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Monday 18 August 2014

Gencon Day #4

Day #4 ends with a bang as I finally get a demo of the new Star Wars Armada game and win another T-shirt. 

Right, it's pretty much just clean-up today at Gencon as I get a few last items on my list, as well as get a few demos in. 

First, I try out the VFS system, which is basically a fighting game CCG system that uses different characters from different licensed games such as Darkstalkers, Tekken, KoF or Megaman. Unlike VS which is also another CCG that uses such characters, this one is character based instead of team-based. That means you pick one character and play with it and all your cards are really just cards to support that one character. Tried it but the demo was pretty short and the guy spent most of that time explaining the mechanics to me. It didn't help either that I was playing the Megaman deck, which was a character I wasn't interested in. I suppose I would have bought a starter to test it out if there was one I was interested in at the stand but there wasn't. And to be honest, I think I preferred the MLP CCG to this. 

I also got to try out Legendary: Villains. Basically a reskin of Legendary the game but with villains instead. While I did enjoy Legendary the first few times I played it, the lengthy set-up time and take-down time was too troublesome to really make it a staple at the gaming table at home. This was pretty much the same. 

Then there was D&D: Attack Wing, which is basically X-wing with D&D creatures. However, unlike X-wing, it would have both air and ground units and ways for both to interact. To be honest, I'm intrigued by the fact that there would be ground units involved but since the demo didn't have any of those rules at all, it's hard for me to really judge the game. Count me slightly intrigued though. 

I also managed to get a demo of Warhammer 40k: Conquest in. Wow, this is a day of firsts. The first 3 days, the FFG booth was so packed I couldn't get any demos in at all. And today, I managed to get 2 demos I wanted to get in. Awesome. Hmm, what can I say about Conquest? Other than the fact I'm definitely getting it. It's a fairly easy game to play. The line-up in the middle are the planets and each planet has different symbols on them. Some have one, others have 2-3. You're supposed to conquer 3 planets with the same symbol on them. You deploy your troops to subjugate the planets and destroy the opposition and every turn, the 1st planet in the queue is subjugated to whomever has the most Command points at the location. Usually more troops provide more command points. 

The second game I wanted a demo of was Star Wars Armada which I also managed to get today. Okay, a few quick differences between Xwing and this game. Your capital ships are stuck on their current speeds unless you issue an order to change them. The new measurement ruler is really cumbersome and a bit fidgety and we'll see how that plays out. Damage is tracked on the starships themselves instead of the card, which makes for a lot of bumping of the miniature accidentally as you adjust the dials on the miniatures. Capital ships can make multiple attacks per turn as long as there is an enemy in target within their firing arcs. Starships seem strong at first but they die really easily. In fact, my partners corvette died in the first turn which caused him to quit the game. This seems interesting enough that I would buy the game. 

And finally, I ended up with a demo of Relic Knights. I'm still waiting for my shipment to arrive but I at least wanted to know how the game would go. Otoh, this probably ranked as the second worst demo in the entire exhibition for me. While I appreciate getting a demo and I know the guy's probably tired, but damn, all he did was go 'okay, i will go here and here and then even though I missed with my attack, imagine I hit so that your leader character can be delayed'. We didn't even go one round, we just activated one character each. It wasn't even like there was a huge queue lining up either and this was still 2 hours before the fair was due to close. 

Overall just a lot of demos today. The hall was a lot less crowded than Saturday; which by far was the 2nd most crowded day after the opening day. 

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