GenCon Oz: Sunday

Gencon Oz: Day 4 (final day)
I decided to come in 'early' for the final day of Gencon Oz rather than sleep-in. Soon enough I signed on for Jungle Hunt, an RPGA module designed for players that share an adventuring company (in our case the Westgate Adventurer's Guild). I liked some of the ideas in the module, such as choosing a local guild to sponsor us and give us their power-up.

Our DM for the session was Corey who has qualities I like; positive, patient and polite. I'm getting a sense of which Brisbane RPGA DMs run good games that I enjoy and I'm starting to develop tricks to make sure that I sit at their tables (such as lingering until I know who is running what rather than sitting at a table before I know which DM will be there - it's a little uncomfortable saying "Oh you're running this one? Well, I'm going to a different table"; much easier to just wait until they have sat down first so I can either avoid them if they are abrasive or pounce on an empty seat if they are gold!).

Grognard the Cleric is now level 4. Kevin and I discussed the possibility of getting along to another RPGA game day over at University of Queensland next weekend so the extra level will be handy.

Preparing to face a Green Dragon,
my character is backed into the corner!
(click on image for a larger version)

After the game I met up with Marc for lunch and we bumped into Nat whilst discussing the merits of using a Telosian Tank Droid from the Star Wars miniatures game for anything other than what it is (I don't care much for Star Wars these days). Nat took an amusing photo of us pointing and pondering at said miniature in a cabinet... well I found it amusing.

Edit: I pinched a copy from her Facebook album

Marc and I crouch on the ground and giggle like schoolgirls at the Telosian Tank Droid

With Marc off to play Shadowfist I lingered in the Trade Hall until my final session; a "promo" game of World of Warcraft miniatures. My understanding was that it would essentially be an extended demo - to my dismay I found that it was actually a sealed event where players open a booster pack and take the two best figures from it to play competition matches! I was considering taking the miniatures I pulled from my booster (featuring the epic High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind and a slashdance loot card, not bad for the $6 session fee) and dropping out but I soon learned that of the ten players who had signed up only two had played before; and they only had a single game to their names. Given that we were all newbs (and I had an epic!) I decided to hang around.

I have sympathy for the event's organisers who had to scramble amongst us trying to teach how the game ran while keeping the pace up so we could get playing before the convention closed. As it was we only had time for a single 20 minute match so I can't say I know very much more about the game now than what I did prior to the "promo". But hey, you can't complain when you pull an epic and a loot card out of a booster :)

With moments to spare before we were herded out of the convention I grabbed a discounted Dungeons and Dragons miniatures booster from the Fastbreak stall ~ if only to satisfy my self-imposed obligation to buy something.

So here I am at the end of the second Gencon Oz. It was great to see everyone again and I'm glad I went. The first two days were under a cloud of sleep-deprivation and I think it was a mistake to try to push myself so hard at the start - but it's only one weekend a year so I might as well go hard.

Next year I might try to get some more miniatures events into my schedule. I didn't feel particularly competitive this year so I'm glad I mostly played cooperative roleplay events.