The Great Larrycon 2013

Attended the the annual event in SLC again this year. Here are some of the highlights and games played:

The New

Eclipse board game- played twice. The second game took a long time but I did not feel like pushing people out of analysis paralysis mode. Hope we can get this one to take in our group, and I really want to replace those ships with something cooler (BFG?)

Dungeon World- played a silly demo with the guys of this one and had an absolute blast. Frostiod FTW

Spartacus- another shorter run demo style of this game. It is everything the reviews promise. So much theme built into this game.

Pandemic- this is a good game. Played once. I wish I would have picked this one up rather than forbidden island.

Lords of Vegas- somehow the random elements of this game work really well. Playing with poker chips rather than paper money is smart as hell. A fun light con worthy game.

Some Descent was played, but is not worth mentioning beyond that. The Overlord made us his bitches...

We were also able to get a game of Chaos in. Always an excellent choice. On the last day Erik and Larry ran me through a quick Bolt Action demo. Skirmish based minis games seem to be the way of the future. I for one am excited. Looking forward to Excesscon 5!

Summertime Update and discussion

As summertime comes into its full fury, I find I have had less time for painting minis. Since the last post I have only achieved base coating 14 Bloodletters and sculpting a cyber mastiff for the Arbites in our Dark Heresy game (I refused to pay for the lame looking Forge world one). In my next post I intend to have pics of both projects in their completion, as well as a recap of the exciting annual trip to SLC for Larrycon. I also wanted to put into words here a little thought/discussion that has been bounced around in our group lately. Something I had discussed at length with the great Larry himself. It seems the more releases GW puts out, the more I get sad about the range and the direction of sculpting as it moves away from art and more towards computer generation. CAD design works great for things like tanks and mechs, but using it for anything organic seems to drain all the personality out of the miniature. This must be why I love most Reaper models so much. They are still the work of natural artistic talent and carry an aesthetic appeal that strikes the right chords within me. When I look at the new Eldar wraith Titan thingy or some of the new Chaos kits they just look- well pretty terrible if you ask me. Food for thought as I look around for a miniatures game that can have staying power in our group and stand the test of time.