How to Reapercon

Hello once again,

After a ~10 month absence, it's time to write again. First up, How to Reapercon.

This is written for folks that are perhaps new to Reapercon or new to Conventioning in general.  

This is a very tailored list. Reapercon is a very special event. It's small, cozy, and welcoming.  It is perhaps scaled like a large-ish local 'con, but draws people from all over (we drive 14-16h to be there), so things I'm going to suggest here don't necessarily apply elsewhere.  YMMV.

KDM Thanksgiving Showdown

Quick post, on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

This year, instead of family traditions, we accepted an invitation to go hang out with friends.  This is a group from across the country that manages to assemble a few times a year for shenanigans. 

This invitation involved a several state road trip, so we set out mid-morning on Wednesday and arrived Wednesday night.  Since we rarely take ANY additional vacation at Thanksgiving (and normally work Black Friday) we were off our usual routine straight out of the gate.  (I could post separately on the evolution and end of family traditions, but won't right now).

Reapercon 2019

It's been almost 3 weeks, I guess I should post a ReaperCon Report!

First, let's rewind the clock even more.

Gencon 2019

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.

Adepticon 2019

The main hall at Adepticon. 40K and random game area here, vendor area behind, and Fantasy Flight gaming area way, way behind at the far end.  There was another large area for gaming upstairs.

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF):
Our first trip to Adepticon.  We found this event to be welcoming and well organized, and all things considering, it's probably the goldilocks size ("just right").  The Swag bags are huge.  Lukewarm showers are disappointing.

>> Who should attend:  Wargamers, painters, fans of Fantasy Flight organized play

>> Who might be disappointed:  RPG/DnD, MTG players, boardgamers/eurogamers, shoppers

Reapercon 2018 - Part II

Part II.  Here's the mini-review / how to.

Home sweet home. The Embassy Suites in Denton Texas was so new it smelled new.

View from our room on the 11th floor. I suspect this will be filled in with commercial offerings galore next year.

The Good:

• The Classes.  The classes we took were excellent.  They are only an hour and 45 minutes in length, so it's fast paced and in some cases just a little too short.  We didn't take as many classes as we could because we were worried about fatigue, but we left each session excited and wanting more.
• The People.  As I mentioned in Part I, this is a tight knit, but welcoming crew.  Reaper Staff were great, and we met so many accepting people.
• The Venue. The new Embassy Suites was fantastic.  The staff (for the most part) were outstanding and got on board with our nerdly ways - for example, I saw employees wearing convention badge ribbons under their Embassy Suites badges.

The Bad:

• The GrowTix registration site is ... well, I started to type "not adequate" to be polite, but ... it's trash.  Sorry.  All of our tickets came out in the end, so no harm to us, but I was meticulous in figuring out their systems and double checking everything because the interface is so horrendously bad.
• The Auction.  Throughout the event, you can earn "Reaper Bucks" (play money) to use at the closing ceremony auction.  All in all we had fun, and even won a Badger Krome airbrush, but as tables started pooling their funds, it left out a lot of people who wanted to bid on items.  We were at a good table - thanks to getting adopted - but it was apparent that some people were frustrated.

Things to Do Differently Next Time:

• Pack a lunch.  We ate restaurant food and junky snacks from the time that we left on Tuesday until we got home late Monday.  It's hard to leave the venue, get food, and get back in a reasonable amount of time, despite a lot of nearby options.  Each room had a kitchenette that we could have made use of - even if it was PBJ or deli meat sandwiches.  And we spent a lot of money on food.
• Take more classes.  I don't want to spend every waking moment in class, but we could have handled more classroom time.
• Volunteer to run a game.  There wasn't a lot of board game / tabletop wargame options.  Reaper obviously only offers what people are willing to run.  Maybe I should step up - I'm thinking Shadows of Brimstone would be a fun thing to run.
• Enter the painting contest.  We pushed ourselves to get entries into GenCon and then the Miniature Monthly Masters.  I had things that I'd painted earlier this year, but didn't feel that they showed my current capability and left them at home.  I should have done SOMETHING though.
• Bring stuff to paint.  Although we painted in classes and did the painting events ("Sophie Says") I could have brought a few models to play with at Fort Wappel.

Reapercon 2018 - Part I

Miniatures. Gaming. Fun.  That about sums it up.

I've started typing this post a few times to consolidate some of my Reapercon thoughts.  Nothing I've written yet really conveys exactly what happened to us.  "We had a great/wonderful/excellent/terrific time" is kind of cliche.

So, I'll start with a post I wrote for another forum and then modify/merge and turn this into sort of a mini-review / how-to at the end.

We signed up not really knowing what to expect.  What we found is that Reapercon is first and foremost about the painting aspect of the hobby.  Secondarily, it's about D&D and a smattering of other tabletop systems.  I saw just a handful of board games in play, but there were tons of tabletop RPGs.

But painting, lots of painting.

The Trip:

Anyway, we opted to drive. People called us crazy, but I really wanted the "road trip" feel to our experience.  And I really detest airports.  Between our home and the Texas destination there were a couple of states that I've never physically been to, except perhaps during a layover for a flight.  And I really detest airports.  Did I mention I don't like airports?

We set out after work on Tuesday evening and set our destination for St. Louis and the physical store for Miniature Market.  I've used MM over the past several years as a source for all kinds of things, and it was super fun (and a little surreal) to park our car in the front row beneath the MM sign.

The store was really cool, and I would recommend stopping by if you are in the area, but wasn't a mega-mart by any stretch.  Huge for a gaming store, and well stocked, but much of the obscure stuff that I know they have is managed out of the warehouse - which is a separate address.  We bought a few things and chatted up the store staff - they seemed impressed and honored that we made them part of our road trip.

Initial Destination:  Miniature Market physical store in St. Louis.

We arrived in time for the Wednesday night pizza party to kick off the event.  We randomly sat next to other people from the Reaper forums, and that served as a gateway to meeting many (many) more people throughout the weekend.

We signed up for 3 classes spread throughout the weekend (more on this later), registered for a run-thru of the Pathfinder 2E scenario, and we did the Reaper factory tour.  All of this was good fun and quite worthwhile.

Aaron Lovejoy giving a class on NMM.

My rough NMM attempt in the limited time we had; focusing on lighting and colors.

Setting up for the "Everything Chibi" course.  Here I've basecoated the Reaper figure.

The factory tour, in particular, was fantastic.  Reaper is a small shop in the grand scheme, and it's apparent that they've grown very organically over the years and figured out what works best for them.  I've been in/around large and small manufacturing since my first job in my teens and the sad/sterile/lifeless corporate factory is far too common.  Their entire factory just oozes with personalized touches and customized processes.  It made me want to work there.

Shifting topics:  the people that attend Reapercon are a tight knit crew and quite fantastic.  It's not a "small" con, but it's far smaller than PAX-U, and it goes on for 4+ full days (with most people arriving Wednesday evening for the pre-party and some staying through to Monday morning before setting off for home, so it's almost 6 days for many).

Convention Layout. We had most of the convention space but there is room to grow.

Registration desk.

Vendor area. Two short rows of booths (this is not Gencon) but there was good variety and things worth looking at.

General 'free area' for painting, gaming, or sitting down to chat or have a bite.  I'm showing maybe 1/3 of the available space.

Here's the part that I have trouble describing:  we got adopted by two groups and then met friends-of-friends and friends-of-friends-of-friends.  After 5 Gencons, 3 Blizzcons, a PAX-U, and random visits to the game stores near us, I feel like I can find common ground and have a pleasant conversation with most nerds.  But in the small confines of a mult-day event, those incidental encounters were compounded with repeat conversations.

Fort Wappel is a gathering point for many painters and social hijinks. We spent a lot of time here.

I grabbed reference photos of this dragon for my KDM Dragon King. 

Face detail on the dragon. Those eyes!

We started Wednesday night awkward and anonymous, but went up to our room on Sunday with handshakes and hugs.  It all happened in a blur, but looking back at how the weekend evolved, it couldn't have happened any other way - and could have never been planned or premeditated.

So, we had a great time; already talking about next year.

GenCon 2018

Welcome to GenCon 2018

Last year I broke the GenCon wrap up post into a multi-part series.  This year I'll try to do it in one shot.

First, some shout outs to: the Dog Might Games Viking Crew, the Miniature Monthly crew, Panda Cult Games, TTCombat, Ninja Division, Flying Frog, HipLein Industries, and the filthy casuals in the Council of Moo gang.

OVERVIEW: 
This was our 5th GenCon.  Which doesn't sound like a long time, but it means half a decade of travelling to downtown Indy.  It's been long enough that the years are starting to blur together a bit, and I actually had to go look up whether this was year 5 or 6.

Each GenCon is a little bit different for us.  Each year tends to compound a little bit more on the ones prior, like rings inside a tree.  There's a foundation of earlier years forming the layers of our experience, and each year we build another layer.

Early on, GenCon was about meeting up with old friends, mostly from our college days, and investigating new products, new ideas, and absorbing as much knowledge as we could about various product lines.  Since we were new to the scene, nearly EVERYTHING was new and GenCon was almost overwhelming in scope.  But with repetition, we're now looking for the deltas - the differences - from prior years and focusing more on the new growth.

Last year was a pivotal year; in 2016-2017 we continued to step away from PC games as our primary hobby and Games and Painting took on a more prominent role in our free time.  Through Kickstarter and online news venues, we started to understand the people and stories behind the companies we loved.  So, GC2017 was about meeting as many of our "heroes" as we could, and just being fanboys a bit. GenCon became a place where we were within a few feet of people we had read about, and that became a little surreal.

In the 12 months since last year's event - thanks to the classes we've taken and online groups we've joined - we've continued to build new relationships and have met more people "in the industry."  I don't mean to convey by any stretch that we're "important people" but a big change this year was that at several booths we had people recognize us on sight.  Or we would see them in the hall after hours and they'd flag us down to chat.  My point is that a big part of 2018 was about gabbing with new friends face to face, as well as spending time with our old friends, and overall that changed the tone of the event for us, in a good way.

THURSDAY:
Thursday was a shopping day.  Thanks to a huge traffic jam in Indy, we arrived later than expected, but still well ahead of the vendor hall opening.  We found our place nearest the Kingdom Death and Ninja Division booths and happily chatted with people around us.  It was apparent that everyone around us was heading to either KDM or Steamforged.

Obligatory "sea of nerds" photo. This was taken a few minutes before doors opened on Thursday.

My initial line position for the Kingdom Death booth.  A bit worse than last year. The end of the line is (I think) near the far wall.

The doors opened and we surged forward; I went straight to the KDM booth.  My line position was a little worse than last year, but I landed between two guys that I stood in line with last year.  We chatted our way to the front of the queue.  Unfortunately, the early line was full of people with shopping lists for themselves and their friends and the line moved slowly as people moved to the cash register with (quite literally) armloads of Kingdom Death.  And I mean armloads ... boxes balanced in a big heap and tumbling off the top of the stack while the person carrying them tried to use their chin to stabilize the pile. Insane amounts of money changed hands.

GenCon Kingdom Death menu.

Some beautifully painted (and based) KDM minis in the booth.

I finally got to the front of the line - about an hour and forty five later - and managed to snag a few hard to find resins (Ringtail Fox Survivor in particular).  I landed in the cash register line behind a young man and his girlfriend apparently buying everything in the store.  Nothing about their transaction was easy or fast.  They had a long conversation with the cashier about other items they may have missed.  Then they insisted every box be opened to ensure all figures were molded properly.  Then they paid in cash - in $100 bills - prompting every bit of currency to be checked, and there was a question about whether one of the $50 bills was counterfeit.  After 20+ minutes of waiting for this one transaction I was ready to give a mighty war cry and commit bodily harm upon them, but finally they were done and I was on my way.

KDM Loot:  TOP (L-R) - Dragon Armor Kit, Dark Elf Variant, Dark Elf, Sci-Fi Savior.  BOTTOM (L-R) Echoes of Death, Percival, White Knight, Ringtail Fox Survivor, Death High Whitespeaker

SoB and Broken Token Loot:  LEFT (top to bottom) Lost Army Hell Cannon, FoFo Deapth Track, Bone Eaters, RIGHT (top to bottom) Trederran Raiders, and two Broken Token Paint Racks

Dropfleet Loot:  LEFT:  Scourge and UCM Destroyers, UCM Battleship, UCM Battlecruiser.  PLASTIC BAGS:  UCM and Scourge Kickstarter Exclusives, Remnant Centurion, and Princess Liner.

I met up again with Mrs. Zoxe, and the rest of the day was random hopping to specific booths.  Of particular note, I went to the TTCombat booth to pick up just a couple of Dropfleet ships to round out my collection but walked away with a bag full.  They were selling off the Kickstarter and Web Store exclusives that I'd quite possibly not see again.  We paused briefly to line up for a book signing with James S.A. Corey of the Expanse series.  We were 2nd in line and got a little bit of 1:1 interaction.  Then we hit the food trucks for dinner and then collapsed.

Autographs from the pair of guys that write under the pen name James S.A. Corey.

FRIDAY:
Up early, and attended a podcast recording session with James S.A. Corey.  This was interesting to watch - sound checks and a live interview environment - but it was apparent that the authors were uneasy and there was zero interaction with the audience.  So while we learned some things, it still felt sort of false/artificial and wasn't much different than watching a youtube video.  I came away vaguely disappointed.

James S.A. Corey doing a podcast recording. The bandannas are holding their mics. The recording went well but at points this was brutally awkward for the guys and there was near zero audience interaction.

We hit the show floor and walked the entire venue from row 100 to 3000.  Did the KDM Black Knight demo.  The Black Knight is my single most favorite KDM figure, and I'm really excited by the gameplay his expansion will offer.  But the encounter was intentionally overtuned and completely gored us in 2 rounds.

KDM Black Knight demo. In production, the terrain will likely be cardboard. One of the mechanics is he picks you up and throws you through the pottery and columns and generally smashes the place to bits.  Super fun (and deadly).

Better shot of the KDM demo.

In late afternoon, we met up with friends and walked to the JW Marriott to find an unused ballroom.  A couple of us taught an another how to play X-Wing and I gave him a core box that I had abandoned.  Someone produced a copy of Unearth and taught us to play; really enjoyed this game.  Then assembled as a larger group of old friends at a local hipster taco bar (for lack of a better descriptor) and had too many margaritas and some really excellent tacos.  Returned to the same JW ballroom to play Fallout.  We stayed until well past midnight, but had a 20 minute walk to the car and a decent drive to our bed since we don't stay downtown. My head hit the pillow at 1:30 am and we had to be up early the next morning.

SATURDAY:
Up too early and still feeling the margaritas, I skipped breakfast and we ventured down for our Q&A Session with James S.A. Corey.  This was the interactive session I was looking for and really enjoyed them.

Q&A with James S.A. Corey. This was a lot more fun than the Podcast.

We putzed around most of the day and tried to find things we'd missed on Thurs and Fri.  In late afternoon, the winners for the Shadows of Brimstone painting contest were announced, and I'm happy to say that I won the Brimstone Bounty (squad) category (!!!!).  This was the super-secret GenCon Project #1, and I'll post some pictures later on.

My minis in the Flying Frog case (mine are on the right on the wooden stand).  I'll post separately on the theme and execution of the project.

We again met friends again at the JW for after hours gaming and Dead of Winter was brought out.  We played the intro scenario, had the win condition met, but lost in the final accounting of the round due to the order that certain things triggered.  I liked this game but I spent a lot of resources at the start that I might have held onto longer.

SUNDAY:
Back for the final day.  We had no events, and sat in the gamer hall and talked with friends until about 11.  We went over for the winners of the Ninja Division painting contest, and I'm proud to say that Mrs. Zoxe took 3rd in their diorama division (!!!!).  We then wandered around and  demo'd the Screaming God expansion for KDM and really loved this encounter as well.  This one was tuned to be winnable and while I died horribly my party was successful.  We finally called the convention done and departed around 2pm.

KDM Screaming God demo. The setup is that the horde of angry antelope are stampeding and chasing you (and the boss) as you hunt.  The terrain walls move to the left 6 spaces every turn, so part of the challenge is playing Frogger to avoid hitting a wall.

Victory!  I was impressed with this; the demo served some nice future content but also required the players to use some advanced gameplay (spending survival) that normally isn't demo'd.

OBSERVATIONS and CLOSING REMARKS:

The Blizzard Booth in the back of the Gamer's Hall was a new addition. Each year this area has a few more "content" booths, which is blurring the lines between the Vendor Hall and the Gamer Hall. It's not a bad thing, just a trend I've noticed. 

The booth was popular all weekend, though there weren't any events, it was just straight up Blizzard merch and a small area to play Hearthstone.

Observations and comments in no particular order.

1. The gamer hall felt a lot more packed.  GenCon is sneaking more content in here each year (most notably, Blizzard Entertainment this year).  In years past there would be acres of empty tables where groups could sit and play a pickup game of whatever, have lunch, or just veg out.  This year you had to hunt to find empty tables. (Not a complaint, just ... different).
2. I had a lot harder time getting into the KDM demos than last year. Could be just my dumb luck, but they were very busy all 4 days.
3. The vendor hall never really got gridlocked like it has in the past, at least that we saw. Yes it was busy, yes there were lines galore, but the full-on gridlock from row 100 to row 3000 that we've seen just never happened.
4. Friends that have stayed at the JW multiple years said that the downstairs ballrooms were more occupied this year than in years past.  The bleeding edge of GenCon continues to creep and expand each year.
5. I had just a hint of the GenCon crud on Saturday but took some Zicam and thwarted it.  It's now a week later and no crud. Hooray.
6. There were fewer Harley Quinn cosplays.  Thank you.

PAX Unplugged Day 2

Far end of the gaming/tourney area. One opening to the main stage is at the left of this view. The vendor booths are at the veeeeeery end of this large hall. 

I take back everything I said about PAX unplugged and the ability to walk up to anything. :)  After a fairly quiet Friday, the crowds surged on Saturday, and the venue was far more crowded.  The far end of the vendor hall [nearest Wyrmwood] cleared out a bit after lunch, but at various choke points the show floor was almost full gridlock.

This is a good thing. It is a good show.  People we talked to were happy, and the mood was very positive. 

Although the show continues today, our part is done and we'll begin the haul back to reality in a few minutes.  I'll be back with a more thorough run down of my thoughts... but for now: goodbye PAX!

Edit: Clarity and formatting now that we're home and I have a real keyboard.

PAX Unplugged

We went to the RIGHT!

Hello from PAX Unplugged!

This is the inaugural show from the Penny Arcade gang devoted only to board games and tabletop held in downtown Philadelphia. Day 1 wrapped, and I'm up early on Day 2 so thought I would type a quick trip entry.

We signed up for the event not knowing exactly what it would include. We have not been to any of the other PAX events, and as the first year we weren't sure what they could pull off.  We also learned that this the same weekend as BGG con in Texas, so weren't sure how many of the big names would make the trip here.

Turns out the U.S. is big enough for two nerd conventions at the same time. Yay.

We started driving Thursday after work. With stops, we had a 12 hr trek but decided to split that up on the inbound leg.  We got up yesterday at a random hotel we found on my phone while driving, had breakfast, and then enjoyed a glorious fall morning of driving across Pennsylvania.

We got in yesterday perhaps a little later than I expected but were still heading to the show floor around 1pm. We walked the expo hall and gawked at some of the tournament play.  Dog Might Games was one of the main stops we wanted to make, and we had a nice visit with our favorite lumberjacks and got caught up on their kickstarter progress.  We then found the paint and take area sponsored by Ninja Division, and had a hour or so of quiet painting time.  This also got us some time to chat with John, the ND owner/boss, who we've met at past Gencons.

When we wrapped up there, we were starved so we got back to the hotel and got checked in.  We walked up to a place called the Prohibition Taproom, and had some amazing comfort food and local beer. It was busy on a Friday night, but was out of the way enough that it was all locals and few PAXers. I feel a little more hipster this morning after hanging out with that crowd.

So far, we have a favorable view of the event. Some of the attendees are the PAX devout. Some are like us and are here because we're board gamers. Everyone is friendly and dialog and banter is easy. The venue is perhaps 1/2 to 1/3 the size of Gencon (at least the main portion of Gencon in the convention center). There isn't the same flash and awe as Gencon - the big name booths like Fantasy Flight, CMON, Privateer Press are far smaller and less glitzy. There aren't any show exclusive figures to track down, and no new product announcements to be buzzing about.  That maybe sounds like criticism but isn't.

There's a good crowd. There is a lot to see and do. But the layout and size are such that there's not the crush of bodies and you can get in and see what you want to see. There is more room to demo. And there are some smaller names here that aren't at Gencon, so we're seeing new things and meeting new people.

For today, we'll be moving in a little while. Reaper has a good booth and I want to get some of their paint to take home. We'll visit Dog Might again, and maybe find a game or three to demo. If we can get in, Shut Up and Sit Down is the keynote speaker today on the main stage and I'd love to see them live.