As per the norm at GenCon, Magic the Gathering seemed to be the dominate card game, although not by much. It seems that they now have half of the tournament hall, while Upper Deck had the other half. It’s kind of a weird setup, because Wizard no longer runs the Magic event, instead a company called Past Time Games runs all the magic events at GenCon. Been that way for a few years now I’ve noticed.

Anyways, most of you have heard of Magic The Gathering before, and I’m sure you know that World of Warcraft has their own trading card game. I’ve played it before, and it’s not really a bad game, pretty decent system. There just isn’t anyone really in my area that plays it, so I haven’t looked into it much after I learned how to play.

Yugi-oh is still Yugi-oh, your deck consist of some of the craziest card names out there, and through some odd force can combine to create even more absurd creature names that would give any Scrabble judge a brain aneurysm just trying to comprehend the thought behind the name.

As my friends and I roamed the vendor hall, we came across a few new card games we wanted to try. Now these aren’t CCG’s or TCG’s, just normal type of card games. Example, the first one we tried was called Fishing For Terrorist. Basically, Go Fish on crack + making fun of the FBI/CIA.  You play the role of an agent from your agency, and ask a particular player “Have you heard anything about insert one of the terrorist names here activity?” I suppose you don’t have to say that, but it helps make the game a little crazy. If someone says yes, you collect the terrorist from them and capture them. If they say no, you draw from the deck. (Ask for a 3, get told to go fish). They also added crazy event cards, counters, the ability to steal other terrorist, and the whole goal is to have the most terrorist by the time the deck runs out to see who wins. Fun little game when you and some pals are bored.

The next game we tried was made by the same company, so expect something odd.  This game was called Red Dragon Inn 2. It can also be played in combination of Red Dragon Inn, and the thought behind this game is, what the adventurers do after dungeon crawling in say D&D.  You play a character of a particular race, I remember I was a half-orc. You have your cards, some gold, and cards that consist of different alcohol. I guess if you break it down, you’re characters are gambling, playing cards and drinking. The entire goal of the game is to be the last player with gold and not drunk. It was interesting, but $35, so we didn’t pick it up.

The last game we all tried was actually one produced by one of our friend, friends. Got it? This game was called Burosh. This game was definitely a twist on poker and dice. I believe the max players was six, you have one playing card deck with a few extra cards that are wilds. The playing board is a nice wooden board, that is a big hexagon with hexagon tiles for the game board. I’m not sure if I can explain this game without showing you how to play it, as it sounds confusing even in my head.  You roll a d6 (six sided die) and place it on the game board. If it is next to any of your dice, all the surrounding dice gain a point up to 5. If it is next to enemey dice, they all go down one, to being removed if below 1. If your die number ties any enemies around it, you challenge that player. Basically you try to have the best poker hand to beat them. The catch is, lets say you have a 2, and your challenging an enemy against a die that is a 2. You are only allowed to use a max of 2 cards to make your poker hand.

There you go, once again, goal is to have more points than the other plays once all the spots on the board are taken and no one else can play a die.

So there you have it, the card games I encountered last week. Oh, and in my swag bag for attending GenCon, I had a booster pack of what you see above, which is weird.

To start off, I said last week that after GenCon I would be announcing something special depending on how GenCon went. Well, I believe it was a success, so here it is. For those of you in the Terre Haute, IN area, I have been looking into opening my own store. What does the store do you ask? Simple, it will provide a nice, friendly environment for people to come play Collectable Card Games (Such as Magic The Gathering, World of Warcraft, Yugi-oh), Miniatures (Like Warhammer 40k, Lord of the Rings, and Malifaux), and even have some places for you to gather with friends to role play (Dungeons & Dragons, White Wolf, Vampire).

So at GenCon, I was looking for new games, what games were popular, and of course, mingling with my fellow gamers!

Today’s article will conclude what I discovered about Miniatures. Some of you may know the company called Privateer Press. They where showing off a a new game this year, which was sold out of starters every day (they kept getting special FedEx shipments to restock each day) and had a long line to play test. All I know is, it dealt with giant monsters inside of a city. As I saw monsters and skyscrapers on the playmat.

World of Warcraft will be releasing their own game of miniatures, which they had setup for show and you could get in line to learn to play. I believe one friend sat in line for 2 hours, far to long for me, I’ll just buy a starter when they are released and read the rules myself.

Lastly, the thing I actually want to talk about is a game from the company Wyrd. I spent some time talking with the company owner and game developer. They showed us how the game is played, even though the game is in the alpha stage. Which they are hoping to release an open beta some time around the start of the new year. (Again, hopes) There will be an open beta however, where you can download the rules from their website once they come out.

If you know how Warhammer works, or other miniatures, it’s a fairly simple process. The goal is to create a skirmish based game, which uses small armies. In their example of an army, each player had about six units. A hero and some other guys. I’m not sure exactly what the max army number will be, they just stated they didn’t want to have thousand point armies.

Instead of using dice to determine your actions, the deck consist of a normal poker deck with a few extra cards. Mainly a few extra jokers, one good, one evil. The game dev also said that they plan on having a few extra cards for the hero’s that they can use.

There will be four waging factions (One for each suit in a deck of cards) and a faction of mercenaries. Which I believe can be bought into your army by using some of your points.

So now with my brand new un-painted miniatures, I am going to learn to paint these bad boys. So hopefully once I get around to opening my store, I will be able to have paint sessions, events, competitions on painting.  I will keep you updated on my learning process once I get my tools and paints in.

Also, tons of pictures to come!

This post was brought to you by the magical abilities of my new laptop :P

There was much to view, much to do, and much, much more memories to be remembered. I’m still a fairly worn out from the whole endeavor, but it was totally worth it.

As for this segment, you won’t get much out of me. As there is quite a lot of to tell and share, may broken up into two actual post. For now though, I’m back, I have my notes, I’m alive, and can’t wait for tomorrow to make my first post on my new laptop!

I also have tons of pictures to filter through to make sure they don’t suck and upload them to the site.

Many of my friends have said I’ve gone to the darkside, that I’ve lost my ways as the computer person they all knew and loved. Some have cursed my name upon their tongues, while others simply resort to throwing rocks at me.

As school draws closer, I decide this year to get a new laptop, and with a new laptop, I decided I wanted to broaden my horizon in the world of computers and OS’s, OSes… Operating Systems. I’ve toyed a little bit with Ubuntu, and considering giving it another go here in a few weeks.

So I figure, why the hell not? Besides, school is buying the laptop, isn’t that money supposed to go towards a learning experience? Now I must wait patiently for my new toy to arrive. I was hoping I would get it before GenCon so I could use it, but it looks like it will arrive while I’m gone or the day after I get back.

So to everyone out there, if you feel you need to expand your knowledge, tell your friends they can buy you the laptop they prefer if they want to judge you! Jerks!

I anxiously away just six more days so I can head up to Indianapolis, IN for GenCon 08. Where I can feel at home. In my environment, with my people! Being surrounded by collectable card game players, larpers, role players, artist, and fellow writers. There will be a lot of mingling done this year as I want to try to learn all the games they have to teach, plus my friends and I always have a competition to see who can get the most free T-Shirts.

If any of you plan on attending, leave a comment, drop an e-mail, or just wonder around the convention center asking random people if they know Cronus. Maybe you can start a competition to see how many strange looks you can receive.

Also, depending on how GenCon goes, I may be making a special announcement upon my return from the land of my fellow geeks.

A few of the writers here intend to bring updates on information from E3 throughout the week. So keep an eye out on things you’re looking forward to.

Also, GenCon Indy takes places in 30 days. Aug. 14th-17th. A few of us plan on being there roaming around and taking part in the events. So if anyone else plans on going, leave a comment or send an e-mail. We can all get together and rant about various things.