Games: FallCon Game Convention

Last weekend was my weekend to play games at the FallCon game convention (the website is currently down) in Calgary. This annual September event was in it's 21st year, and I've had the pleasure of attending 13 of those years.

This year I ran a Flames of War tournament on Saturday morning and afternoon, raced to glory playing Formula De Saturday evening, and concluded with a very slow game of BattleTech on Sunday. Here's the synopsis of my weekend.

I have run a Flames of War tourney at FallCon for three years now, and I have yet to get a full event. This in itself was a little disappointing, but I did get to play as a result. This is a bit hard to do without tipping the balance, but at the same time with only three games to play I don't want people sitting out. I briefly considered just pushing the tables together for one big battle, but that has it's problems too. In the end everyone had a fun time. Players brought armies that included the First Special Services Force (American/Canadian infantry), South Alberta Regiment (Canadian armour), Governor General's Foot Guards (Canadian infantry), 21 Panzer Division (German armour and the winning army), 2 SS-Division (my German infantry), and another generic German infantry company.

I had setup three tables: a crossroad in bocage with a farm, Normandy "nearly" coastal town, and an Italian village in a pass. I spent a lot of time in the previous few weeks building my bocage, but the glue let me down as it slowly let go of it's green foliage over the day. Despite this disappointment it looked just great, and I look forward to going back with better glue to fix it up and add the extra foliage needed due to an insufficient supply for purchase at the store. I will also add some more long sections to the collection to ensure I have sufficient quantities for a larger table. It was an absolute blast to play on this battlefield.

Hopefully someone emails some pictures from the game because I completely forgot my camera. I want to post some pictures if I can since it really does do better with pictures.

After the boardgame and miniature auction (which I recouped $124 from the stuff too long sitting in boxes in our apartment) it was time for a game of Formula De. This is a great boardgame! It's a game of Formula One racing that has all kinds of tracks available for you to race on. It does an excellent job of simulating both the driving and excitement of racing using differently numbered dice to move your car around the track. This year I had all the luck with my rolls (as evidenced by my lack of luck with the dice in my other games) and quickly went from second at the pole to first and not looking back.

We played a three lap game with all the rules for car construction and weather on the Valencia track. It doesn't have any long straight aways for getting up to speed, so I setup my car for a lot of sudden downshifting and maneuvering. Luckily for me I started with soft tires that got me into the corners in fine form. I don't think I've ever had so much success in cornering while playing this game. And it really showed since I was pretty much dominating the race half way through the first lap.

When the weather changed to rain with two corners to go to the finish line, my car was in great condition to fend off a late hard charger with barely any rubber on his rims or fuel in his tank. He spun out coming out of the second last corner, and I was free to cruise across the finish line with the competition cringing at the sight of my rooster tail on the track two corners ahead of everyone else.

Sunday morning was my last game of BattleTech. I was a real fanboy of the game and the game universe back in the day, but I have since outgrown the slow and overwhelmed game mechanics and more of the same-repacked-as-new support that does little to interest me. The game proceeded entirely too slowly yet again, so I'm pretty sure that's it for me. I have considered simply holding onto my considerable BattleTech miniature collection and continuing to work on the fast play rules I started on years ago for large battles, but in the end I prefer Flames of War and other systems to having to come up with my own.

My game of BattleTech did accomplish one thing though - I made some contacts with people interested in acquiring some of my collection. So I will begin the process of slowly selling off chunks of my collection. I do have some real attachment to bits of it, but in the end it will likely all go. I've already started an inventory that I will send out.

This is one very fun gaming convention. I'm already looking forward to next year at FallCon. The return of the CalCon game convention in March 27-29, 2009 after a long absence will bring new opportunities for games. I'm currently considering running some games there too, but I have to finish moving first...