my too-brief GZG-ECC VII visit

With the baby at home and work being goofy, I was only able to sneak up
to 
the con for Saturday. I only live an hour and a half away (Laurel, MD)
so 
it's a quick jaunt for me (I tried not to rub it in the faces of the
brave 
Canadian contingent.)

(Oh, and my reviews will be biased towards SG/FMA, since that's my 
favoritest of the GZG games.)

If I mix up any names, please excuse my bad memory.

So, drove up early Saturday, wandered around observing the morning
games.	
Dr. Carter's Mysterious Island had quite a crowd around it, and an
impressive terrain setup. I hope someone will post pictures of it (since
my camera was sitting at home, on top of my counters. Grr.) Etherships,
restless natives, dinosaurs, a volcano, a persuasive gentleman,
role-playing, the game had it all. Made 15mm look pretty tempting.
Stuart
did a great job of corralling the players (bet you expected me to say
shepherding?)

Also up at the same time was the first half of the Facilities 23 game. 
Military vs. Zombies! A heartwarming tale of a bunch of zombies breaking

out, and the military trying to stop them. Very cool setup again, I will

be stealing some of these ideas for a game back home.

Then, lunch. If my fellow attendees didn't hit the coffee shop across
the 
street from the parking garage, then y'all missed out. :}

Coming back from lunch, watched people strike the morning games and put
up 
the afternoon games. Quite an extensive ruined city being set up for the

Terminator game, and a large pipe setup for the second half of the
Zombies 
game. Also talked WW2 games with Stuart (as a friend is looking to get 
into one soon.)

I also listened in on Mr. Tuffley holding an informal, interesting Q&A
at
the back table while he ate. Some out-of-context notes:  vast majority
of
sales comes from minis, not rules. Rules are there mostly to support the
minis. (I know, not exactly news, but still, straight from the horse's
mouth, figuratively speaking.) FT is by and large the best-seller, ahead
of both SG and DS. The FT Japanese were their hottest seller; the
original
molds were burned out after only six months (!) Oh, and I got to hear
him
make fun of Dr. Who props, which pretty much made my afternoon.

Back to business. The afteroon held con Queso for me. I wanted to be in
one of the Queso games since I observed it two years ago, and I won't
lie
and say this wasn't a lot of the impetus for my attending this year. And
I
wasn't disappointed! This year, players ran teams of five troopers
through
SCUM [Supreme Combat Ultimate Match-Up], the cheesiest game show known!
I
brought five Jaffa (from Eureka's not-Stargate figs.) Numbered
objectives
littered the terrain-filled table. When your team took an action to open
the container, they got whatever was inside, good or bad! The red
numbers 
were safer, but only worth a victory point. Black numbers were
potentially 
dangerous (hello, Greybo) but worth five. Blues were in between those
two.

Some of the objectives:
* the Fon-DOOM boxes: artillery strikes of cheese. Limburgher = stinky!
* Many, many robots with support weapons. And the Santa-bot! Er, wait, I

mean a MedBot.
* Quality in a Can (tm)!
* Three words: Barrel of Chainsaws.
* I was very proud to find... a basket of kittens! (Which meant someone 
would have to make a morale test to shoot at the carrier, because the 
kittens are So Cute.) (I kept expecting the kittens to turn on me and 
attack, though.)
* I was also happy I wasn't the person who found Facehuggers in a Can. 

The finest moment of the game (well, after the assassination of the 
Trained Attack Lawyer) would probably be the final turn of the game,
when 
the sole survivor of his squad ran up to the final objective, which was 
MERE INCHES from the Aliens, popped it open and pulled out... a 
Flamethrower.

Anyways. Tony and Cat did a great job running this, I'm very pleased I 
could make it.

Stuck around for a little bit after that, did some shopping and booked
out. I *am* sorry I didn't come earlier, so I could get into the
Cinegrunt
Darkest Africa game, or that I couldn't stay until Sunday, for the
FMA-Frag game (I'm curious as to the rules for that one.) But next year,
definitely staying the whole weekend, even if I have to haul around a 
two-year old for most of it.

-P.
(the guy with the Green Lantern shirt)

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