Origins Report, 2012
Back from Origins! Injured, tired, and full of joy...
Arrived Wednesday, specifically to play warhammer. Was lucky enough to get into a Shadowrun mission, too! So good times. Well, except for the part where one of the Shadowrun guys was hacking and coughing through the game. I was like "Aw geeze, don't get me sick..." Guy next to him said "Don't worry! It's been a while, he's probably not contagious!" I was nice enough to not point out that he and his buddies had been riding in a car with sickie from Maryland, and between the five of them one of them was likely to pass along the creeping crud. Sure enough, here I am with a nose running like a faucet and a throat like a mile of bad road. Great.
Wednesdays are usually dead, so I thought little of the low attendance. As it turns out, this was a bit of a harbinger of things to come...
The Warhammer tournament on wednesday was 750 points. That's pretty damn low, for those who don't play.
I fielded the army I played last time, that did reasonably well... But my poor little rat-men got STOMPED. This time, I couldn't roll worth crap and my foes were cheering with every critical roll they got. The dice just weren't with me. No worries, I still had fun.
Thursday was the opening of the dealer's hall, and the joy of the Tag-team warhammer tournament. It was me and Josh, running the Orcs and goblins and Skaven against all comers! Well, due to crappy attendance and excuses, the only other comers were two more teams. The tourney organizer had to step in and field a ringer team, to make things even.
It was pretty rough. We put up a good fight, but we were outmatched left, right, and center. Still, Josh got some good experience for future fights, and I got some practice against rough armies. No worries.
Later on thursday evening I played through a M+M game, that was a satire of the 80s! We were SUPERTEAM 1984, fighting against the evils of DRUGS and COMMUNISM! We were celebrities who had superpowers through the magic of TELEVISION, and there were corrupted celebrities out there that needed some JUSTICE! I played David Copperfield, and the rest of the party consisted of Mary Lou Retton, Hulk Hogan, and David Lee Roth. It was a hell of a fight! I nearly got strangled by the massively bulked thighs of Suzanne Sommers, while Hulk Hogan was sweating blood to the oldies, due to Richard Simmons' mind control... We also saved the Jackson 5 from a fiery death, so that was good. Though my proudest moment came when I used the power of illusion to give the evil Donald Trumpinator a bat's head. While he was standing next to the Corrupted Ozzy Osborne... Well, that moment AND the one where I teleported tammy fae bakker into Judge Wapner's courtroom, 20 miles away. It was the only way to stop her infernal singing...
Friday morning was bad. See, I'd been staying with my in-laws, and on friday morning when they left for work they forgot and turned on the motion detectors. So when I went downstairs the alarms went off. Had to call them, and tell them that things were okay. Then, during a sudden rainstorm when I finally got out of there, I slipped and fell on my rump on the wooden stairs outside.
Bruised my tailbone. Bruised it BADLY. Sitting was agony, and still is. I'm on Ibuprofen and sitting on a rubber donut, and it's just barely tolerable. Still, the Xrays show no breaks, just a lot of bruising. So hopefully in 1-2 weeks it'll be healed.
But it made sitting through the smithees and driving around Columbus bad times. Put a damper on the rest of the con. Good thing everything else was so awesome!
Friday I shopped, and kept within budget this year. A handful of rare books, some inexpensive board and card games. I also got to try out the alpha version of the next D&D edition... Some good things, some bad. I won't go into detail here, as I signed some stuff that I don't recall clearly. If you want to hear my opinions on it, ask me in a private message or some other non-public venue.
Friday's dinner was a run to the north market. Mmm, authentic italian cuisine. DARK CHOCOLATE ice cream for desert. I love that place...
That night was the mega-smithees. Oh, some gloriously horrible stuff. Marred only by my busted butt. Seriously, sitting that long was agony.
Saturday I ran through a mission of Terrorworks, alongside a 12-year old girl dressed like captain america, and her mother, who was dressed like Nick Fury. Many rubber suited actors fell to my airsoft justice! (I'm rather surprised that I'm actually a badass when I'm playing, as opposed to running. Easier to focus, get into adrenaline mode.)
I also took in a few demos. Summoner wars was pretty fun! I'll probably pick it up, eventually. Leviathans, (The Catalyst airship steampunk wargame) was surprisingly good!
So after wandering a bit, I grabbed a construction paper mustache-on-a-stick (A freebie from a western diceslinging game), and wandered over to the minis hall for the Leviathans competition. Putting on a cheesy english accent, and with extensive use of the mustache, I played british ships and hammed my way through blowing the french out of the sky. The entire table was cracking up! HARRUMPH! INDUBUITABLY! FAH FAH FAH HAW HAW!
Seriously, good little minis game. Bit expensive for my wallet, but I'll gladly play it again. Kinda falls in that niche between battletech and car wars...
Saturday night was the regular smithees. Oh lord... The movies were horrible, horrible. Mega Piranhas. Birdemic. Ultracop 2000. Look them up on Youtube, trust me, you'll see what I mean.
So yeah, good times. Left sunday morning, and checked in to the urgent care where I got my xrays and pain meds. All in all, I got to spend time with friends, play good games, and through a miracle I ran through every generic ticket I had without having to buy more. My swag pile is small but full of goodness, and overall it was a week or so well spent.
The convention is definitely pulling less people, though. The move to the end of may wasn't good for the high-schoolers... I think they should tuck it in a week or two. True, they have to dodge Gencon, but mid-june would probably be better. By then the kids'll be out of school.
Arrived Wednesday, specifically to play warhammer. Was lucky enough to get into a Shadowrun mission, too! So good times. Well, except for the part where one of the Shadowrun guys was hacking and coughing through the game. I was like "Aw geeze, don't get me sick..." Guy next to him said "Don't worry! It's been a while, he's probably not contagious!" I was nice enough to not point out that he and his buddies had been riding in a car with sickie from Maryland, and between the five of them one of them was likely to pass along the creeping crud. Sure enough, here I am with a nose running like a faucet and a throat like a mile of bad road. Great.
Wednesdays are usually dead, so I thought little of the low attendance. As it turns out, this was a bit of a harbinger of things to come...
The Warhammer tournament on wednesday was 750 points. That's pretty damn low, for those who don't play.
I fielded the army I played last time, that did reasonably well... But my poor little rat-men got STOMPED. This time, I couldn't roll worth crap and my foes were cheering with every critical roll they got. The dice just weren't with me. No worries, I still had fun.
Thursday was the opening of the dealer's hall, and the joy of the Tag-team warhammer tournament. It was me and Josh, running the Orcs and goblins and Skaven against all comers! Well, due to crappy attendance and excuses, the only other comers were two more teams. The tourney organizer had to step in and field a ringer team, to make things even.
It was pretty rough. We put up a good fight, but we were outmatched left, right, and center. Still, Josh got some good experience for future fights, and I got some practice against rough armies. No worries.
Later on thursday evening I played through a M+M game, that was a satire of the 80s! We were SUPERTEAM 1984, fighting against the evils of DRUGS and COMMUNISM! We were celebrities who had superpowers through the magic of TELEVISION, and there were corrupted celebrities out there that needed some JUSTICE! I played David Copperfield, and the rest of the party consisted of Mary Lou Retton, Hulk Hogan, and David Lee Roth. It was a hell of a fight! I nearly got strangled by the massively bulked thighs of Suzanne Sommers, while Hulk Hogan was sweating blood to the oldies, due to Richard Simmons' mind control... We also saved the Jackson 5 from a fiery death, so that was good. Though my proudest moment came when I used the power of illusion to give the evil Donald Trumpinator a bat's head. While he was standing next to the Corrupted Ozzy Osborne... Well, that moment AND the one where I teleported tammy fae bakker into Judge Wapner's courtroom, 20 miles away. It was the only way to stop her infernal singing...
Friday morning was bad. See, I'd been staying with my in-laws, and on friday morning when they left for work they forgot and turned on the motion detectors. So when I went downstairs the alarms went off. Had to call them, and tell them that things were okay. Then, during a sudden rainstorm when I finally got out of there, I slipped and fell on my rump on the wooden stairs outside.
Bruised my tailbone. Bruised it BADLY. Sitting was agony, and still is. I'm on Ibuprofen and sitting on a rubber donut, and it's just barely tolerable. Still, the Xrays show no breaks, just a lot of bruising. So hopefully in 1-2 weeks it'll be healed.
But it made sitting through the smithees and driving around Columbus bad times. Put a damper on the rest of the con. Good thing everything else was so awesome!
Friday I shopped, and kept within budget this year. A handful of rare books, some inexpensive board and card games. I also got to try out the alpha version of the next D&D edition... Some good things, some bad. I won't go into detail here, as I signed some stuff that I don't recall clearly. If you want to hear my opinions on it, ask me in a private message or some other non-public venue.
Friday's dinner was a run to the north market. Mmm, authentic italian cuisine. DARK CHOCOLATE ice cream for desert. I love that place...
That night was the mega-smithees. Oh, some gloriously horrible stuff. Marred only by my busted butt. Seriously, sitting that long was agony.
Saturday I ran through a mission of Terrorworks, alongside a 12-year old girl dressed like captain america, and her mother, who was dressed like Nick Fury. Many rubber suited actors fell to my airsoft justice! (I'm rather surprised that I'm actually a badass when I'm playing, as opposed to running. Easier to focus, get into adrenaline mode.)
I also took in a few demos. Summoner wars was pretty fun! I'll probably pick it up, eventually. Leviathans, (The Catalyst airship steampunk wargame) was surprisingly good!
So after wandering a bit, I grabbed a construction paper mustache-on-a-stick (A freebie from a western diceslinging game), and wandered over to the minis hall for the Leviathans competition. Putting on a cheesy english accent, and with extensive use of the mustache, I played british ships and hammed my way through blowing the french out of the sky. The entire table was cracking up! HARRUMPH! INDUBUITABLY! FAH FAH FAH HAW HAW!
Seriously, good little minis game. Bit expensive for my wallet, but I'll gladly play it again. Kinda falls in that niche between battletech and car wars...
Saturday night was the regular smithees. Oh lord... The movies were horrible, horrible. Mega Piranhas. Birdemic. Ultracop 2000. Look them up on Youtube, trust me, you'll see what I mean.
So yeah, good times. Left sunday morning, and checked in to the urgent care where I got my xrays and pain meds. All in all, I got to spend time with friends, play good games, and through a miracle I ran through every generic ticket I had without having to buy more. My swag pile is small but full of goodness, and overall it was a week or so well spent.
The convention is definitely pulling less people, though. The move to the end of may wasn't good for the high-schoolers... I think they should tuck it in a week or two. True, they have to dodge Gencon, but mid-june would probably be better. By then the kids'll be out of school.