Well I've finally gotten around to posting the second half of my Origins trip, apparently I'm holding true to the title of my blog.....

Friday started a little rough for me as I had drank a lot the night before....but my insane friend talked me into going for a jog at 6:30am as a way

of shaking off the effects of previous nights festivities.....It worked, but it hurt until about noon......

On Friday I skipped a second run at the Warhammer Siege game we played on Thursday and set some time aside for some shopping, but first I stopped by the auction and entered several items I've had laying around for some time including ASL supplement I'd never opened cause I don't own ASL and never played the game, A mint in box Air War (by SPI) game I bought cause I wanted a second copy for "collector value" down the road and a copy of Luftwaffe my buddy wanted to part with.

After parting with those items it was off to the exhibition hall.

I don't know if I'm getting older or what, but I had a bunch of money in my pocket and permission from my wife to spend it, but all I did was wander around looking at stuff.

There were alot of vendors with some very nice stuff for sale. I really liked the Battlestar Galactica minis that were new at the Iron Wind Metals booth and there were a lot of nice minis at the Reaper booth. There were also lots of other interesting looking supplements, play aids, modules and OOP stuff, but I just didn't see anything that was a must have for me. I didn't even buy my yearly set of con dice from Chessix. The previous night must have done more damage then I realized.....

After lunch we did a little light gaming: an introduction game of Battletech.

I've been playing Battletech since the late 80's when it was Battledroids so this game really didn't hold to much excitement for me, but a couple of my buddies have played once or twice or not at all so it was an easy intor for them. I'm sure they really enjoyed it that much, but I think they would have more fun with a full blown game. The intro was really stripped down to the point where the stuff that makes Battletech the game i

t is was missing. I'll have to setup a game for them at my place and call in some old Battletech pals.....

Looking back I guess I didn't do much on Friday. We wandered around a bit, had some dinner then went wandering the nearby Columbus Community Festival. There was a huge turn out for the fest and based on what I saw everyone was having a good time drinking, getting high, being naked and listening to some music. It really wasn't my taste, but it seemed like everyone was having fun. Then it was off to the bar for us, we just couldn't bring ourselves to drink Bud Lite when there was so much micro brew around....

We had another great night of partying and managed to bring out friends that had previously been out with us and some friends we met at the con (who we found lived only about 10 minutes away from our home town and put on a local con: Battlefields by the Pro or Con gaming club). We closed the bar and the hotel lounge and then dropped very hard onto the bed that night.

Saturday morning came far to early and it hurt.

My self loathing friend dragged himself out of bed again and went running at 7am...I was not so fortunate. Lying in bed it seemed a good idea, but then I sat up....the room spun and decided "No" and laid back down.

I didn't get up again until noon on Saturday.

After a late lunch of wonderfully greasy fried food I found my friends and wandered the exhibit hall again. We hung out with some of our con buddies, catching up and talking about gaming.

Later that afternoon we played a great game called Check Your 6. Our new friends put on the game and it was a blast.

Check Your 6 (CY6) is a World War 2 air combat game that is very easy to play. We had at least four guys playing that had never played before and had the basic rules figured out in about 10 minutes. There are not to many charts and the stands the aircraft are mounted on have neat little dials that give you speed and altitude info at a glance.

The scenario was simple: Eagle against the Sun, shoot the other guy down.

The Americans had two different aircraft types: F4u Corsairs and F6F Hellcats. The Japanese had a mixed bat of Zeros, Oscars and Tony's...I was the only one with the Tony's.

I got a lucky break early on and got behind a Corsair.

I made short work of the Corsair, blowing it out of the sky in one turn.

From that point on I was fighting defensively. Even with simple game mechanics the game did a very good job of representing the differing ways the aircraft fought. My Tony's were great in a turning fight, but had trouble regaining speed after a climb. The Americans on the other hand fought very well in the vertical; climbing with easy and having enough energy left over to press an attack. I was pleasantly surprised to see that having a basic knowledge of fighter tactics was easily translated in game terms.

As the game went on I had more and more trouble maneuvering into firing position. Every time I thought I might be able to turn on a Corsair they would climb away, leaving me without the energy I needed to press the attack.

After several turns of hard maneuvering one of my planes was hit in the wing, damaging the aileron and restricting my turning ability.

My aircraft and a surviving Oscar formed up for a run on one the remaining Corsairs in our area,

which was joined by a number of Corsairs and Hellcats coming to assist after having shot down their opposition.

Sensing a bad situation I dove my damaged aircraft into the cloud deck and out of the fight. A few turns later we found ourselves surrounded and called the game.

All in all we had a great time with this game. The total engagement lasted about two hours of real time and about 12 or 14 turns of game time. There was a lot of maneuvering for position and some interesting combat.

I enjoyed this game so much I went right to the exhibition hall and bought the game. Actually one of my con buddies basically dragged me up to the Skirmish Campaigns booth, pulled my wallet out of my pocket and paid the cashier for the rule book and a boxed set of pre-painted aircraft. OK so he really didn't reach into my pocket or take money out of my wallet, but it was about as close to that as you can get.....

This game has a lot of play value and can be very inexpensive compared to some other games. 1/300th aircraft models are pretty cheap and available in wide variety. Putting them together and painting them reminds me of my airplane model building days of youth and I'm looking forward to collecting them.

After that it was dinner and hanging out in the minis hall while my buddies went back to the community fest. I was physically recovered from the previous night, but to traumatized to go back into the sun and crowd a second time.

A couple of hours just sitting around and talking to a con friend from Wisconsin was the break I needed when I received the call to the brewery. I went easier Saturday night, ended up having a great night out and had a much easier time getting up Sunday morning.

Sunday came to early and held one more surprise for us.

Apparently someone (based on my training and experience an insider) stole the auction companies computer during the night. This loss caused mass confusion and frustration both for auction workers and sellers wanting to get paid.

Fortunately I knew my items weren't going to make me rich and talked the company into just sending me a check instead of waiting in line to get paid cash. A few days after getting home I had the feeling I wasn't ever going to see my money, which was OK considering I knew it was a small sale, but was surprised to find a check for the full amount in my mailbox just yesterday (August 4th). I gotta give credit to Toad and Troll here (http://www.trollandtoad.com/), they came though in a tough situation.

We wandered the exhibition hall for a short time and then decided it was time to go home. Even though we reached that decision, we realized we had had such a good time that waiting a year to come back was going to be tough.

We had a great time and look forward to next years con. In the mean time the home town friends we met put on a local con we didn't know about called Battlefields. The con is held in Dearborn Michigan and is only about a 15 minute drive from home. It should be a nice winter time break and we look forward to attending.

Since Origins I haven't had any time to game, but I've been working on some terrain and will be posting that story next (hopefully soon....)

Take care,

Screech