gottacon

Duke mentioned looking forward to reading my next few days of convention report, so I’ve moved my schedule around to put this one sooner. I have a few more model posts coming after this one!

Day 2 I woke up around 8 and went back to the Deli again for breakfast – good food there, and reasonably priced.

The Malifaux today was all random Story Encounters, with random deployments and Schemes. It was again 50ss and we played 3 games.

Game 1

Reconnoiter Story vs Troy McKnight. I’ve seen his name around the Malifaux BC Facebook group a bunch, but have never spoken with him. I was super glad I did, because Troy is a really friendly and fun guy. He was even friendly as I removed his Master and an entire flank – an impressive feat to stay friendly afterwards, as the gamers amongst us know. He was playing Lady Justice and his goal was to hold table quarters for 1VP a turn, where my goal was to hold a single quarter, specified by me and known to us both, at the end of the game. I sent my Emberling out again to work on Line in the Sand in a table quarter where he couldn’t easily get to. He sent Lady J, a Death Marshall and Fransisc(a/o) after the Emberling, but because of the table layout ended up over extending that flank and allowed me to charge with the Rail Golem and Mei. The Rail Golem got an amazing 5 attacks here, and soaked up most of Lady J’s soulstones while Troy tried to save her! Mei Railwalked in and did a bunch of good work here to end it. Troy had Plant Explosives, and I used the Steam Arachnid Swarm to charge, attack some models and then (0) to remove his PE Scheme Markers – I felt a little bad about clearing his Master and then clearing his best chance of VPs…but my objective was to win, so that’s what I did. I ended this game 10-5, as he got full points for Bodyguard on The Judge and 2 points from Turf War. I had taken Bodyguard on Kang, Line in the Sand and held the table quarter at the end of the game. As Troy said – Reconnoiter isn’t about killing models, but it’s certainly much harder to win if you don’t have bodies on the table!

Game 2

I drew Niko and his Lynch crew again, to play Theft. In this encounter, he had to grab Gem Markers and take them back to his deployment zone and I had to have a non-Peon model within 6″ of his deployment zone for 1VP a turn. To make my game easier, we drew the Close deployment, so getting to his zone was a simple skip across the center line. Early on in this game I had a solid string of flips of Sue vs Teddy and even though Sue only had a single wound left, he managed to remove Teddy. Sue plus Imbued Energies for Fast is beastly. On another side of the board, 2 Metal Gamin, a Rail Worker and Mei took out Huggy. Niko got Brilliance on Kang and then killed him and Sue in a turn and brought back Huggy, but it was too late. At that point I’d broken free to stop him getting Line in the Sand, had a single model claiming my own Theft points that he couldn’t get to, had easily gotten 3VPs for Plant Explosives and he hadn’t stopped me from getting Distract and he was to far away from his deployment zone to bring the Gems back. He gave up. I convinced him to keep playing, because some VPs are better than none. He played another activation and gave up. I talked him into continuing, and after 1 or 2 more activations he gave up for a third time and this time I let it go. I won 10-0 here, but I think it was properly 10-2 or 4 if he’d kept playing and counted it up. You can always have some effect on the game, even if you’re losing! And at that point he’d already gotten 10VPs for his first game, so 4 from this one and 10 for the next one…he could have been in the running for first still!

Game 3

The best game of Malifaux ever. I played Mark again, in Search. You place 4 Markers on the table and flip a card for a suit. The suit determines which Marker you’re looking for, but you have no idea which one it is! (It was the one in his far corner deployment zone…). This encounter needs a restriction like “can’t place markers in your deployment zone” or similar, because it’s busted as-is. Mark had to pick up Markers for 1VP each, I think. He was playing Pandora still, with all those Sorrows. He destroyed my models so badly, by running towards where I was going to get the Markers and making my models Insignificant and making me fail Wp duels and…death and destruction.

At the end of the game, I had 4 models still – Firestarter was way off in a corner getting me 3VPs for Power Ritual, my only points for the game. I had a December Acolyte and 2 Metal Gamin still in the thick of it. He killed the Acolyte. I picked up the Scheme Cards  and sorted through them. I discarded 2 that he couldn’t have, then Distract which he’d already revealed and held Take Prisoner and Bodyguard in my hand. I couldn’t affect Bodyguard – I had nothing on the table I could kill with. But I could do something about Take Prisoner. I activated one Gamin and Magnetismed the other to kill it. I had a single Gamin left with 2 wounds remaining and 1AP – how to kill it? I targeted his Doppleganger and took a Manipulative test, passing it. I cheated in a 5…failing it. Manipulative is a Wp duel. I failed a Wp duel with all of his Sorrows around me. Killed the Metal Gamin. Losing Mark 4VPs. Not only did he lose Distract for that turn (because I had no models left), but he also had Take Prisoner, and had lost the very model he’d been trying to take! We both laughed our asses off for a good 5 minutes after this!

I won Best Overall at this event, and also Best Painted! You’ll see some of the models I finished for this event in a few days – they are super nice looking! I grabbed the M&SU Ramos box, which I’m pretty excited to play, and a Pigapult. I felt bad taking two prizes, so I grabbed a model I didn’t think anyone would want and gave it to Jamie. I look forward to having pigs tossed at me soon. 😛

I quickly packed up my models and ran out the door – my Warhammer friends had been hanging around, and we had a ferry to catch!

Overall, I had a great weekend of gaming and friends! Malifaux is a fantastic game, that doesn’t get boring even after playing 10 games in a row, and I’m super excited to be playing it at AdeptiCon in a few weeks. So excited, that I’m thinking of switching my Dreadball League to the Malifaux Costume event…(if possible). I came back from the event exhausted from lack of sleep, but happy from gaming.

Finally, here’s the 3 photos I took all weekend.

Out of 10 games, I played on this board 3 times. Not a lot of cover, but it forced your and your opponents models into particular places. Taking advantage of that was key.

Tao, and Tao’s tongue.

Playing King of Tokyo at the ferry terminal on the way back. We didn’t finish this game.

I woke up at 6am after going to bed at 3am. I tried to sleep until around 7am, when I said fuckit and got up to take a shower. I opened up WhatsApp and found some folks who were at Sam’s Deli just up the street. The great thing about bringing all of your friends to a con is that you can find new people, if you don’t want to see the old ones for an hour or so! 🙂

I also took a wander through the vendor hall. Lots of great stuff to see and buy! Airsoft, the medieval recreationists, MMA, leather stuff, Magic, board games, miniature games, glass creations, chainmail, video games, terrain – if it involves nerdery, you can find it! I ended up buying 2 items of leather goods for my costume, but left the rest of it alone.

Malifaux started at 9:30am, and it was a jam packed day! So packed, that while the schedule originally called for 5 games, we only played 4 and still went 2 hours over time! All games were at 50ss, and here I really slacked off on noting the Scheme Pool.

Game 1

Stake a Claim with a Standard Deployment vs Tao. Tao was the organizer of the event, so I drew “the ringer” for this game. Tao was playing a brutal, brutal, brutal Von Schill crew with Lazarus. He had more fun than I’ve seen in a while shooting his big guns at my models and me taking them off! However, he wasn’t playing to win, just to take models off, so I ended up winning this 7-1. This was a really fun game – Tao is a hard player, but has a great attitude. I look forward to playing him in the future when he’s actually trying to win…

Game 2

Turf War with a Flank Deployment vs Mark. I love playing Mark – a fantastic fellow, who plays a challenging game. He was playing Pandora mostly this weekend, and had a brutal list with 3 Sorrows so that whenever you failed a WP duel you took a ton of wounds, with no ability to damage prevent and armour did nothing. He out played me and the game ended 9-7 for him. At one point I could have taken 2VPs for Plant Explosives, but I got greedy and thought I could get 3VPs for it and he managed to ensure I got nothing.

Game 3

Reckoning with a Standard Deployment vs Niko. Niko was playing with Lynch still, and here he just dismantled my crew. I took a fairly high-point cost crew, with Kang, Rail Golem, and Sue and unfortunately I separated my crew and his Teddy and Huggy and such were more than capable of killing my models one-on-one. I learned a lesson here, which I applied in my game on Sunday – more on that later. He destroyed me 0-8, and this was actually my worst game all weekend. Not because of Niko, he was fine. But I’ve always said that one significant benefit of Malifaux is that at any time, no matter whether you’re winning or losing, you can affect the game. You have agency, and that’s what I want from my games. In this game I could do nothing but take my models off the table.

Game 4

Reconnoiter with a Corner Deployment vs Erik. Erik was playing Rasputina with a couple Ice Gamin, an Ice Golem and a Cereberus. Apparently he had been doing quite poorly earlier in the day, but he pulled it together a bit here. We had a stand-off with the Ice Golem vs my Rail Golem, but I managed to out-activate him such that I got the drop on his Golem. I also learned, once again – don’t take Assassinate vs Rasputina. Her Sub-zero trigger means you have maybe 1-2 attacks to kill her, unless you get many models on her. Not worth it. I used my Emberling fairly well here, sending him flying off with his 5Wk and only 3SS cost to hold onto a table quarter for the entire game.  I won this 6-5.

We had lunch in the middle, which was nice because apparently the Warhammer Fantasy guys didn’t get a lunch break. Afterwards while talking with them, I got to brag that our event was small enough that at the break the TO asked “So where does everyone want to go?” When your TO eats lunch with you, you know you’ll be back at the tournament on time. 🙂

I won Best Painted here, and was the last person to select a prize so I took come a box of Terraclips “Buildings of Malifaux”, a set that I’m looking forward to finding space for in my terrain box. May have to sell off something to make that space…we shall see.

We finished around 9pm, which was worrying me. I had made plans to meet up with a good friend of mine whom I hadn’t gamed with for a while. We used to play RPGs weekly, but he’s recently moved to Sooke and it’s been a while. I quickly grabbed food and found him playing a board game with another friend I tend to only see at gaming conventions. 🙂 They finished that game and started another, a 4-player game with 5 people. I said I was happy to sit and watch, which surprisingly was the truth – my brain was exhausted after 3 hours of sleep and a day of Malifaux. So I watched and helped with Galaxy Trucker for a bit. When they finished that, we took the game back and went for another. A brilliant idea came upon Adrian – someone in the room was about to start teaching Russian Railroads, a new train-themed worker-placement game, and we could grab a second copy and get in on the explanation. This was a great game! We played until 2am, at which point I was about to pass out in the con. I was super glad I stayed out though – it’s always awesome to see Jer, and Adrian is fun to hang out with.

Back at the hotel room, I lay down and worried about when my roommates were going to come back and wake me up. The night before I had thought about getting my own room, but didn’t enact the plan. 45 minutes later around 3am they came in…as silent as mice. Apparently, I had made an impression the night before and while I woke up when they entered, I managed to get back to sleep ok.

I’m going to intersperse these next few posts between the photo posts of my models for the next week or so. I also only have 3 photos from GottaCon, I forgot to take any until the last day. 🙂

GottaCon is a full bodied video/board/card/miniature gaming convention held in Victoria, BC. It’s been growing steadily for years, and this year I assume they had some talks with the mayor of Victoria and worked out some deals and ended up moving the convention into the heart of the city and having a ton of advertising for technology jobs in Victoria. I support this move entirely – the con benefits by having a better and bigger space, the city benefits by advertising itself and by having tons of hungry and thirsty gamers walking around, and the people benefit by being closer to food and drink and the larger con means MOAR GAMERS.

I only decided to go a few weeks ago, so had to get my ducks in line pretty quick. Patrick was leaving late on Friday because of work and was considering taking the float plane over. As soon as he said this, I glommed onto the idea – working a full day and getting to play in the Friday Malifaux? SIGN ME UP. The float plane habour is about a 5 minute walk from my work as well.

If you have a fear of planes, avoid the float plane. It has heavy bumps as it travels along its “run way” (the ocean…) and occasionally flies sideways in the wind because it’s such a small plane. If you have no such fear, it is a delightfully civilized manner of getting to Victoria. You leave from Downtown Vancouver (as opposed to Tsawwassen or Horseshoe Bay), travel for 30 minutes (as opposed to 2 hour ferry, plus 1+ hours driving to get to the ferry and back) and arrive in Downtown Victoria – we left the plane and could see the hotel. Highly recommended.

We dropped our stuff off at the hotel and walked up the street to a local pub, the Irish Times, where most of our gaming friends had been getting drunk for several hours. Like…many hours. It’s nice to show up at a place and get that many cheers and hugs. 🙂 I love my gaming group. <3 After a pulled pork sammich and a beer, I left to get back to the con.

A notice of importance – if you’re playing at 7, be sure to stand in line for your convention badge before 7. Gaah. I was a little late for the event because I forgot the damn badge. I was tired, as I tend to be on a Friday, and didn’t play my best. Still 3 solid games of Malifaux though! I didn’t write down the Schemes for all the games we played because I’m lame. Should do that next time. >.<

Game 1

I played Mr. Dan Miner, a local Malifaux Henchman and his Kirai crew. Dan claims to be bad or unlucky at games, but I think he has negativity bias. Or maybe I’m even worse! Because when we play, it’s usually a solid game and I usually lose. 😛 We were playing fixed Story Encounters, and this one was Escort. Dan had to get a model up the table, using only (1) Interact Actions. He didn’t entirely read the scenario, so ended up moving his entire crew forward and then having to run back in turn 2 to Interact with the Escort! This cost him quite a bit – we both think he’d have won if he hadn’t had this issue! I got lucky and managed to top deck the Red Joker to kill Izamu the armour. Unfortunately, neither of us got the Escort in a position of power and this game ended with a 3-3 tie.

Game 2

This game was hilarious, and frustrating and not because of my opponent. I played Niko from the Island and his Lynch crew in the Plant Evidence Strategy. I took Line in the Sand and Distract. At one point in the game the TO called “20 minutes”. We were at turn 2. So we busted our asses to get through the next turn, hunkered down in some places and pushed forward in others and did our best to get the best results in those 20 minutes. 20 minutes later, I think we had either a tie, or I was winning by 1, I forget and we didn’t get to count. Because it turns out that the call to “20 minutes” was actually more like “20 minutes until the half hour mark” – we had another 30 minutes to play our game! We bugged Tao about that for the rest of the weekend. At that point Niko crushed my models – he has a very offensive crew that was hard to deal with and turn 4 I had very little left. This was a loss for me, 2-4. Some people suggested ending the game when we thought it was going to end, but neither of us were into that – I want to play, damnit!

Game 3

I think this strategy was Treasure Chest or Hunt, I took Protect Territory and Cursed Object. A marker in the center you have to pick up and put on your stat card. Except I couldn’t, because my opponent was playing Perdita and had Nino, who has an ability (which I think is game breaking…) where you can’t Interact if you’re in line of sight of him and another Family model. Really, my best chance of success here would have been to charge forward and bust up Nino and damn the consequences of the other models I would lose. At least then I could have gotten 4VPs from it. As it was, this game ended up in a 3-3 tie. I failed entirely at Cursed Object, because I was trying to remove Fransisco and Perdita before he could remove my models. This was a slow game, and I noticed a fair amount of inconsistent measuring from my opponent. The weird thing was that he would measure an extra inch in some cases, and an inch less in others, and not always in his advantage! This sort of thing bugs me, but it was nearing midnight on a Friday so I let it all slide with a smile and a handshake. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t playing my quickest either, reading a card 3-4 times before I understood what it did, despite having played with it a lot. 😛

That night I was sharing a room with Jamie and Dan. I went back to the room and tried to sleep. Unfortunately, cons make me excited and I’d had a Monster around 10 and was wired as hell. Jamie came into the room around 1, and had a conversation with Dan…until 3am. I couldn’t get mad, because I wasn’t sleeping anyway, but it’s bothersome to think that I couldn’t even had really tried. I dozed for this time, occasionally joining in the conversation. The next morning Dan slapped Jamie on the ass at 6am joking that this was for keeping him up until 3am. I woke up at that sound, and then lie in bed awake for another hour before deciding to get up. Rounding down, 3 hours of sleep. I felt quite poorly on Saturday. Jamie and I have since discussed the problem, and agreed to not share a room in the future – he uses tournament time to paint until 3-4am, and I like to get at least 7 hours of sleep otherwise I have problems concentrating and can get a little cranky.

Day 1 to come in a couple more days. 🙂