Back From Historicon 2018

 This year's Historicon was a blast - probably one of the best I've ever been to.  The first few photos show the table layout for this years games.  The table was 6ft by 20ft.  I had asked for 6x24 but made this work.

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.