Re: I survived GenCon!

At 06:31 PM 8/12/96 -0400, Mike wrote:
>
>Allan Goodall wrote:
>>There was certainly more of a buzz in
>>the dealers room last year and it looked busier (though the dealers
room was
>>a bit smaller last year). There were many of the same dealers as last
year.
>
>Unfortunately most of the dealers were not offering "deals", just
access to
>a lot of stuff(and junk) in one place.  Geo-Hex offered some good
discounts
>on their products and anyone who played one of our events received a $5
>coupon to use towards a Geo-Hex purchase.

Good point. I didn't use the Geo-Hex coupon because I bought one of the
large hex starmaps. I noticed that it cost $5 more than last year, but
they
had a 20% anniversary discount on them so I came out ahead. Geo-Hex had
a
very good selection of lead and resin. I wish their starmap "add-ons"
were
out for GenCon (they come out on August 15; bad timing).

<<snip>>
> RAFM Traveller ships(which are still in production, but having
>difficulty finding the Fang class gunboats)

If you want, I can see what I can do about them. RAFM is made in
Cambridge,
Ontario, about an hour away from Toronto. I've never had problems
getting
RAFM stuff. I'm glad to see that they're still in production.

>and Silent Death(nice looking
>large ships and affordable - $4.50ea)

Almost bought some myself, but I had to draw the line SOMEWHERE.

>Starblazers minis(expensive little suckers!)

You've got that right! Do you know if they came pre-painted? 

>I
>was really disappointed by the selection of ship miniatures since this
is
>the big event to find cool stuff.

Me, too, though I was looking more for Stargrunt stuff. I bought a lot
of
Living Steel figures. I enjoy the Living Steel/Phoenix Command system,
and
the Neemis Enterprises sets in particular make good SG2 figs. Depending
on
where you got them, $5 to $7 got you 5 figures in combat armour and 3 in
power armour, as well as a plastic padded carrying case. I bought 11
sets (5
Neemis, 2 Starguild, 2 Dragoncrest, 2 Seven Sword).  :)  I also got some
resin Kryomek grav tanks. Deals, though, were few and far between. One
of
the better deals was ICE selling 48 Silent Death ship stands for $5.
Last
year there was a great deal on old Star Frontiers miniatures: $2 per set
of
six ships, or 12 boxes for $20. This year, someone was selling a set of
the
same ships, with a vary basic paint job, for $75.

>I'm not sure which event you were in (Fire in the Sky?), but we did
have
>some delays with scenario related rules for Fire in the Sky.

The event was "Helm, Full Thrust". I felt that for an introductory game
there were too many ships per person (two capital ships, a cruiser, and
two
escorts per person was common, with at least one ship a side carrying
fighters). It made for a good game for experienced players, but it took
too
long to resolve. On the other hand, everyone involved got an excellent
feel
for the game as a whole, so maybe I'm just being picky. One excellent
point,
though, was setting up each side along the long ends of the table, not
the
short ends. This meant that ships were in range on turn one. I would
strongly suggest this for anyone doing a demo game.

>Allan, sorry your game didn't run as long as you would have liked.

Hey, I still enjoyed myself, and that's REALLY all that counts.

>We might
>run intermediate games next year to help give players with experience
more
>play time.

I'd appreciate that. 

>All GZG games at GenCon this year were free and meant as
>introductory games to get more involvement.  Overall, I felt the con
went
>great.  Every game had a full load of players with others standing
nearby to
>jump in if a slot was open.

For all my bitching :) the other players in the game really enjoyed
themselves and more than one bought the rules while they were there.
Spreading the word is almost as important as everyone enjoying
themselves.

>
>>I think next time (i.e. next GenCon) we should see if we can find a
>>table somewhere and play a game of FT or SG2!
>
>Sounds good to me.  I would like to meet more list members next year
and
>hopefully have more time to do something.  Curious, but how many
attended?
>How many played GZG games?

It might be a good idea to post the scenario here ahead of time and then
try
to find a place to play. This shouldn't be too hard...

Allan

Allan Goodall:	agoodall@sympatico.ca
"You'll want to hear about my new obsession.
 I'm riding high upon a deep depression. 
 I'm only happy when it rains."    - Garbage