I don't know the numbers, but the con looked very well attended and most, if not all the tables were filled with gamers. Event sign up was fast and furious. The Midway battle event I played in was actually filled up when I checked the signup sheets, fortunately I know the GM and fit me in.
The offerings were mostly historical (Napoleonic, WWII ground, air and naval combat, Samurai, ACW and many other periods) with a nice sprinkling of fantasy / sci-fi games were also offered (Warmachine, Full Thrust and Victorian era explorer). There were probably more fantasy / sci-fi games going on then I realized, but I was having so much fun with the games I was in I didn't wander very much. A few local vendors were present and there was a nicely attended paint and take event going on.
The early slot for me was The Battle of Midway. It was a very interesting game with double blind movement and combat based Axis and Allies. I previously wrote about this game a month or so ago when I was invited to play test it on one of our infrequent game nights.
I have to say my friend, the gm for this event, is an overachiever. He's the kind of gm you wish you were, but know your to lazy to live up to. When we play tested this game at his house we made all kinds of smart A@$ suggestions to "improve" his game. Stuff like laminating maps, putting magnets on the hidden map counters, building rotatable, hidden movement cases and finally improving game mechanics. Well true to his nature he took our suggestions in stride and then made every one of them happen.
The picture above is The GM and his hidden movement panels after assembly. Below are the panels prior to assembly. The cases were built to carry the maps, magnetic counters and rotating stands. They went together in about two seconds with simple latches and no tools. They were so well thought out the only thing we could say was no handles? and why aren't they stained? To which we were told the wood WAS tongue oiled and he didn't have time to put on the handles, but he does have them.
Heres a couple of pictures of the map in use:
When ships were sighted the models were placed on the table.
The most fun part of this game was not the combat, but the hidden movement. No individual player had control of any particular ship or group. All players made decisions about overall fleet movements and the pieces were moved on the the hidden map. It was actually more exciting to find out if you sent your search planes to the right part of the ocean then to actually play out the combat. After combat was completed the challenge became maintaining contact for follow up attacks.
The game took the four hours to play out and the Japanese fleet was again defeated, but faired better then the historical result: only two heavy carriers were lost and the support fleet was able to start shelling the island.
Everyone had a great time. In fact there were a few guys that wandered by and took so much interest in the game the hung around just to see what would happen next.
I have to say during our play test we made several game mechanic suggestions for future games. The GM did a very good job taking our suggestions and using them or improving on them in ways that really improved the flow of game play. This game is so easy to play it is easily suitable for younger kids under parental supervision and yet easily holds an adult players interest.
At the end of the day the only suggestions for improvement we could make were to provide push rods to move the pieces around the main game map and build a catwalk around the game table so the players can look down on the map!
All this is a great con game. If your going to Origins I'd make sure I got a ticket for this one.
Here are the rest of the pictures from Battlefields. I'll be adding a post on the Full Thrust game later tonight.
Here are the rest of the pictures from Battlefields. I'll be adding a post on the Full Thrust game later tonight.
2 comments:
Excellent Midway game it looked absolutely fantastic
Midway - map move + 1/3000 figures is a long term project for me!
Geordie,
It was a great game. Fast play and fun. The figures he used were the plastic Axis and Allies ships he bought out of a buck bin.
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