Over the next few days, I'm planning to do a series of posts about each day of the con and then the mandatory self important "con reflections" (spoiler - it will be very glowing to the organizers)
Prepare yourselves for a barrage of con related ramblings - you have been warned.
A shot from the "catacomb" side of the table. Gamewise, the catacombs are located under the jungle section where there are entrances that correspond to the stairway sections on the catacombs.
A shot of the jungle section, which was new for this year. I think it came out really well and I think people really enjoyed playing on it.
I ran the game a total of 8 times over the three day con which was both really fun and exhausting. Very grateful to both Mike M and John D who both pitched in to help me run a game.
This year's games were a lot more intense and all went down to the last die roll. There was a lot more frenetic combat in the catacombs which really was very exciting.
Three factors contributed the improved game play.
1) I had uniformly great players including a good number who played last year and several who played the game multiple times this year. It's the players who determine the gaming experience and I was blessed with an outstanding group of people.
2) I tweaked the rules to make the monsters a bit less imposing so the player groups could get to the catacombs quicker and start bumping into each other. There was a lot more allied vs axis combat in this years games.
3) The movement trays - these things dramatically increased play speed without making the players feel rushed. Despite reducing the play time from 4 to 3 hours each game got in 20-25% more turns than the previous year. I was very surprised how effective such a simple solution could be.
Surprisingly, I was given another PELA award, which was awarded for the first game I ran so the connection got off to a great start. I thought the quality of the games this year was really off-the-charts, so the competition was fierce.
Here a shot of my latest award nestled with the rest on the award shelf. It's located just to the right of my most prized award - the "Honorary Posties Rejects" commemoration. Hallowed ground indeed. Now to find a way to parley these accolades into lucrative endorsement contracts with sports shoes companies....
Ugh - the ugly underbelly of putting on a convention game - unpacking. I managed to get the car unloaded and everything down to the basement but suspect they'll stay in those boxes a good bit of time before everything is put away.
7 comments:
Congratulations on the award...looks like you worked hard for it.
looks brilliant. glad you had a great time and congrats on the award
Looks amazing, Miles! Certainly worth the effort if you and the players had a good time - the award is a nice added bonus.
Congrats Miles - and the table looked brilliant! The additions for this year definitely made a huge difference from all the photos I've seen so far.
*and you'd think they'd just go ahead and put your name on that award permanently by now 😀*
Thanks for running some great games, Miles. The award is well-deserved!
Fantastic looking board & game, this is the type of game I love to get involved in! Well done!
Wow! That table is gorgeous and huge! Congrats on the award. Running a game 8 times does seem like a lot of effort; fun effort but still effort. 😀
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