I'm in a painting frenzy as GenCon Indianapolis starts 2 weeks from today on
August 19th and runs through Sunday August 22nd. I'm running some Full Thrust
games like usual and I need to complete a few fleets before they are ready for
the table. I'm not running a FT Tournament this year because participation was
going way down while it was a lot of work and I needed a break.
I know The_Beast won't be there this year, but is there anyone else from
the list who will be there?
FYI, here are the GZG games that I will be running, and then the other ones
run under the "M Collective" banner:
Thursday August 19th
5pm-7pm - Helm, Full Thrust!
This is an introductory game of Full Thrust for new and experienced players.
7pm-9pm - Helm, Full Thrust!
Same as above.
Friday August 20th
12noon-4pm - Sci-Fi Crossover: Hollywood Babylon
The forces defending Babylon 5 are under attack by the Star Wars Empire and
the Klingon Empire. Can they hold them off? Help is on the way but you never
know who will show up through the jumpgate to help. SSDs will be available
after the convention on my website.
5pm-9pm - Sci-Fi Crossover: Hollywood Babylon
Same as above
Saturday August 21st
5pm-9pm - Xeno Wars: The Second Wave
The Kra'Vak have made their initial push into Human space, but now two new
Kra'Vak clans have joined the fighting. Can a combined UNSC and ORC force stop
the Altaran and P'Sha ships before they reach the core worlds?
Other GZG games being run by the M Collective: Thursday August 19th
7pm-11pm - Defiance - A combined DSII/FT game (GM Mike Miserendino)
Friday August 20th
7pm-11pm - Helm, Full Thrust! - Introductory game of FT (GM Noah Doyle)
Saturday August 21st
7pm-11pm - Defiance - A combined DSII/FT game (GM Mike Miserendino)
7pm-11pm - Helm, Full Thrust! - Introductory game of FT (GM Noah Doyle)
Also listed in the events schedule are also some games of FT 2nd edition (not
Fleet Book) being run in the Battletech Universe and games of Power Projection
including a tournament.
Of general interest, Mongoose Publishing will be releasing their Babylon 5
based space combat game "A Call To Arms" at GenCon and will be selling their
convention only (so far) miniature of the Victory class Destroyer as seen in
'Crusade'
<snip>
> I know The_Beast won't be there this year, but is there anyone else
I'm probably going to be there, though I'll be helping out with the booth for
one of the miniatures companies and not as an active attendee. If I have a
chance to visit, I'll say "hi", but I have no idea what they want me to do (I
heard "terrain building demonstrations" but I don't know yet for sure).
Alex Kettle (also a member of this list, though almost always only as a
lurker... hi Alex!) will be there also, doing the same thing.
> I know The_Beast won't be there this year, but is
I'll be there on Thursday and Friday. If you need any UNSC ships I have most
of my small ships painted and mounted (CL X 12, DD X 36 and Corvettes X 20)
and in a pinch could finish my escort CL's (X 8)
> heard "terrain building demonstrations" but I don't know yet for
Step 1: Get access to vacuum-forming gear...
Seriously, be sure to show them how you do your felt "forest area outline"
pieces. And document it, and send it to me. Mine aren't turning out so well as
yours...
> >I know The_Beast won't be there this year, but is there anyone
Which company?
When I'm not running games during the day, I'll probably be in the dealers
room so I might find you first.
It sounds like the businesses around Indianapolis got the message last year
and will be much better prepared. Last year most expeced the gamers to be a
normal convention crowd, but reseraunts ended up running out of food and
loosing business as they closed right when the gamers were done playing and
wanted to eat, so the Steak-n-Shake was always busy. Well a couple
places I know of are trying to the the gamers money by staying open 24 hours
while
showing sci-fi and fantasy movies all night, and rolling out gamer
themed menus, brewing a special beer (Screaming Knight Pale Ale at the RAM).
Screaming Knight? Is that before (price) or after (taste) a pint?
Mike
[quoted original message omitted]
> On 5 Aug 2004 at 23:00, The GZG Digest wrote:
> Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 15:54:01 -0500
Hi, Dean.
How much had the FT tournament dropped off in attendance? It was, what, about
13 or 14 people in 2000? We always had way more individual people playing FT
games than we had entering the tournament. I suspect that it's just too hard
for some people to devote 8 hours to a tournament on the big day of the
convention. I now wonder if it wouldn't be better to handle it the way the RPG
people handle tournaments: hold the preliminary round(s) on earlier days.
Oh, well, maybe it's just not worth having a tournament at something like
GenCon, period.
> I know The_Beast won't be there this year, but is there anyone else
I won't be there, though we're debating what to do for next year. I'm deciding
between GenCon and Origins. GenCon would be the obvious choice (it's about an
hour closer and is bigger) except that the reports I heard
from last year's registration mess _really_ put me off. I'm going to
decide after I see how it works out this year.
> Of general interest, Mongoose Publishing will be releasing their
I heard from one of my RPG players that Mongoose has decided to make figures
compatible with AoG's large ships. Any idea if they are going to
do a Fleet Action scale of ships? I always found AoG's ships to be way too big
(which is why I ended up selling my collection).
> > I'm in a painting frenzy as GenCon Indianapolis starts 2 weeks
Last year we had 8 players in the tourney. For the effort I put into the
tourney, I didn't feel it was worth it. I do think a tourney could be done
again in the future, but not until FT 3rd edition is out and there is an bump
in the number of FT players out there.
> > I know The_Beast won't be there this year, but is there anyone else
That was just a big network mess. Why connect the PC's for people to check
email with all those that are used for registration? Why no antivirus software
on any of the machines? Why was there no tech support on site ready to fix
anything? That problem will not happen again. It has been reviewed to death
and the powers who are GenCon are overprepared to combat any network problems
this year.
> > Of general interest, Mongoose Publishing will be releasing
Mongoose likes the look of the full size minis, thus they are using the old B5
Wars masters to make their miniatures. It does save a lot of time and
scuplting costs. FA fighters will be used but the FA scale ships are not in
their plans. I don't expect to bring out a competing scale.
> At 11:00 PM 8/5/2004 -0700, The GZG Digest wrote:
> Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 15:54:01 -0500
> Other GZG games being run by the M Collective
> Friday August 20th
Both of these (mine, obviously) are going to be 2nd Ed. FT/FB with
'cinematic' movement. The same scenario each night, a fleet battle between
Federation and
Klingons - Classic ST:TOS done up under Full Thrust. All the Full Thrust
goodness, with the visual appeal of Trek. Signup has been light, so I'm
hoping to draw in some last-minute players.
Sadly, time pressures have brought me to decide to drop the Jovian Chronicles
scenario, I can't get those last two fleets painted up in
time. :(
But the Feds and Klinks should do nicely.
If people are having a really good time and get destroyed, I'm most likely
going to allow 'respawning'. I'd hardly want to kick someone out
half-way
through a 4 hour game.
> On 6 Aug 2004 at 23:00, The GZG Digest wrote:
> Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 16:55:48 -0500
How are was the attendance for the other games? We always had packed games for
FT in the past. Is the interest in FT declining Stateside?
> That was just a big network mess.
I read about it, and even posted a comment on it to comp.risks (an excellent
group for anyone interested in risks associated with computers
and electronics; there's a web archive, too.)
There's one problem, though, that they may not have addressed. They still only
had 1 printer for 6 registration terminals. This meant that the network
problems were amplified by the printing bottleneck.
> That problem will not happen again. It has
What worries me is that GenCon has had network, or computer system, issues
every year since it was taken over from Andon. I remember back in
1998 or 1999 they were still running a dBASE IV app that was clearly not
up to running the convention. I went back through the GZG List archives and
found my past GenCon reviews. Though last year was extreme, they have yet to
smooth over the registration (both players and games) problems.
Now, part of the problem has been their attendance jumping by 50% over the
last year TSR ran it, but they've never had as efficient a registration system
as TSR did with their room full of peg boards.
> Mongoose likes the look of the full size minis, thus they are using
That bites. I'd buy their miniature rules, but not if it's going to be the big
scale. I just don't have the space. I wonder if Mongoose could be convinced to
release the smaller ships. Probably not, they sound like they've made up their
minds.
---
> > Last year we had 8 players in the tourney. For the effort I put
There were fewer FT games run overall, but the ones I ran were full.
> > That was just a big network mess.
If you had pre-registered, there was no problem. From what I heard, the
problem with the printers was due to the fact the virus was overloading the
network with traffic so the que to the printer was huge.
This year from what I have read, it seems that badges bought on-site
will
not be printed. They will just give you a pre-lamitated blank badge and
then you write your name on it. So simple it will make your head explode.
> > Mongoose likes the look of the full size minis, thus they are using
I'll let you know how the rules are after GenCon. They do come with counters
for every type of ship in the rules, it is a pretty comprehensive list. The
counters will be in scale with the big minis though.
My big gripe is that the ships that were way out of scale with the rest of
the line won't be re-done. The massive Olympus and White Star will be
back.
> On Friday 06 August 2004 22:55, Dean Gundberg wrote:
> > I heard from one of my RPG players that Mongoose has decided to make
Damn. The FA scale ones are a lot more portable, a lot cheaper[1], and easier
to paint.
[1] I'd much rather spend £10 on 4 small models than £10 on a
single larger version of the same.
> I'm probably going to be there, though I'll be helping out with the
Reaper.
I'm not sure if they're actually going to have a booth in the dealer's room
this year, though there will certainly be stuff happening wherever they do
game demonstration events - and if so I'll be there. Someplace!
> Reaper.
By god man, talk them into doing more moderns and scifi. I love their
work, but I only need so much medieval/Tolkien/D&D fantasy on the shelf.
-P.
On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 02:07:49 -0400 (EDT) "Paul M. M. Jacobus"
> <paul@otd.com> writes:
<snip>
> By god man, talk them into doing more moderns and scifi. I love their
And if that is not their cup of tea then suggest somrthing in the
18th/19th century historical vein. Or even VSF!
Gracias,
> On 7 Aug 2004 at 23:00, The GZG Digest wrote:
> If you had pre-registered, there was no problem.
I came close to just dropping by last year (we were headed north, anyway). I
didn't, and I'm glad!
I heard that the slowdown in the computer system caused problems with
purchasing tickets for events, which isn't surprising since the entire network
was affected.
> This year from what I have read, it seems that badges bought on-site
*L* Yeah, and the way that TSR used to do it. It sounds like they are going
out of their way to make sure the same problems don't happen again. I hope so.
As I said, we're looking to decide what to do next year, whether it be GenCon
or Origins.
One problem I thought about, though, is the timing of GenCon. It used to
be at the beginning of August. Now it's in the third week, Aug. 19 to 22
this year. Our 5 year old goes back to school on the 20th. It wouldn't be a
huge deal to miss a day, but it's still something we'd rather not do.
As you can see, I'm waffling between Origins and GenCon again. *L*
> My big gripe is that the ships that were way out of scale with the
That's too bad. I look forward to your review of the rules, though.
---
> > This year from what I have read, it seems that badges bought
They did have problems with the Event Registration system earlier this year,
because of that and everything else, they have beefed up their IT department.
Here is what Peter Adkison (owner of GenCon) had to say about that problem:
http://forums.gencon.com/?f=21&m=6979
> One problem I thought about, though, is the timing of GenCon. It used
Per their FAQ, "Our goal is to keep Gen Con Indy in late July or early August
to accommodate those in school and to not conflict with other
conventions." GenCon Indy was scheduled for August 5-8 2004, but then
NASCAR scheduled the Brickyard 400 race for August 8th and that would have
been a mess with 30,000 NASCAR fans looking for rooms over the same weekend.
So they moved GenCon to August 19-22, the next opening at the convention
center.
Checking the future Origins and GenCon Indy dates, it looks like:
Origins 2005 - June 30 - July 3
GenCon 2005 - July 28-31
Origins 2006 - June 29 - July 2
Gencon 2006 - August 10-13
One week before I hit the road and I still have some painting of minis to
do......
> Mongoose likes the look of the full size minis, thus
> That bites. I'd buy their miniature rules, but not if
I assume that whoever owns the Babylon 5 (B5) masters also owns the Fleet
Action (FA) size (thus the FA fighters and not the B5). I have a suspicion
that the FA will be released at a later time after the release of B5. If FA
came first or had been even announced it would have impacted sales of B5 and
have caused loss of sales for B5. I suggest you wait and see.