GenCant - Sunday Space-faring

For the last day of GenCant, I had arranged to spend the bulk of the day playing Forbidden Stars with Eric, Chris M, and Burke. Since we were meeting when the hall opened at 1pm, I was able to sleep in after Saturday's late-night long movie marathon. I got up & grabbed food on the way, ensuring that, by the time everyone arrived, I was caffeinated, fed & ready to go.

GenCant - A Chill Low-Key Saturday

GenCant is the con of sleeping in for me apparently - I lay in bed enjoying a coffee & playing Alphabear for some time before eventually hauling my lazy ass out of bed to get moving (thank god for coffee delivery-men). It was then time to get Deefer all set up with her badge at Registration, so she could join in the GenCant fun (and enter Ichi's contest).

First task for the day was to check out the Plague bin - a tub full of dice (& germs) to scrabble through looking for gold. It wasn't nearly as large or as disease-ridden as the GenCon version, but the dice selection was pretty neat. There's a post here detailing exactly what was in the bin. After that, we made our way to a local bar for a few beers, some delicious food and a couple of games of Jaipur. We each won a game 2-1, and declined to play a tie-breaker game as we had been camped out in the booth for a while and needed to make our way home while driving was still a viable option.

After returning to the hall, Deefer and I played a few games of Fetch the Orange Ball while listening to podcasts. I had planned to play some solo Eldritch Horror but ended up watching a ton of GenCon 2015 coverage before settling down to watch some movies - specifically Hot Fuzz and The Two Towers. So not a ton of gaming but since I had already scheduled a Forbidden Stars game for Sunday, I wasn't too upset.

GenCant Pic - What's In The Box

For the GenCant photo contest, I put together a small scale version of Chessex's infamous Plague Bin - the huge mass of dice and germs to scoop through and buy by the pound. The resulting photo ended up something of a fun photo puzzle too.

The GenCant Plague Bin

GenCant Coverage - Friday

I was slow to get moving on my first full day of GenCant - I was tired & achy from the last few days of work, so I decided to treat myself and hit snooze a few more times. This con isn't really about getting in early or rushing to a particular booth first, so I could afford that simple luxury.

Once up, I donned my PJ pants and wandered in the direction of coffee - this con's lax dress code is a winner in my book! I then settled down to catch up on the latest gaming news, tuning into W. Eric Martin & the Board Game Geek crew on Livestream as they shared live interviews from some other convention going on in Indianapolis, or some such place. I haven't been to it, so clearly whatever this other con is, it's not that special. While watching the latest releases, I caught up with some fellow GenCant attendees on Twitter and made plans to meet up at one of the con's satellite locations for some gaming after lunch.

Tons of parking outside Hall GA

More coffee and a quick lunch of delicious nachos later, it was time to put on real pants & make my way to the gaming. When I arrived at the satellite gaming area (a short drive), I was happy to see there was plenty of free parking close by. This meant I was first to arrive, and so I was able to grab another coffee and ponder the games for sale in this area. Once Daniel and Linus arrived, we settled down to teach Daniel Abluxxen. The scores stayed close during the 3 rounds, but in the end, Linus pulled off the win with scores 30-26(Daniel)-20(me). We then set up a 3-player game of Yspahan, got through the teaching, and started the first turn when James walked in. Luckily it took just a few min to shift the set-up for 4-players and get him up to speed so we could restart to include everyone.

Setting up Yspahan

I've wanted to learn Yspahan for a long time and so I was really glad to get it checked off the list. I really liked the dice mechanic for determing available actions, and had fun figuring out the nuances of different strategies. Daniel destroyed us, but I felt like I performed relatively well and am determined to get another game of it in the near-ish future if at all possible to see if I can beat my score of 56 with more experience (& possibly better rolls). Next we pulled out Arboretum in which I failed to score much of anything but did manage to stop others scoring many of their high-potential paths, so at least that was something. This game is gorgeous, and the component quality was impressive - I'm just glad the gameplay seems to hold up to the promise of the bits,

Akrotiri mid-game

By the time we finished Arboretum, Falcon and Eric had arrived so we split into two groups - the others started Viceroy while Daniel taught me Akrotiri. This 2-player game from Sen-Foong Lim and Jay Cornier was sooooo good. The randomness of the tile draws was frustrating but in a good way, as all of the water icon-containing tiles apparently ended up on the bottom of the stack, which made it super tricky to excavate temples in relation to those. Plus we had a ton of islands that were literally impossible to reach making it tough to find an open island on the map. I ended up buying a TON of maps in order to increase my chances of getting all my temples down, despite those issues and in the end I was able to pull out the win. This is one game I will almost certainly be adding to my collection at some point.

The final map - with my excavated temples & goal cards in front

After grabbing some food, I joined in a 6-player game of Age of War which is actually the only game of the day that I'd actually played before. After that, I headed back to grab a cup of tea and watch some of the streams & videos from GenCon. All in all, not a bad first full day of GenCant, and I have plans in place for Forbidden Stars on Sunday so I know I'll be getting some more good gaming in this weekend. Hopefully there'll be more tomorrow but with a Beer, Bourbon & BBQ festival going on this Saturday in the area, I may have to take a break & check that out.

GenCant Coverage - Arrival at the Convention Hall

I had to work Wednesday/Thursday, so didn't make it to GenCant until late Thurs evening, when things were already in full swing. Upon arriving at the con, a short walk down some stairs from my room, I immediately headed for registration to pick up my badge. This con is so fancy, by the way. you get a choice of badge design - I grabbed 2 so even if mine flips around, people can still see my name. Registration was still open despite the late hour which was super convenient, & there wasn’t too much of a line (most of the other con-goers I saw were busy grabbing food & at this point) so I really didn’t have to wait long at all before being able to enter the hall & scope out the amenities.