tl;dr - Went to CincyCon. Played Battlestar Galactica and Civil War. Had fun. Cya at GenCon!
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So, I went to CincyCon on Saturday.
Got there around 1:30, and got the last ticket for the Colonial Payback (Battlestar Galactica) game. Let me start by saying that it was excellent, and I had a good time. Jim Fox is the creator of the rules, although from what I understand they're adapted from something else. I think he still needs to resolve some balance issues. It would essentially take 4x the number of Cyclon raiders to make it a fair fight versus Vipers, however the Raiders were only at a 2/1 advantage. So essentially, the vipers were pretty much able to obliterate the raiders, and then also clear all incoming missiles and nukes from the Cylon capital ships. Since those ships only have missiles and torpedoes, they were a bit hamstrung. Meanwhile the Colonial ships had rail-guns that were wasting everything in their path.
I think it could've been a little better organized when it comes to marking number of missiles and torpedoes. At one point, the Cylon ships had been launching everything they could for 3 straight turns, and the amount of missiles, torpedoes, and fighters being tracked got a little excessive. While stands of each element usually stood for more than one of that type, each stand had a die to track it's number of turns on the board (missiles and torps go away if they dont hit by the 4th turn) as well as a small piece of foam with the number of units being represented by that stand. I'd suggest having some small magnets with numbers on them (1, 2, 3, 4 would be enough, and you could use 2 magnets on a base if the numbers got higher), and simply stick these to the bases of the missile/torpedo/fighter stands to show how many are in that group. I think using a different color magnet or number would be good for the turn numbers too.
With all the ordinance and fighters crowding the field, the last thing you need is confusion about who's missiles belong to who, and what unit was this marker for, etc. Not to mention the fact that you simply NEED all that space on the table because things get very crowded very fast. We did have issues with an opponent moving the wrong missiles, and just trying to get stuff done during the movement phases was a headache once everything got that crowded. The map setup actually contributed to this, because we had a planet in the center, so the units that were racing to the fight were also sending everything they had on the closest possible trajectory around the planet. Essentially, the planet acted as a giant funnel.
I'd like to playtest this a couple more times, so I hope Jim brings it to GenCon.
His miniatures were fantastic, absolutely beautiful. Everything painted, to a very nice tabletop standard, and it really made for a fun game in that regard as well. We constantly had people stopping to watch because the table setup and minis looked so good. Of course, they may have also stopped to wonder how in the world we were playing something that looked SO complicated. I even heard a couple guys mention this, and I explained that we had started with capital ships only and each turn had launched missiles/torps/fighters, which is why on turn 5 it looked like a small hurricane of models on the table. Personally, I thought it was great, and really not that difficult to follow. I do wish Jim would've stayed around longer (he was pretty busy running the con), as I think he left around turn 2, and the issues with the game that really need to be resolved didn't show up until turn 4 or so. That's one reason I wrote this, because I wanted to remember as many details as possible if I ever get to talk to him about it.
Checking the schedule around 6:30, I noticed that most other minis games were starting at 7:00, and I wanted to be sure and try something else. I let my team know I would be leaving to play something else at 7, and they were fine with it. At that point, the Colonial win was a foregone conclusion anyway. I headed over to the Clone Wars table and asked if they had an open spot, and he told me to check back in 10 minutes. I'm a Star Wars fan, if not so much a Clone Wars fan, so I thought it would be fun to play a scenario. The table setup was very unappealing however (hordes of ugly neon colored plastic flowers which probably represented some alien flora), and I thought I'd skip it if I could find something else.
There was a beautiful table nearby that I had seen earlier, so I stopped to talk to those guys. It was the Gettysburg Soldiers table, and they still had a spot open, so I sat down and started learning some rules. Fantastically fun! Very simple ruleset, but with enough complexity to be fun for a long time. If you like Historical miniatures (this was my first experience with it), I would think this ruleset is what you need to get your friends interested in it as well. The creators of the game had all minis perfectly painted, and all situations prepared as well. Oh, you want to dismount your cavalry? Sure, they just picked up the cavalry you were using, and replaced with dismounted cavalry, horses and all. If there was a game I would've liked to play a couple more times, this was it. Had a great time, even though we got stomped. They were offering their full rulebook for $14.95, and I really wish I would've gone ahead and bought it. It just seemed like a waste to do so, since I've got no minis to use. Judging by their website (gettysburgsoldiers.com), it seems they've gone to Origins the last couple years, so maybe I'll get a chance to play again. A shout-out to Larry and Justin Reber as well, who were both class acts in helping everyone play the scenario and learn the rules. A couple of very nice guys, and I hope your game sells well.
That was it, only 2 games, but I had a great time. Things were still going strong at the Con, with lots of people playing RPG's and board games in that area. I've got mixed feelings about the location. I think the Woodlawn Community Center was a really nice place, so I don't know why they've switched to this hotel. It's odd to see doors to hotel rooms completely surrounding the giant atrium area where all the RPG's were. The hotel itself seems pretty old and sketchy, although one person mentioned that the rooms were clean.
This really got me excited about GenCon. I have to say that last year, I was a little overwhelmed with it all. There was so much going on everywhere, all the time, that I had a hard time making ANY decision about what I wanted to do. But I feel a lot more comfortable about it now, CincyCon was a good warm-up.
