My Trip to BGG Con 2009 and the Meat Sweats

I made it to the Con site around 11:00 AM Friday to find groggy Chris, Jon, and Rob filing out of the Denny's across the street. The past 24-hours had clearly seen some serious gaming. My Geek List has the specific details of my time at the Con. After 1.5 days or so, I was starting to get totally brain fried. I think I must be totally out of shape when it comes to gaming! So, I decided to take a late night flight back from Dallas to San Antonio Saturday evening rather than do another late, late night of gaming.



But... before I departed, I joined the group for a large, confined geek feeding operation. I don't think I've ever seen that much meat consumed in such a short period of time. One of the Austin folks at the end of the table predicted we'd all have the meat sweats on Sunday. He was right.

Best game of the Con for me: Hellenes.

Other must-buy games: Power Grid: Factory Manager
On my strong maybe list: Dungeon Lords, Stronghold

Because all the cool kids are doing it...

This are the games I'm selling at BGG. I might be adding more to the list (Asia/Europe Engulfed???), but these are in for sure.

Arkham
Battle Lore + expansions
BSG
Black Beard
Brass
Hammer of the Scots
Industria (German)
Thebes
Kingsburg
Leonardo da Vinci
Pacific Victory
Saboteur
Shifting Sands
Soccer Tactics (new edition)
Texas Glory (on the "might keep" list)
Thurn and Taxis (with Spielbox expansion)
World of Warcraft w/ expansions
Tigris and Euphrates
Middle Kingdoms

Most of these I don't HATE. I just don't feel like I need to OWE them anymore. Basically if they stayed in SABG, I wouldn't mind playing them.

Back from BGG.Con

....and boy, am I tired. I'm too fried to muster a proper report, but I thought I'd at least post a placeholder. A few highlights for me:

• Playing a game of Arkham Horror with Chris, me, and the designer, Kevin Wilson

• Playing a 4-player game of Successors against some good, nice, experienced folks and managing to pull off an auto-victory. I carried Alexander's body from Babylon all the way to Macedonia, fending off assaults on my army from the other generals, then planted it in a ceremonial burial, crowning Alexander IV as my puppet. Great game.

• Rails of Europe: Fantastic reworking of Railroad Tycoon. Keeps all the good and gets rid of the bad!

• In-depth description of Descent: The Road to Legend and the new Cosmic Encounter by, again, Kevin Wilson of FFG.

• Thanks to Sean, my first game of Werewolf

• Tumblin-Dice

• StarCraft: The Board Game... potentially my second favorite FFG big box game

• About four games of Neuroshima Hex
  

BGG.Con Departure Day!

At long last today is the day that many within SABG make the 5-hour pilgrimage northward to the bleak, frosty wasteland of Dallas-Fort Worth for BGG.Con. I am so very appreciative of the support my wife and coworkers have provided to let me get away during an otherwise busy time, and I plan to use this time wisely for maximum fun!

Last night I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve, tossing and turning with thoughts of board gaming fun dancing in my head, along with various rulesets for Star Craft, Brass, World of Warcraft, Hannibal, etc., that I'm trying to keep straight. At 3AM, frustrated with insomnia, I fired up the computer and saw that Jon, too, was up surfing the net waiting patiently for the next day to arrive. If only we had Halo 3, we could have joined Michael who was probably just getting started gaming.

Anyway, I hope we all have a very safe journey to Dallas and have a wonderful time this weekend. The plan is to play Star Craft tonight at Red Roof #129 across the street from convention site!

BGG con....watcha playing?

Judging from last year, I much prefer to wander aimlessly until I find a spot for a game that I'm interested in (which is truly not hard to do at all), than to formally commit to a gaming schedule (like they are trying to do here).

Now, knowing that this year I'm getting there on Wed afternoon, I am seriously considering scheduling at least 1 beast. But immediately 2 questions came to mind:

1. What day am I willing to sacrifice to this beast? Thursday? Will probably focus on the new Essen hits. Friday? I think they have some of the special stuff (game shows, puzzlehunt etc) that day. Saturday? Really? the last day? hmmm... maybe

2. Then of course, WHICH GAME? It has to be something that I haven't played or at least not to completion. A few games come to mind: Europe Engulfed, Here I stand (full campaign), Barbarossa to Berlin, EUROFRONT 2. Other beasts that are played in less time are tempting me (Die Macher, Roads and Boats, West Front2 etc), but I have either played them in the past or can probably schedule those more easily. So it's probably going to be one of the previous..... with a STRONG preference for Here I Stand.

Would any other con goers be interested in a FULL CAMPAIGN of HIS.....or any of the other preferred beasts? Then, what day would you prefer to do this on? I think Sat would be the best because it has the least activities (IIRC).