Road to GENCON 50 - part 1

By: Dozer

This set of posts that I will be writing, with help from my wife and partner in crime, will be about the lead up, the trip, the events, and all of the other things that happened at GENCON.

Last year Ontos and I went to GENCON as the advance RECCE team. A military term fitting with our Army backgrounds. The first day was overwhelming with all the noise, movement, chaos and pure joy of all the excited gamers. This was a total turnstile attendance of 201,852 attendees.

We attacked the Corvus Belli booth to grab the GENCON exclusive stuff and we ran into Tom and Kip of Mayacast. We tried out a few games before Ontos split from me for some of his events. I meandered through the crowded vendor hall and gaming halls to wonder and watch everything. The day ended with a Modern Magic the Gathering tournament. We spent Saturday playing Infinity and then getting drunk with some players after the games.

Last Year: GENCON 2016
From L-R: Tom, Ian, Ontos, Steve, and Kip

Sunday we pulled pin early and left after another quick round in the vendors hall and watching the Corvus Belli seminar. We drove back for 14 hours and I got home around 5am in the morning.

This year it's a much bigger affair. We have three vehicles with nine people going to GENCON 50. My car will have my wife and Burns. We're leaving on Tuesday, staying with family before finishing the long 12+ hours drive the next day on Wednesday. Our drive back will be in convoy with Molotov and Forgotten on Sunday after a Two-Headed Giant Event of Magic the Gathering.

Now finding a Hotel is not easy for GENCON. Lucky for us, Molotov is a frequent traveler and was able to find something back in November next to the airport. This gives us access to the shuttles but we'll also be able to get a direct route into the city core if we drive our own vehicles. A few of us are sharing our rooms, Burns will be sharing his room with a friend from Petawawa and Steve (from the pic above) who couldn't find a Hotel room in time. Ontos has two other gents with him while Forgotten and I will be rooming with our partners.

With transport and accommodations sorted the next thing to look at is events. I wanted to repeat my experience with Infinity by playing in the Friday tournament and being present for the Saturday seminar. Also this GENCON is special as it will be the inaugural event launch for Lo5R (Legend of the Five Rings) since Fantasy Flight took over the IP. The new Lo5R LCG (living card game) is being launched as the first product of the IP under new control and so that also came on my hit list. After those two events I was looking at events that I could do with my wife and also make sure I left room for us to explore the halls and get some shopping in.

Last year I jammed too much into my schedule and this year I made sure to pick three things to allow me to move around, look at stuff, and explore the event. This was more important because I had my wife with me this year and I didn't want to abandon her while we were supposed to do things together. I want to share GENCON with her and ditching her to days filled with events and tournaments is not what I wanted. I wanted to jump into the 2-player 400 point Infinity tournament on Saturday but I pulled that out once I saw my schedule would leave me no time for anything else and that wasn't fair to me or my wife.

So with my schedule sorted GENCON was planned out. I had transport, accommodations, and now stuff to do. My mornings will start with, a shower, lots of water, and vitamins and immune boosters. Grabbing a good breakfast to fill me up will be key since Lunch may be missed. My next full meal will probably be Supper. Outside of what I'll need for the day, the pack will be holding a spare t-shirt, snacks, extra water, and a meal bar. Tournaments can go for a long time, keeping hydrated and energized is important. Last year during the Infinity event I ended up giving out all my snack bars and extra water to my opponents who really appreciated the extra boost.

All I need to figure out what I wanted to pick up, how I'd play in my events, and list the people, games, and places I wanted meet, play, and visit.

- Cheers

Dozer

Update

By Dozer

It's been too long...

Family, work, and life in general have gotten in the way of recent posts. Folks lost jobs, folks got sick, folks needed help, folks are coming and going for work and play, folks had new additions to their families...

The rains of summer abated for a few days allowing us to enjoy the odd day outside. Jobs made demands that required the focus of the CTG team...

We've been busy and it's not been here.

Expect a post on WOTAN from Forgotten, Burns is looking at a few posts on getting ready for Hordes Mk3, Antonius who works away from the internet for weeks at a time has lots to say about 8th edition of Warhammer 40k, and Molotov who spends most of her days abroad has another post on the wings. I've got a series of posts coming up about getting ready for GENCON and I'll be getting help from my partner in crime (who married me almost 7 years ago) and this will be her first GenCon experience.

The idea behind this blog was to post once a week. With help from the contributors I've mentioned above dropping a post a week was easy. There were times when we were able to drop two posts a week.

A lot has happened within our lives - as life is prone to do. This blog is about our hobbies and how much we love gathering at the table and meeting each other. From playing a game of Magic the Gathering in the Wizard's Tower format, to painting minis for Infinity, to getting all excited while playing the Curse of Strahd. We have folks playing co-operative rules of X-Wing. People playing games of Endure the Stars and Darksouls. I even got to finally play a game of HI:NT: Human Interface: Nakamura Tower with a buddy from out of town. My wife and I are looking to share the game of Monarch with family this weekend.

We've been busy but that's what happens with hobbies sometimes they get pushed aside because of life.

We're here but life sometimes prevents us from reaching out as often as we'd like.

- See you at the table

Dozer

Lab 3.0 – The Office

By: Dozer

As I get ready for GENCON and Capital Conflict (our second official event) I wanted to share my current working space. When it comes to my hobby-ing (?). I’ve always called my work space the “Lab” based off of the creative output that goes on within. Everything is an experiment and creative brainstorming is the norm.

The first was when I still lived with my parents. The second was the house basement that my wife and I rented. Since we downsized into a two story condo we had a guest room that we also use as an office. This shared office has become my third and most successful lab to date. Let me show you around.

First off there is Moby. I cannot ignore his contributions to the lab... because he's a lumbering old dog who needs to bury himself in whatever you're working on. So his bed goes down until he decides that he's had enough rest and moves somewhere else as equally inconvenient. In shops you'll find him under the table saw or miter saw. He's that snoring pile of sawdust that moves when he wakes up. Sadly while painting fine miniatures he'll try to bury himself under the desk - while I'm working. After a miss-stroke, a dropped mini, and some yelling he gets moved. I pick up the pieces and move his stuff around and he finds himself a new space. This of course is when I take my force breaks from my work.

I tend to listen to three things while I work: Beasts of War videos as they play on the TV above me. Mayacast the podcast made by Tom and Kip. Lastly various electronic heavy music that ranges from Industrial (Frontline Assembly, Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM), Dubstep (Skrillex, Knife Party, etc), and Electronica (Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers, Robert Miles, Scooter, etc). I also put one long compilations from youtube by BEM, Arctic Empire, and CloudX. These I used for longer sessions for when I'm assembling, writing, editing, and painting. The mixes I pick are longer from 1 hour to 2 hours based on the amount of time I want to work. This allows me to time my efforts and force me to stick to a time frame. I can leave work and get distracted easy or get lost in what I'm doing.

I have a small tabetop that is deep enough for me to put down my filtered box fan down with enough space for air flow behind it. On the wall behind the fan is newspaper held up my painters tape. This is only used when I airbrush. Otherwise the fan is put away in the closet or under my desk depending if I'm going to airbrush again next time I sit down to work. I had a six foot power bar standing up allowing me to plug everything in. On the window sill I have my small space TV monitor. My laptop has only recently moved to a cheep metal stool so I can put it off to the side or pull it close as needed.

I like to the keep the room ready to motivate me. I have my overflowing IKEA glass shelf, folding couch, spare mattress (for when the couch becomes a twin bed). My wife was awesome in letting me litter the walls and shelves with tons of nerd stuff. One of the highlights is the sectioned prints of the MCU Avengers in watercolour. I have my shelves filled with art books from video games, miniature games, and board games as inspiration. I also have a my statues from various video games, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Assassin's Creed: Blackflag, Fallout 4, and Dues Ex: Mankind Divided. Add in a Court of Owls mask and a round from an real artillery piece and my little lab is set.

What type of setups do you have? How do you solve sharing hobby crafting space with regular life space? Do you have a dedicated hobby area and what's inside that makes it special? What do you keep around to keep you inspired?

- Cheers

Dozer

Edit: This dropped late because I suck at Internets. 

Aristeia!

By: Dozer

Aristeia! is now a thing.

I heard about this at Rumble at Route 66 and you can think Bobby Whisky for that. Warcors getting drunk, loose lips sink ships... or drunk Canadians become easy friends with folks and get ignored when the secrets are being whispered among the drunk.

I kept my lips sealed and enjoyed getting the behind the scenes look as some of the leaders of the USA Infinity Scene talked about the new game. There will be fancy dice and cards it will not be like Infinity mechanically - it's a whole new game. They just share the fluff. Same idea for the Infinity RPG but they did craft a conversion set for putting your characters on the table.

Beasts of War posted the first reveal of the minis and an interview with Carlos on who's the who of the game. My sole question is yet to be answered: What scale are these minis?

These come right after the leek of the characters from Outrage. Leaving us with a ton of character minis from Corvus Belli instead of nameless unit minis. The change of paces is nice and I like the minis so far.

So I'm going to do a quick review on the minis we've seen and how I would proxy them into my Infinity lists.