GamesReport: 24-Jun-12 QCon19-Day 3

Sunday @ QCon19

Thanks to Starbucks for keeping us awake on Sunday

Sunday morning came early and truth be told this convention seemed to be over in the blink of a eye. This was due no doubt to the fact that we filled every available moment playing games, and I don't recall any QCON that I got more games in. This came at a cost however and convention fatigue slowed us down in the first session of Sunday. Thankfully Starbucks helped us out with some welcome espresso and we arrived at the Queens University Students Union building on time and ready if out raring to go.

Game of Thrones

Witness the Blockade of Pyke

After we had publicised that we were going to play Fantasy Flight's second edition version of the excellent Game of Thrones boardgame we got a lot of interest and I think that all the six available slot were filled early on Saturday. As it turned out two of these people had not the stamina of the more experienced convention attendees amongst us and they were shamefully no shows. The two available seats were soon filled however and the game got underway with random selection of Houses.

 Koffeeklub regular AndyA took his customary Baratheon position and GaryG and myself swapped our previous positions with Stark and Lannister respectively. Separating the two Gary's was Chris taking the dangerous Greyjoy House and to the south of the seven kingdom John and Colin (like myself of tabletopnorth extraction) took the Tyrell and Martel Houses respectively.

I started aggressively seeking to take Greyjoy out of the game early and give myself a little breathing room. My assault was interrupted when a sizeable Tyrell army arrived at my southern border forcing me to divert a army I had planned to strike at Chris to make a point with John that such incursion would not be tolerated. This led to a swift and bloody exchange that left John and my armies decimated and both of us hamstrung and effectively out of the running for most of the game.

I became a whipping boy for the rest of the game and with all the attention off the north and east Stark and Baratheon were able to build their strength. It was Colin's first game and he squared off admirably with the slightly more experienced John, and drew AndyA into the conflict as well. When it became clear that Stark had been allowed too much rope and GaryG had built his armies well attentioned turned to the north in the mid game. Gary saw the threat and made his move attacking Greyjoy and Baratheon and for a couple of turns it looked as if Stark had it in the bag. However he was way over-stretched and this allowed my Lannister to sweep north and take Winterfell. The last battle was between Stark and Baratheon with the Lannisters winning should the Baratheon's lose. Ironically the Greyjoy support in the battle give the well deserved win to AndyA.

AndyA was a worthy  victor

A not so worthy GaryB

Watch this space for a KoffeeKlub review of this fantastic board game coming soon

Ticket to Ride

After lunch and yet another Starbucks coffee we had a stab at Ticket to Ride. AndyA and GaryG were familiar with the rules of this simple but involving game, but it didn't take long for me to pick it up. I suspect that Gary and AndyA took it easy on me at one point in the game when I had signal posted my intended route across America and there was an opportunity to block me haflway which would have ruined my game. In the end I won quite handily which is good for I badly needed the coffee beans for the Koffeeklub league.

Trev had been keen to play this game all weekend but couldnt make it for the Sunday. We will definately bring this game soon to a Sunday night Koffeeklub meeting.

Another Pandemic

We will defeat you ... oh yes!

We had another crack at Pandemic to finish off the convention and yet again we were defeated by the four mega-virii. We are starting to think that GaryG needs to go away and play this game solo for a while. He definately is holding us back and badly needs practice to up his game. ;)

Seriously though I like that this is a very challenging collaborative game and in that it reminds me of Arkham Horror before we got the beating of that game. I believe that we are going to give this game another attempt next Sunday.

Convention Round-up

I really enjoyed this years convention. It was huge in terms of numbers and all credit to the QCON organisers for another fantastically well managed event. It did feel that we were shoe-horned in to the SU building this year though and there are indications that we have outgrown this venue. It seems likely that the gamers will be pushed out to outlying buildings and I fear that this will further diversify the gaming and non-gaming portions of QCON. I have every confidence though that next years organising committee will resolve this problem.

One thing is for sure we will be there and I for one cannot wait