From: tool@MCS.COM (Daniel Blum) Subject: GenCon report Well, I've recovered enough from GenCon to post a semi-coherent account of what I found interesting. RPGs ---- I don't really roleplay much, so I didn't pay too much attention to this side of things. Gary Gygax was back (I saw him in passing :)). There was also a press release announcing that WotC/TSR and Dave Arneson have settled their differences. I did play in one of the invitational Alternity events - Raid on Bug Central. This was a Starship-Troopers-like hack-n-slash event - fun but not all that exciting. The basic action mechanism of the game seemed workable but not terribly original. To be fair, we were only using a very basic rules set and I imagine the complete rules add a lot of good stuff. Unfortunately I had to miss the other Alternity event I was signed up for, which was the spaceship combat game. Eurogames and such ------------------ Chessex was selling several Eurogames titles in actual English editions. I looked at the Serenissima rules - they side with the "French" rules, in that they say that you DO get money for selling to your own ports (not the bonuses, naturally). Note that these are available at large discounts from Fine Games and Boulder Games. Rio Grande had a number of imports. They sold out of Mississippi Queen - is this the next Siedler? :) I got to play Lowenherz again, and still like it, but not enough to plunk $40 down on it. Yet. Mayfair had their usual range, including LOTS of Siedler items - Seafarer, the card game, everything but the Seafarer 5/6 player expansion (and no, I don't have any more of those, sorry). They had pretty good prices on the Siedler stuff, too. They had two new abstract strategy games - Balanx and Gipf. Balanx had a cute tilting board but struck me as a gimmicky chinese checkers variant. Gipf's box had mostly overblown piffle, so I passed on it as well. Unfortunately there was no way to play either of these unless one found a partner and rented a copy in the open gaming area (Mayfair had a table in their booth, but it was occupied all weekend by a huge 3D Siedler board). Mayfair also had Gambler's Paradise (looked asinine) and Jack Jaffe's Save the President. Games People Play was back this year, with a good selection. Their prices were high, as usual, but to be fair, they had items that none of the other importers carried. They also discounted their Siedler items to match Mayfair's prices. Auction ------- Some reasonably good buys this year, espcecially if you're looking for things other than TSR items and wargames (English Wildlife Adventure, anyone?). The coolest item I saw was an original Gorgonstar Titan, uncut. With the Battlelands expansion. Anyone know how much this would normally be worth, so I know how much of a fool I was for not bidding higher on it (it was purchased for $110 by one of the German regulars, Wolfgang something). Lionheart --------- A new boardgame from Parker Brothers - medieval miniatures on a square- gridded board. The pieces are nicely molded knights, archers, foot soldiers, etc., which slot into bases. You can fit several men on a base (how many depends on the size of the unit - you can fit two knights on a base, or ten foot soldiers, for example). The rules are simple. You get two actions per turn - an action is moving a base one square forwards, turning a base, or attacking. You roll dice to attack - as many as you have men on the attacking base, with a four-die limit (this reflects the limited frontage of a large infantry unit or whatnot). The different units have different abilities - archers have ranged attacks, naturally, while the heavy units such as knights roll two dice per man and take two hits to kill. You win by killing the opponent's king (who functions like a knight) or by killing the rest of his army. Obviously, this is never going to replace even a simple set of miniatures rules, or a simple board wargame. It is kinda fun, however, and allows for tactics that at least have some approximation to those that were applicable in real life (it's not exactly trying to be a simulation, anyway). I preferred it to High Ground, to which it bears some similarity (in intent, if not in game mechanics). As a bonus, it's customizable - you can rearrange your forces on your bases however you want before you start, so you can choose to bunch up your infantry in tight formations, spread them in a broad line, etc. If the initial game sells well there will be expansions with new types of units (there are already at least six). I'd also like to see additional packs of the basic units, plus additional stands. You'd have to have a point system to build armies then, I expect (I gather that when you customize in the game as it stands you both use the same units, just place them differently). This could turn into a sort of Games Workshop-light item, obviously. I prefer it to the GW games I've seen, but that's a matter of taste. The game will be available in September, initially only through hobby stores (Chessex is the exclusive distributor for now). Eventually it may be available in Toys R Us and so forth. The price will probably be about $35, which seems reasonable for the quantity of plastic pieces you get (cheaper than Axis & Allies at list - this game was designed by the same person who designed A&A, I was told, by the way). In short - not great, but good fun in its way. Might be a good way to introduce someone to miniatures gaming. Groo: The Game -------------- I can't add much to Steffan O'Sullivan's review of this, except to emphasize that it is quite silly, and if you're not either a Groo fan or a silly card games fan you probably won't like this (I myself am not the world's biggest fan of silly card games, but I love Groo, so I like the game well enough). Sergio Aragones was there and was signing people's Groo cards. Titan: the Arena ---------------- I can't add much to the description that was posted of THIS game, either. Based on a reading of the Grand National Derby rules, T:tA is identical except for the following points: 1. In T:tA, a round is not over until all monsters have at least one card and there are no ties (there is no tiebreaker as in GND). 2. T:tA has secret bets allowed in the first round, which GND does not. 3. Biggest difference: in T:tA, all the monsters have powers, which can be used by the person playing a card on them, if that person has the greatest total of bets on that monster. It seems to me that you could play GND with a set of this game by simply ignoring the special powers and using the GND rules on the other two points. Makes me sorry I traded for a copy of GND just recently. :) In any case, T:tA is fun - the powers seem to work fairly well. Ferrocariles Pampas ------------------- An interesting little game. I felt there was something slightly wrong with the gameplay, but I can't put my finger on exactly what. It may well be my imagination. It's certainly worth playing again and it's cheap, so I'm not sorry I bought a copy. TransSib -------- This did not appeal to me at all. Most of the moves seem to be very obvious and the bluffing element didn't seem to add much - especially since in our game there were too few duels for the money involved to mean much of anything. Even the fact that I won handily didn't sway me. Freight Train ------------- I finally got around to playing the Mayfair edition of this. Very good little game, sufficiently different from Reibach & Co. that I think it's worth owning both - they both have the same basic "plot," but Reibach is shorter and punchier, while Freight Train is longer and generally offers more options when you have to make a decision. They're both cheap, anyway. :) On the Edge ----------- Atlas was giving out massive numbers of cards to people who tried this, so I played a game. :) I thought it was cute, but not terribly special. The gameplay really feels too much like a Magic variant for it to grab me (I LIKE Magic well enough, but I don't want more games like it). I will try to play a few games with all my new cards, though, and see if it grows on me at all. Certainly the background is inventive enough. Rainbo ------ A little abstract strategy game. The pieces are identified by a color (the colors of the rainbow, natch, minus indigo) and a size - there are three sizes for each color (each piece also has a base color - black or white - to identify the player). The colors take each other in Stratego/Jungle Game fashion - red takes everything but violet, orange takes everything but red, etc., down to violet, which only takes red. Within a color the sizes take each other from largest to smallest. So far so dull. The interesting bit is the movement. Large pieces make one rookwise move. Medium-size pieces make up to two rookwise moves (i.e., they can turn one corner), and the small pieces make up to three at once. You capture a piece by ending up next to it, whereupon you remove it and put your piece in its space (you can only capture one piece a turn, and you can't capture yourself by moving next to an opponent's larger piece, although I think that would be a good variant rule). I'm not really sure how much long-term potential there is for this (I rarely am, with abstract strategy games), so I didn't pay the $25 asking price. I was told that next year they should have a mass-produced version for more like $15, at whoch price it's probably worth getting (unless one of the abstract whizzes can find a flaw in it). _______________________________________________________________________ Dan Blum tool@mcs.net "Let it be granted that a controversy may be raised about any question, and at any distance from that question." - Lewis Carroll