ScrapYard Armory

The best four days of gaming continue on into the last and best evening of the convention.  I played in a huge variety of games in the exhibit hall and filled my evening with BattleTech goodness.  While I stayed mostly in the exhibit hall during the day, I made a point to swing by the BattleTech games to see how things were going.

Miniatures Competition

I saw a single BattleTech miniature in the Machines of War category this year and it managed to win third place.  Not a bad showing at all but a far cry from the near sweeps we have seen in years past.  The photos I was able to get are not the best and I was not able to find the time to follow up to find the painter who painted the mini.

Battle the Masters

I managed to sneak my way into the Battle the Masters game with generics and took my 13C Longbow against Paul Sjardijn and Lauren Coleman.  Next to me was Mr. and Mrs. Arbiter of Arbitration Studios facing off against Randall Bills and company.

My battle did not start well.  On the first turn I took a large laser to the face and suffered two criticals.  The first knocked out a laser while the second destroyed my sensors.  With damaged sensors on turn 1, I was always scrambling to try to make my shots count.  As the battle progressed I finally was able to start scoring some meaningful damage, including a revenge head shot.  But it was not my day and I was the first ‘Mech to be rendered to slag.

Not all was lost though.  Through a slightly confusing and ultimately enlightening rules question, the Masters lost one of their most powerful (if not annoying) assets when partial cover was taken away from Paul Sjardijn’s quad ‘Mech.  From there the match went back and forth evenly until the fan side of the battle began building up steam until the Master’s Mechs were ruined.

Despite being the first to fall in the battle the winning players split the spoils and each walked away with a ‘Mech from the Masters side.

All the Rest

I got in plenty of demos and mini games on Saturday.  Here are some of the highlights.

I played the new Gale Force 9 game Spartacus which pits players against each other as owners of gladiator houses per the popular Showtime series.  I was very impressed with the demo and the gameplay looked very good.  This is a great cutthroat game of deception and treachery.  Don’t play if you have thin skin.  An integral part of the game is to deal your influence and wealth to back stab your neighbors.

I played Linear at the Catalyst booth which is a very very quick game of line building strategy.  Each player takes turns building rows of beads on the play map with the intention of creating combining lines to score big points in all of the three possible directions on a hex map.  You also have to play carefully to disrupt your opposing player’s ability to complete their own rows.  A very quick game as I’ve said before.  This game hinges a lot on the price point and the quality of the game box organization.  For such a quick game it had better be super easy to setup and breakdown.

Level 7 is a new game from Privateer Press where you play the role of a test subject deep in a subterranean experimentation facility.  You use your wits, strength and speed to evade or defeat the guards and alien clones while you try to find a way out.  There are seven missions in the game each representing a floor of the test facility.  I liked the mechanics and the resources each player uses to survive.  However, while there will almost always be a player that first randomly finds the exit, there is still a way for others to lose.  In this way, you don’t play Level 7 to win, you play not to lose.

Nexus Ops is a risk like game of planetary conquest by Fantasy Flight Games.  This game is a reprint of a very old game with updated mechanics and a bunch of plastic miniatures.  I though the gameplay was a bit bland.  Without having been able to dive too far into the game, my first impression made me think that the game was a bit mundane and suffered from pile on situations much like in Risk when a player hits a critical troop threshold and rolls through the opposition.

Other games I tested out were Quarriors, the Mageknight board game, and a few other odds and ends.  It was a great day with lots to do.  All the same it will be good to get home and recharge the batteries.