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| I loved this banner, hidden on the back side of the KDM booth. I asked people to move so I could take a clean shot. |
Sometimes when I write the after-action for an event, I do it immediately (often before we've even left the event's zipcode). Sometimes I need to let the event's memories settle a little bit so I can digest what's happened.
GenCon 2019 was the latter.
It was by far the fullest GenCon we've had to date, and I felt kinda disoriented through a lot of the weekend.
Wednesday
We went downtown for the tapping of the Sun King keg outside the convention center. We've never done this before. It wasn't as grand as I'd pictured; the "event" meant standing in the sun in a long (long) line, waiting to buy beer. But, beer was good, food trucks were awesome (oh, the smoked Gouda mac and cheese), hanging out with friends was fun. We walked through the convention center and got our coupon books and headed back to the car. Since we don't stay downtown, I don't know that I'd do this again, but it was worth doing once.
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| Sea. Of. Nerds. (A few minutes before vendor hall opened). |
Thursday
Up early, we arrived downtown and parked without incident (unlike last year's stress inducing traffic jam). We did our usual routine, and waited by the hall entrance nearest Kingdom Death.
Then we got fucked. No reason to mince words. GenCon changed their door management scheme and had fewer people checking badges. Our entire area got funneled into the center of the bank of doors instead of marching straight ahead. Our "good" position for entering became mediocre.
Once inside, we went rapidly to the Kingdom Death booth; a long line of people marching in formation to the booth. In the past, this group just kind of stops and gels to become the line. But, KD staff also changed their line management rules and sent the line in a different direction, meaning we were in the wrong place.
This is a crucial time when seconds and minutes matter; in the time it took to relocate my fairly decent line position crumbled. I saw people an hour or more ahead of me in line that were far, far behind us while waiting outside. My time in queue was about 3 hours. Better than many, but not a good return on investment for the early hour that we got up that day.
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| My initial KDM line position, looking forward. It's 3 hrs from here to the cash registers. Booth is at the far corner of this aisle. |
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| My initial KDM line position, looking backwards. The line goes down this wall, around the corner, and keeps going from there. Insane. |
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| Kingdom Death booth as I finally rounded the corner. |
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| GC19 Kingdom Death Menu |
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| Crimson Croc. Looks like a moray eel to me, super creepy. |
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| Atnas. I hope to paint mine like an old Coca Cola Santa poster. |
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| Titan Bee. I love this hobby. |
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| The King will make an appearance in the Gambler's Chest Expansion. He is my 2nd favorite mini from the KDM universe. |
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| The Black Knight made a glorious return to GC19 after stomping us in GC18. He is my single favorite mini in the KDM universe. |
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| Frogdog was the other KDM demo. I didn't actually get a chance to try it. |
I scrambled from the KDM line, got food, and went to my Dropfleet event. Six hours of Dropfleet; narrative story event. I landed on the same table I played at Adepticon - a 2v2 high points battle. I was greatly looking forward to this, and had the satisfaction of putting two Dreadnoughts on the table. But all in all, I had kind of a crappy game; nothing really ever gelled for my team and I spent 6 hours rolling armor saves and being defensive. By hour 5, I had almost been tabled and had just one battlegroup on the board. The final score didn't reflect the unbalanced state of the fight. We left the venue at 9:30 and still hadn't had dinner, and since all I'd seen that day was the KD line and the Dropfleet table, I felt like my GenCon really hadn't started yet.
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| My Dreadnought and Centurions square off against PHR. I'd be on the receiving end of a massive Burn through crit run. #nerfphr |
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| One glorious hull point remaining. Soaking damage for several turns, I finally went "weapons free" the next turn and (from memory) rolled 32 dice in my attack. ... and then I died gloriously. |
Friday
Friday was Freeblades day. I had two back-to-back story events (their boards, their minis) with DGS Games, with the intent of learning the game. Both events were super-fun. DGS had their schtuff together; playing was painless and I learned a ton about the combat system. The first game resulted in an Epic Draw, but we got some good shots in. The second game was more of an explore and defend scenario; we won by playing keep-away in the last half hour.
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| Freeblades, game 1 - Take and hold the center to win. |
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| Freeblades narrative event boards. They have awesome terrain. |
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| Freeblades, Game 2. We summoned a critter swarm to attack the sneaky dwarf in the doorway. |
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| I picked up my Thrakaasor (DGS Games) Kickstarter at GenCon; here's the official paint job at the booth. |
We killed some time and then crashed St. Elmo's steakhouse as a group. Excellent food, good company, and a superb glass of rye in the lounge, but another late night.
Saturday
My events were done on Friday, so on Saturday I went into Tourist mode. Mrs. Zoxe and I finished our hall tour. We hit the Battlefoam booth and got storage for our Freeblades armies. Had a leisurely lunch by the south food trucks, and walked the floor some more. We demo'd the Black Knight at the KD booth, Mrs. Zoxe went off to her last event and I hung out and waited for the Cosplay parade.
The Flying Frog painting competition announcement set off around 4pm. I went over, hung out with some fellow painters, and fellow Miniature Monthly subscribers. The announcements came, and I am proud to say that I was awarded first place for Best Enemy category for my color-shift Scorpions. I'll put another post up with more pics of the Scorpions later, but I'll say now that I'm really happy with the reaction that the mini received.
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| My "Ghostbusters" themed diorama in the case at GenCon. I'll post separately about this project. I didn't place, but had a lot of fun. |
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| My Darkstone Scorpion (right) in the case at GenCon. I went on to take 1st place (!!!) for Best Enemy. |
We made our way to the Rathskellar with an even bigger group. This is a German restaurant away from the convention center (though we saw plenty of 'con badges there). Excellent food, excellent beer, more good company, and ... yet another late night.
Sunday
By Sunday, I could feel my GenCon plague start to hit. Others in our group were feeling the effects of non-stop nerding, miles of walking, late nights, excess eating and drinking. What can I say, we're not 25 anymore!
The group opted to stay in place, not return downtown, and play games. This caught me a little by surprise; since my events were all front-loaded in Thurs/Fri, I felt like I had more to see and do, but under duress I went with the herd's consensus. We brought out Kingdom Death and played something like 9 hours, swapping people in and out of the settlement. Many survivors died, but we made it to the Butcher ... and then got destroyed. Settlement failed, we packed it in.
Wrap-Up and Aftermath
In recent years our group has grown, and there's a large amount of give and take and compromises made. Each year we learn more and adapt our approach to this event, and GC2020 will be no different.
For one, I think I'm out of the painting competition for awhile. I need to paint en masse and yet every year I get bogged down in 2 or 3 more detailed projects.
Second, I'll be a little more vocal about not having dinner downtown every night. We enjoyed it, but it cost a fortune and made the days really long.
Third, I'll dial back the events and give myself more time on the show floor.
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