Origins 2013 Recap, Part II

On Friday, we got up early again, went out for breakfast, and headed into the con.  All of us headed into the Dealer's Room and I headed to the Mayfair Games booth - they were giving out some pretty cool cloisonne pins:

(It was two pins per attendee, but I whined until my friends gave me their doubles).  Soon after, my wife & her friend got sucked in to a demo of Cheap Shot at the Gut Bustin' Games booth - I think my wife has bought a game from them every year at Origins.  Their games are extremely silly and light, but lots of fun - the best way to describe Cheap Shot is "Rummy with 'yo' mama' jokes".

Next, I headed to the Catalyst Game Labs booth and made my first big purchase, a copy of Levithans:

Leviathans is a fleet-combat miniatures games with a steampunk theme - basically flying battleships.  I first played Levithans at GenCon several years ago when it was still in development and was just paper cutouts - I tried to buy it the next year, but the shipping container didn't make it from overseas in time for the show.  This year I grabbed a copy, and it looks beautiful - it rivals the Fantasy Flight "coffin-box" games for quality. I'm looking forward to doing a complete write-up on this one in the future.

Next, I headed to the Z-Man Games booth and grabbed a copy of Pandemic: On The Brink:

I tried to buy this last year, but all the Pandemic stuff was out of stock due to a new version being printed.  The parts in this expansion are really cool (little petri dishes with "disease" labels).  I need to dig out my copy of the base game, because you need to affix a sticker to the original board for the expansion.

Next, I went by the Rio Grande booth and bought the copy of Dominion: Alchemy shown above - I really like Dominion, and have been meaning to start pickup up all the expansions, but so far Seaside is the only one I have - Alchemy was on sale for crazy cheap, so I decided to grab it.

We took our purchases to the car and headed to The North Market for lunch, where we ran into a big group of friends.  While we were eating, I saw the man himself, Kevin Sorbo heading in for a bite.  He's shorter than I expected.

After lunch we headed back to the Board Room to play some games.  We started out with Ticket to Ride: Europe:

I love the original Ticket to Ride, and I'm pretty good at it (thanks to obsessively playing the phone app version of it), but I didn't like the Europe variant that much - I didn't grasp the "passenger" mechanic until pretty late in the game (by then it was too late to do me much good), and it's surprisingly hard to plan your routes when you're completely unfamiliar with the cities - you have to spend five minutes at the beginning of every turn making sure you know where you're going.  I'm sure it would get easier with more plays, but I'll stick with the original for now.

Next, we played a few rounds of Zombie Fluxx:

My wife with an impressive collection of creepers by round 3

The Fluxx games are a favorite of ours, and our friends caught on quick.

After my wife kept insisting we play Clue (which frankly isn't that good, and I don't come to gaming conventions to play games that you can buy at any K-Mart) we talked her into trying Kill Doctor Lucky, which we thought would scratch the same itch, but be a bit more challenging/enjoyable:

...luckily, we were right - we wound up playing two games, and added the ...and His Little Dog, Too! expansion the second time:

My wife did nothing to prevent this little wooden terrier's terrible demise

Funderhammer was the runaway winner of the Doctor Lucky games, and his celebratory antics might have seemed a bit... strange, to some people:

You feelin' okay, bud?  You sound a little hoarse...

After this we tried to play Carcassone, but the CABS volunteer gave us a different version - this was the "City" variant that none of us were familiar with, and we tried to muddle through it, but it just wasn't working.  We decided to take a break and make another pass through the dealer room.

I stopped by the Offworld Designs booth to pick up my official con t-shirt, and decided I also needed a cool way to display the Mayfair pins I got from their booth:

I stopped by the Chessex booth to take advantage of their "cup 'o dice" deal, then Funderhammer & I headed to the Q-Workshop booth, where I picked up a really cool leather dice cup with Dwarven runes:

Funderhammer's fiancee was buying him Warmachine faction dice, and my awesome wife saw them and decided to get me a set, too:

Next we headed over to the artist's area, and my wife found a print at the booth of one of our favorite artists. Mike Bocianowski.  On the way out, I stopped by the Cheapass Games booth and grabbed a game:

After dropping our purchases off at the car, we headed over to the Mongolian barbecue for dinner:

The food was great, but we were right next to the grill during the dinner rush, and couldn't hear ourselves think.

Afterwards we considered heading back in to the con, but we were all pretty tired, full, and broke, so we decided to call it a day.  Another Origins in the bag!

Origins 2013 Recap, Part I

...as I mentioned in my previous post, my wife & I spent most of the past week at Origins Game Fair.  Origins is by far one of our favorite cons - it's the first gaming convention I ever attended, and having it 10 minutes from home is massively convenient -  we can come home and sleep in our own bed every night, pack food for the day each morning, etc.

Wednesday

We got moving Wednesday afternoon and headed in to meet our friends at the con.  There was one problem - we couldn't get in:

Apparently there was a small fire in the basement, and the convention center was evacuated.  After standing around the main entrance for a while, word passed through the crowd that the food court was open, so we walked several blocks down High St., met up with our friend and her son, and went in to get some dinner.  After dinner, we went to a sitting area by the shops to kill time.  I haven't been able to find any of my dice since I moved last fall, but luckily there is a small comic book shop in the convention center - on their clearance table I found the cheapest dice set available - $3.50 for prison-issue gray:

Not pretty, but they would get me through the con.  Soon after, we heard they were letting people back in to the main areas of the convention center - we headed over, because our friend hadn't pre-registered, so she still had to buy badges for her & the family.  One problem: due to the fire, all the cons computer's were down.  We set up camp at a nearby coffee shop - the ten-year-old boy that was with us was getting antsy waiting around, but luckily my wife had the foresight to pack some coloring books:

This kept everyone occupied for the next hour, when our friend was finally able to get her badges.  At this point, Wednesday was pretty much a write-off - not a huge deal, since we started late to begin with.  We made plans to meet the next day and headed home.

Thursday

Thursday we got a much earlier start, and my wife even made us awesome french toast with fresh strawberries from the farmers' market for breakfast:

After breakfast, we headed into the con.  My wife headed down to the Board Room to meet our friends, while I made my first trip through the dealer room to do some recon.  I made a note of my "must-visit" vendors and headed to meet them.

One of our favorite parts of Origins is the Board Room:

Run by the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society, It's a huge convention hall filled with tables.  For a $20 flat fee, you get access to their entire library of over 1,000 games.  In addition, for the past several years everyone who buys a Board Room pass gets a free game, and drinks/snacks/other goodies are routinely put out throughout the con.  The other nice thing is that if you have a large group and everyone buys a Board Room pass, you can pretty much set up a "home base" in the Board Room for most of the con - people can come & go for their scheduled events, everyone else can play games or just hang out.

After getting to the Board Room, the ladies were already involved in a game of Flowerpower, so the boy & I got out our Nintendo DS's, and played some Super Mario.  After they finished, we tried Wasabi!

This was a tile-laying game where you're trying to gather the ingredients to build sushi rolls - it was actually quite fun, and involved a good deal of strategy later in the game.  It was challenging enough to keep the adults interested, but the ten-year-old didn't have any trouble playing it either, so I'd say this has great potential if you're looking for a family-friendly game.

Next my wife came back with a copy of Those Pesky Garden Gnomes:

(My wife is a total sucker for any games with a garden gnome theme, of which there are surprisingly quite a few).  This game was okay - it's basically Pinochle with a garden gnome theme hung on it.  It was worth a play just for the laughs we got out of me scoring negative sixty-one points during one round.

I got a text from some friends and when to meet them for lunch across the street at The North Market.  After a slice of pizza, I headed back and was making another round of the Dealer's Room when I got a text to meet my group at the BattleTech Pods:

I had seen these every time I've gone to Origins, but never tried them - the boy had played them the previous year, and was eager to give it another go, so I was enlisted.  They ask you what your want your nickname to be, and it's displayed on a LED screen on the side of your pod - the boy picked the nickname "Poop" (which, I assure you, is hilarious to a fourth-grader), so of course I picked "Poop Squisher".  After several rounds of combat, Poop Squisher emerged victorious, defeating Poop 1 - 0.  The pods were pretty neat, but at six bucks a pop are kinda expensive - I guess they're worth it if you have a large group that wants to try it together, or you're a huge fan of the BattleTech universe.  They did offer a discount if you bought three plays at a time.

At this point our friends had to leave for the evening, so my wife decided to head home and pick me up later.  I grabbed a bite to eat and headed to my last event for the day, a DC-universe Mutants and Masterminds RPG.

I met up with my friends and we headed into the game, where we were told we would be moving.  In the past few years Origins has started a neat idea where randomly selected games are "upgraded", usually meaning you get to play with one of the industry folks or a celebrity guest.  We followed an Origins employee to a private dining room off of the food court, where we were seated at a table with white linens, and someone took drink orders.  We were told we would be playing with the designer of Mutants and Masterminds, Steve Kenson.

The GM had pre-gen characters rolled up - I'm actually not terribly familiar with the DC universe (I've always been more of a Marvel guy - most of my knowledge of DC comes from the Batman cartoon from the early 90's.)  We were a team of villians, and I was hoping for Clayface, but by the time it was my turn to choose the only character left that I knew was Metallo.  I won't get into the whole game scenario here, but suffice it to say that it was tons of fun - the GM was excellent and rolled with the punches, instead of trying to pigeonhole us into doing what he wanted (this can be a big problem when playing RPG's at cons, where you're dealing with a very limited time for a game).  Everyone in the group contributed a lot, was funny but kept everything moving, and Steve was a lot of fun and seemed to really enjoy the game.  (Plus, I got to knock out Superman AND Wonder Woman - Booya!)  After the game I texted my wife to come get me - I jumped in the car and headed home for the night.

Part II next!

Origins 2013!

     It's that time again - for the rest of the week, the wife & I (as well as Funderhammer & his familial unit) will be attending our hometown con, Origins Game Fair!  I'll give a complete write-up when I get back, but you can follow my Twitter feed for up-to-the-minute coverage!

Great Bears of Gallowswood

I finished building the Great Bears of Gallowswood that Funderhammer got me for my birthday at Adepticon this year:

(Note: those axes are stoopid and fidgety, and I hate them).  Looking forward to trying this unit - Funderhammer seems to think they will address some gaps in my Khador force, and he's the one that's going to be facing them 90% of the time, so we'll see if he's right...

Lego D00dz!

Hey all -

     Not really wargaming-related, but I've seen a bit of crossover between wargamers and Lego collectors, so I thought I'd share a quick pic of some cool birthday presents I got this year:

Proof that my friends are awesome!

"...and then the guy jumps out and yells, "Supplies!"

One of the places I've been meaning to take a trip to forever is Dick Blick, a "fine art" supplies store that happens to have a brick-and-mortar location not far from my neighborhood.  I budgeted a little bit of money and made a trip there the other day to get some things I've been meaning to pick up for quite some time:

Airbrush Medium:

Until now, I've been using rubbing alcohol to thin my hobby acrylics for airbrush use, which has good points and bad points.  I've been meaning to try dedicated airbrush medium for a while, but none of the Michael's / Hobby Lobby -type store carry it, so I finally made a trip to pick some up - details as I experiment with it.

Water-Mixable Oil Paints:

At Adepticon this year Les Bursley gave us a demonstration of how he uses oil washes . Needless to say, I immediately wanted to try it.  During the demo, Les actually used Winsor Newton water mixable oil paints & water, as opposed to traditional oil paints & mineral spirits - The trade off is it's slightly more work, but less cleanup & toxic nastiness.  I grabbed Lamp Black & Burnt Umber to experiment with.

Ceramic Palette:

I've seen painters use these at cons for years, but I was never able to bring myself to pay for one, instead opting for the $1.00 plastic versions.  I realized I've bought dozens of those over the years (I throw them out when they get too hard to clean), and I could have had several of these for the same price.  I find myself using a wet palette & airbrush more & more often nowadays, so I only got one for now.

Colour Shapers:

Colour Shapers are actually tools meant for blending & texturing oil paints on canvas, but they are perfect for something else, too: sculpting.  I've taken several classes from professional sculptors at conventions in the past few years, and always loved playing with these - they work a lot better with something like ProCreate putty rather than Green Stuff, but you can really accomplish some cool details with them.

New Khador Warjack: Torch

I bought a Torch Warjack ages ago, and he's been sitting in my bag half built forever - I finally got him built & primed:

In the process of painting him now - I'm really looking forward to playing with him, as I think the ranged attacks / ongoing damage could fill some gaps in my Khador force...

Restocking Supplies

One of the problems with not building or painting anything for the better part of a year was that when I was going through my paints, there were quite a few that had dried out almost entirely.  I swung by the hobby shop to replace the more frequently used ones that needed replaced:

The Zap-A-Gap was because I like to keep a bottle in my travel kit, as well as one on my desk at home, and the one at home dried up on me.  Replacing the Citadel paints required a bit of research with the Citadel Paint Conversion Chart, as the "new" paints appeared during my downtime, and all the names had changed - most importantly, I was out of Orkhide Shade, and finishing my Orks is pretty high on the priority list.  I didn't notice until later that GW is listing "Caliban Green" as the equivalent for both "Orkhide Shade" and the old "Dark Angels Green" - I have plenty of Dark Angels Green left.  Guess I'll just have do some tests to make sure they match - luckily, the vast majority of my Ork troops are already painted, it's mostly vehicle crew that need finished at this point.

The Vallejo Model Air Fire Red had to be mail-ordered, as none of my local hobby shops stock the model air line, and it's what I use as the base red for my Khador.

Another problem I ran in to was that when we moved last year, our new place has hardwood floors - and my wife used all of my Future floor wax, which I like to use in certain washes and as a flow agent for certain paints.  A couple of years ago the trademark changed hands and SC Johnson renamed it from "Future Floor Finish" to "Pledge With FUTURE Shine" - but the product was still recognizable, because it still had the Future logo on the label.  Well, now that's gone, too, and the product is just called "Pledge FloorCare":

Searching the scale model & rocketry forums, there seems to be a consensus that this is the same product, or at least as close as we're likely to get.  Regardless, I find myself moving away from using this more & more often lately, but I do have some flyers waiting to be built, and it's awesome for treating canopies.  Now I just have to hide it from my wife...

Old Witch of Khador & Scrapjack

...so I celebrated my return from Adepticon 2013 by building a model I got at Adepticon 2012 - the Old Witch of Khador & Scrapjack:

I really like these models fluff-wise & aesthetically, but the sculpts are shamefully bad - I know this isn't really a hugely popular caster choice for Khador, but Privateer Press should make re-releasing this model in plastic a priority ASAP.  You pretty much have to sculpt the entire back of the Old Witch freehand to have a usable model, and there is literally no way to pin the legs on the Scrapjack to give it any structural integrity - I had to sculpt "bands" around the knee joints out of Green Stuff (I gave them the impressions of rivets using a pen barrel) to hopefully help them hold together.  This was my first attempt at a significant amount of freehand sculpting / gap filling in quite a while, though, and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out...

Adepticon 2013!

...okay, back to it - after moving, having surgery, and dealing with numerous issues for the better part of the past year, I've got a hankerin' for some hobbyin'.  We might as well get back into the swing of things with an Adepticon recap!

Funderhammer and I set out for Chicago on Thursday.  He was in charge of the reservations this year, and I have to say he did an outstanding job - as a former hotel employee, he knew enough to get us an upgrade to a junior suite:

This room was freakin' huge - king size bed, TWO sleeper sofas, and a kitchenette.  We're planning on booking one of these next year and just trying to find four other people to split it...

One of the things we talked about on the car ride was Hordes, and while I have an incredible backlog already, I think I'd like to give it a try.  Look what I just happened to get in my swag bag:

...after looking into it, I think this would even be my preferred faction, so it's definitely going into the "build" pile.

On Friday, we hit the dealer room early.  I was hoping to get a Conquest at the show, but nobody had one available.  I had been using a too-small, discontinued Reaper bag for my Warmachine army, and had been plagued by broken models - I decided to step up at the Battlefoam booth and by a new Warmachine bag, a P3 bag for my most-used paints & tools, and some extra trays.

(...and no, I'm not going to address all the recent drama regarding Battlefoam in this post.  Suffice it to say, the staff at the booth was very helpful, and I like to bag a lot).

Next up was the Forge World booth.  They implemented some screwy system this year where they stored pre-orders somewhere else in the building - you had to got to the booth and tell them you were ready to pick up your pre-order, then they would tell you to come back in an hour, and in the meantime a runner would go pick up your order.  I was a little miffed about this on my first trip to the booth, but it did seem to put an end to the 3- and 4-hour waits of past years - I was only in line for ten minutes or so each time.  I did a pretty small order this year - just some psycannons & Land Raider doors for my Grey Knights, and the new Model Masterclass book:

(I will go into detail about the book in a future post).  The rest of Friday was pretty much hanging out, meeting people and seeing what was going on in general.

On Saturday I had a class with Les Bursley from Awesome Paint Job:

This was a very cool class, and I learned a lot.  Needless to say, Les has a real talent for making things seem less intimidating, and it comes across in person as well as it does in his videos.

Les was also demoing stuff at the Badger booth during the con, and he gave us a "code word" to give to Ken at the booth - I dropped by and talked with Ken, and the code word got me a free set of Ghost Tints from their new Minitaire paint line:

Funderhammer & I were both trying to keep the food budget under control this year, but that night we headed out for dinner at Claim Jumper:

...and of course Funderhammer harassed the staff until they gave him a bib & crayons:

We headed back to the hotel after dinner - we were both stuffed, so we just hung out in the room for a bit.  Funderhammer headed downstairs for a while to check things out, and returned with a birthday gift - a set of Great Bears of Gallowswood:

Later that night, we tried out Bodgermania:

This was actually a lot more fun than I expected - it's a pretty standard "trick-taking" -type of card game, with Privateer Press' kid-friendly "Bodger" theme hung on it, but I actually really liked it.

Another thing we picked up was Dreadball:

I was seriously considering backing the Kickstarter, but never took the plunge - Funderhammer was a huge Blood Bowl fan back in the day, so he was on board.  I grabbed the Kick Off box and he grabbed some expansion teams, the Trontek 29'ers & the Void Sirens.  Mantic threw in some goodies with purchase at the convention, I'm looking forward to getting them painted up and trying it out.

Sunday was mostly spent packing and making one last lap through the hotel - overall a pretty low-key Adepticon this year, which I think Funderhammer & I both needed.  But we're already planning a group outing for next year, with a possible team-tournament appearance...