plugging two games into one small room just doesn’t make anyone happy.

Past years were almost perfect. Usually there was a large ballroom with a high ceiling that we would sit on two ends of. This worked well, because the high ceiling kept noise down, but you could see the other game going on as well, so you knew when there was a new one starting up.

Anyway, we made due with what we had the first night. We found a quiet room, albeit a little bit small. And we had two circles going at one time for some of it. I ended up running games until about 4:00 am. I did try to sit down and play two games. But I was lynched D1 in one of the games, and I was taken out by the vigilante on D1 in the other.

Day 2
I had to wake up around 9:00 in the morning after going to bed. I was running Age of Steam at 10:00 am and I’m not allowed to miss, (or I get in lots of trouble), so, after Shower, etc. I was down there about 15 minutes prior. To a nearly empty room. There were a few, but mainly I sat in the front of the room chatting with some of the Memphis Strategy Board Game Club Regulars (MSBGC). Nobody wanted to play Age of Steam that early in the morning, and there were about five of us, so I ran up to the room to grab Red November. When I got back, I started pulling it out, and one of the players said, “I thought we were playing Age of Steam”. Since he was the only one that wanted to play, and two player Age of Steam wasn’t really on anybody’s want to play list, it kind of killed the game, and a group spurted off to play Through the Ages.

I decided to take the time to instead clean up a little, get something to eat in the Con Suite, etc. By the time I got back, I had brought Manoeuvre, and got in a couple of quick games of this one. I love this game more and more, but I am coming to the realization that I really suck at it.

After Manoeuvre, I had promised to play Ticket to Ride with KF and MD. So we set that one up and played a quick game of that one. I always hope to make new gamers, and will never begrudge teaching someone a game I know that they have a good chance of liking.

After Ticket to Ride and some incidentals (I think I snuck a game of Race for the Galaxy in). I had to set up for my next scheduled game of the day, which was Last Night on Earth. I started setting it up, but didn’t really have any takers, until I persuaded a group near me trying to get a munchkin game in to try it out.

Now, I’m not a Zombie game Fan. Hardly watch the movies etc. But Last Night on Earth is fun. We played with KF’s copy which is all painted and has a model truck in it, which kind of made the game a little bit. All the players enjoyed. Even though the humans were killed so close to finishing their goal.

Put up the game, grabbed something to eat in the Con Suite, and went back to the Con. I had promised KF that I would play less games and experience more of the Con this year. I decided I would give the Masquerade a shot, and we went to secure seats for that.

I had an enjoyable time, there were some great costumes (Some of which I have pictures of) and the ‘Halftime Entertainment’ was awesome. There was a “Mad Scientist” (Magician, but he called his tricks science) I can’t remember his web site, something about global world domination .com or something. And there was also The Great Luke Ski. A parody song artist who sings Sci Fi remixes of lots of songs. Thought both of them were fun, and enjoyed it enough that I bought two of his CD’s the next day in the dealer room. If you’ve never heard him before. I’d recommend starting out with Grease Wars and Battlestar Rhapsody. Spock Star is also great, and can be picked up for free here (for a limited time).

After the Masquerade, went back to the Board Game Room and ran Werewolf until 6:00 am. Actually ran it until about 5:30, then proceeded to play one game, which I finally got to live past D1 in and played a nice part in helping the village win. Had to give it up at this point, and went to bed.

Of note, I lost my werewolf cards. They were playing with them when I left. But I didn’t get them back the next day. I’m not terribly upset, we were using my old Lupus in Tabula cards which was a frankendeck that had been through a lot in 5 years or so. I have a deck of Ultimate Werewolf: Ultimate Edition but I had not brought it. This was fine except when the little 19 year old girl complained when she came to my circle to play in my game after the other circle had given up and she complained about using the crappy cards (The other game was running with Ultimate WW: Ultimate Edition). Umm, Listen Little Girl. I was playing Werewolf when you were in diapers (probably an exaggeration) and these cards have been through 5 or 6 MSC’s and a dozen or so other Con’s. But I digress…

Day 3
Had to wake up to Check out by 11:00, just barely made it. Packed the car, Got a Shower, and Checked out. Went to ConSuite to get some Breakfast, then headed to Boardgame Room.

Here is where I discovered I had wanted to play Amyitis at 9:00 am Sunday morning. (What was I thinking?!?). Completely had forgotten about it. Ended up playing a game of Red November (finally) and I liked it. Going to have to bring that one out a bit more at home.

After Red November, played a game of Amyitis (Also loved it). Our group has had a copy for a while, but we’ve been unable to break it out. The rules are not so well written on that one. But it’s a pretty simple game when you break it down.

Conclusion
After that, I headed home. Another great year. Hotel had its quirks, and there were some restrictions that I didn’t agree with. Heck, all of the Memphis Cons have some restrictions I don’t necessarily agree with, but I can get on board with them since they do so many other things right.

I did take a few pictures. I’ve uploaded those to the fileserver and I will attach the directory here. Some of these are mine, a couple of them I snagged from other friends that took photos to get you a general idea of the convention. Since my camera (Val’s Camera) ran out of battery halfway through I was relegated to using my Video Camera and extracting stills for most of my stuff.

Here’s a link to the Gallery:

written by Chris \\ tags: Age of Steam, Amyitis, Battlestar Galactica, Beer, Killians, Last Night on Earth, Lupus in Tabula, MidsouthCon, MSBGC, Munchkin, No Thanks, Pictures, rant, Red November, The Great Luke Ski, Through the Ages, Ticket to Ride, Ultimate Werewolf, werewolf

I’m packing up the car right now, getting ready to head out tomorrow afternoon to MidSouthCon. I’m taking clothes, toothbrush, CAMERA’s (I promise promise promise to actually take some pictures), Video Camera, and GAMES.

I’m running a few games, I have to pack these

• Werewolf (I’m running lots of werewolf)
• Battlestar Galactica
• Last Night on Earth (KF’s copy since his is painted)
• Age of Steam

Other than that, I’m packing the stuff I might really want to play, but which might not be in the library. However, I don’t want to pack too much crap to take up there. So, that probably means things like Um Reifenbrite, Tinners Trail, Pandemic, Galaxy Trucker, Schrille Stille, Steel Driver, Bolide, Traumfabrik, Manila, Ghost Stories.

That sounds like a pretty good start, but I really don’t know what will finally end up in the car. I would imagine that a lot of my collection (which is pretty standard, since I’m the main game buyer in the group.) will already be in the library. I’ll probably also throw my emergency game kit in the car as well, simply because it fills so many different niches in such a small amount of space.

If you haven’t been to Midsouthcon, and you live in driving distance, you really are kind of missing out. It’s a growing con, it has a very good boardgame contingent these days. I’d say a good 150 to 200. And the last couple of years, they’ve done lots of good things regarding having a con library etc, that some of the other cons are doing.

They still stick pretty heavily to scheduled gaming sessions, but, there is a fair amount of open gaming as well, I typically run a few games, but try to leave the bulk of Saturday afternoon, and evening being open games. My scheduled games are Friday night, and Saturday morning…

Alright, my Non-Werewolf Scheduled games…

Which brings me to the Werewolf. That has definitely been growing the last few years at Midsouthcon. It has gotten more and more popular every year. I am one of several people that will help run werewolf at the con. Although there are a few new players which might perform a few sub optimal plays, toward the end of the weekend, you can pinpoint a few players that are beginning to get it, and then, the next year, when those players come back and sit in your ring, you get a little smile on your face.

written by Chris \\ tags: Boardgames, Game Collection, MidsouthCon, werewolf

Just a quick update to let people know I made it back from my visit to Mom this weekend. She called me while I was on the way there to make sure I was bringing the Kids. I’m sure if I didn’t have the kids with me, she wouldn’t have allowed me to come!!!

Anyway, and a nice visit. On Saturday I did get to use my coupon to go see the Watchmen for free. Now I don’t feel so bad shelling out 20 bucks for the Motion Comic, seeing as how I saved $7 on the movie ticket.

I liked it. I think I like it just as much as I liked the book. Of course, they had to make some sacrifices, but the key elements are there. Which is really all you can hope for in a movie.

The kids had a good time too, they always enjoy visiting Mom, but the visits are always so short, they lead such busy lives.

Yayy!! This coming weekend is MidsouthCon. I’m sure I’ll say more on that later. But for now it should be enough to know I am starting to get a little excited.

written by Chris \\ tags: Books, Kids, MidsouthCon, Mom, Movies, Watchmen

I posted the other day that Midsouthcon had ended. The sluggishness of me in the last couple of days as I finally worked back into my regular routine was true evidence of that.

But I did want to go into the weekend a little bit more clearly and share some of my experiences.

Friday

Kevin and I arrived at the hotel around 5:30 or so and got checked in and immediately I headed for registration to pick up my badge. I went into the Board Game Room where I met up with some of my old friends who I hadn’t seen since last year, as well as some of the Memphis Board Gamers that I see on occasion. I spent the better part of an hour chatting and visiting, catching up with people.

I had a starting game scheduled for 7:00, at around 6:20, me and a couple of others decided to try to play a quick game of Pandemic. We thought we might be able to finish before having to set up my 7:00 appointment game. So we decided to try to beat Pandemic on hard mode (six epidemic cards in the deck). Well. It worked. We ended the game really quick (I think it was 4 turns). Took about 10 minutes before we lost on outbreaks in the Black Plague Disease in Asia.

I then set up my appointment game: Age of Steam. A few people had signed up and it ended up being a pretty full game, and we had three new people in the game, so JM and I decided to play the regular rust belt map to break them in, hoping that nobody would go bankrupt. The map provides a lot of openness and is a pretty good map for the first play. Especially since it has no rule changes, or differences, as well as a couple of prime starting spots… usually. This one was a little tighter, cube draw didn’t leave a whole lot of great goods deliveries in the first turn, but everyone managed a little bit here and there, and finally, everyone managed to find a groove. JM and I both did spurt out in front, and our experience kept us ahead of everyone, unfortunately, JM managed to beat me by 1/3 of a point. So close…

Agricola was the next game we played. I’ve been wanting to try this game for ages. Ever since BGG.con last year, but didn’t managed to get into a game whenever one would start up (They always filled so fast). It looks daunting at first, but I settled in and figured out that really it’s just about picking actions and optimizing your farm with little time and manpower to actually do everything you want to do. This game was great. I already had a copy of this game on order for when it comes out in english later this year. I’m glad. Now I know I won’t be dissappointed.

After that it was Werewolf time. I headed over to the Ballroom and promptly we started getting together a game or two and going. I went to bed fairly early (around 3).

Saturday

I woke up early in the morning because I had scheduled to GM a game of Tigris and Euphrates. I had originally wanted to play it at noon. But it got moved to 10:00 am for scheduling reasons.

Well, Tigris & Euphrates didn’t make. One person signed up, but he had never played before and two person T&E can be sort of brutal. So instead, we found a couple more and played a four player game of Race for the Galaxy.

I’m loving RftG more and more I play it. I definately prefer it with two players though. But it’s fun with four. I got old earth so went the production strategy. After I got a decent base of production worlds, I started doing the double victory point consumes. We ran out of Victory points for the end game condition, but I was probably one turn shy of winning, I ended up losing by a couple of points to JR.

I had a noon game of Reef Encounter Scheduled as well, so I set up that one. This one also only had one person sign up. But unlike Tigris & Euphrates, I love Reef Encounter with two people. So I explained the rules and we went forward. Reef Encounter is the kind of game that you just aren’t going to get your first time through. But when everything clicks and you see all the strategy. Then it becomes a magical game which gives you so many options and different things you can do. Since I was teaching the game. This was one I did manage to win. Despite making a large error and leaving an open reef because I forgot I already had all my shrimp on the board.

Next was a scheduled game I signed up for at 2:00 called Arkadia. I bought this last year after Essen based on reviews, but never managed to get it to the table. I’m glad I finally got to play this one though. I liked it, it’s easy to learn, and it plays fast. This one will be getting more plays from me in the near future. I think I came in third place (out of four) on this one, as I really had too much diversity in my seals rather than concentrating on a couple of colors and maximizing my score in those. Clever little game.

After Arkadia JM and I showed two new people how to play In the Shadow of the Emperor. I’ve never played this game in Real life (I picked up a copy like two years ago in a trade though). But I thought it was pretty good when I played it a couple of times on Mabiweb. Oddly enough there was alot of struggles and a lot of screw-age in the elections (even from the new guys), but in the end JM and I ended up tying for the win at 28 vp’s each. And there is no tiebreaker. I’m glad I finally played this one in real life though. Now I know it’s too fiddly and I can go ahead and get rid of it. Even if I do think it’s a pretty nice game, nobody around here would agree with me though, and it just isn’t in the Must have category.

At this time. A few of us went to the Con Suite to partake in a few adult beverages and play a couple of light games. Got a couple of games of Mr. Jack in (lost both), Tichu (which we won), and a couple of rounds of Zendo (in which I guessed one of the rules).

After that, it was Werewolf time. Saturday night was much louder than Friday night, and I started getting a headache. And the groups were too big, but I modded a couple of games (and having a huge error happen which caused a re-deal in one of them) before we found a small group of the better players and went into another room to play some quieter no reveal games (a little more advanced, but way better types of games).

Around 5:00 Saturday Night(/Sunday Morning I guess) I staggered into the Board game Room where I scratched my name off of the 9:00 start of Republic of Rome. A game I really wanted to play, but just knew I wasn’t going to make it to. Then I went to my room and slept.

Sunday

KF thumped me on the head at about 8:50 Sunday Morning and said that we were going to miss Republic of Rome. I told him I already had given up on trying to make it and went back to sleep. I slept till about 9:30, then got up and started packing so we could check out of the hotel before the deadline.

After getting everything taken care of: I went back to the Board game Room to see if I could get a few more things played before having to go back home. As soon as I walked in, A small family of three had checked out a game of Ra from the Game Library, and JF asked if I could teach it to them. I obliged and sat and taught and moderated their Ra game to make sure scoring and everything was handled accurately. They were a nice crew. Though I didn’t know them. I hope they had a nice Con.

JM punched In the Year of the Dragon while I was teaching/observing Ra. and JF started setting up a game of Power Grid. I had a tough choice, but they needed someone to teach In the Year of the Dragon (A game I had only played once, but felt I could teach) so I went with that.

It was a good game I managed to squeak out a victory in that one too, being that I was the only one who had played it before. I managed to pick up one of the two dragon privileges in the 4th turn, and rode that to a tight victory. I was low on final scoring, but the extra pickups during the game kept me ahead.

After that, I went to the Dealer room (First time all weekend!!!) to look around and ended up picking up 10 dice at $0.20 each.

When I came back to the boardgame room a couple of people wanted to give Pandemic another shot and had set it up. This time we tried it on Medium.

This game was much closer, even though we didn’t have a medic, we managed to scrounge and scrap to stay ahead of the diseases. Coming close a couple of times to losing it with running out of cubes, we would cure diseases and take that game end away in the nick of time. However, in the end, we ended up Losing on Outbreaks one turn before the Scientist (me) was about to cure the last disease. (It was on the last draw of infection cards at the 4 infection rate, i.e. we had already survived all of our epidemics). Still a loss is a loss, but it seems to hurt a little more when it happens like that.

Finally, We ended by playing a game of Mykerinos. I had never played it before. It was interesting, I wouldn’t say I hated it. But it didn’t really do too much for me. But it did play fast, and had some nice plays that you could do. Along with some special powers. I lost this one by underestimating the strength of the museum in the end. I won’t be picking up this one.

Conclusion

Another Great Weekend has come and Gone. My thanks goes to NG and JF for putting everything in the boardgame room together, everything was great. I would also like to thank all of the staff and volunteers (including myself I guess) of Midsouthcon, for another weekend of fun. Midsouth con is a great con for pure gaming, and the personalities that are there are why that is the case.

written by Chris \\ tags: Boardgames, MidsouthCon, playlists