I had a great weekend at Dreamation 2019 gaming convention in Morristown, NJ. It started Thursday night February 21 through Sunday February 24 at the Hyatt Regency. It was the same organization at Dexposure.com that hosted Metatopia I went to last November.
It hosted a mixture of board gaming, tournaments, war gaming, RPG, and LARP (live action role playing). I mostly did board gaming. But this is an event for mostly local gamers that are passionate about it. Basically, there is a sub-culture of table-top gamers, RPG players, and LAPG players. I am starting to be a part of this sub-culture as I used to just play casually.
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Rhino Hero
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I couldn't make it on Thursday, but was able to come in on Friday during the day. I was just waling around and came across this dexterity game called Rhino Hero. You have to build up a structure using bent card board and cards and placing your player piece on a floor. You have to be careful or the structure falls down. I almost had it in the end but it came all crashing down.
Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar
After that, I had signed up for Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar which was an old game during the 80's but was revived last year through Kickstarter by Restoration Games. This was a fun game and the mechanics were updated with more player control and less luck. Just fun to roll fireballs down against other players and collecting treasures. Alas none of us had enough cards to summon the Helicopter to save us.
Space Base
On Saturday, I had messed up in the scheduling and thought there was games at 10AM. Nope, they all started at 9AM. Ugh. Fortunately, they had people hosting some games that had no players and were waiting for guinea pigs like me to show up late. So I found Space Base which was a simple engine building game on building up my space bases in trying to get currency to upgrade my bases or gain victory points. You win by getting 40 victory points first.
Miniatures painting Workshop
I had to leave before the game was over to go to a Miniatures painting workshop. Now the artist in me was excited. I spent some time learning techniques in painting miniatures. I chose a Cthulu cultist because it looked cool. I never was into miniature painting. Now I may want to do more of it and buy my own paints.
Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle
After lunch with a friend, I went to play Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle. I have been selling this game, but I never played it. Very simple deck building game where up to four players build up our decks to battle villains. I was Harry Potter who had a starting deck that was a jack of all trades. The player who had Hermione had a starting deck that favored more spells. So you choose your cards from the marketplace based on your character and work together with the other players to defeat all the enemies. The box had 7 campaigns in it and we played two of them.
Some playing tables at the Hyatt.
Fate of the Elder Gods
After some more walking around and a light dinner, I played Fate of the Elder Gods. This is a Cthulu themed worker (umm actually cultist) placement game. Each player plays a cult of a Cthulu Elder god and tries to summon their Elder God. There are 6 locations which helps you on your way to bringing evil to the world like the Museum to pick up an artifact or the Library to get more spell cards to use. And you have to deal with those pesky righteous investigators who will thwart your evil plans if too many appear in a location that was used too many times.
Cthulu says"Hi."
Papua
Next I played the worker placement game, Papua. You're on an expedition to Papua New Guinea where you use workers and expend energy to collect specimen cards, money, victory points, energy, knowledge and fish. The game ends when one player expends all their energy on the energy track. I spent more time worrying about collecting those freaking fish because you have to eat fish at certain points on the energy track. Stupid fish. But I actually won by a couple points.
Tower of Madness
Next I played a game hosted by Curt Covert from Smirk and Dagger called Tower of Madness. He designed the Cthulu themed game. It is a tower with Cthulu tentacles that hold up marbles. You're an investigator that tries to solve mysteries on Location cards by rolling dice. If you fail, you must pull out a tentacle and marbles may fall out. Some marbles may help but many will make you go insane and if three green marbles come out, Cthulu is summoned and everyone loses unless you went mad and summon him yourself.
Lightsaber training
On Sunday, I made it on time at 9 AM. Finally I was on time! Hurray for me. All the events started at 10AM.
Well, this time I went for Lightsaber training. Yes I am a nerd. It was alot of fun. I wanted to use my double bladed lightsaber but it was too fragile for dueling. So I used a tape colored stick instead. It was a few hours long and we did our own demonstration with a partner. Not to brag, but my training in Tang Soo Do helped a lot in making my lightsaber play look exciting and without hurting anyone. OK. I bragged.
Here is video of the instructor, Craig Page
Deadwood 1876
After I played another game called Deadwood 1876. It is actually a party game more suited for more players, but there was only four of us playing. Each of us controlled a character and started with 2 safes and a 4 card hand with actions and firearms. Each firearm used a specific die when we try to rob a safe from another player or fight a player to get their spot. Interesting is the most powerful weapon called the Messenger had a die with more numbers on it and the least powerful weapon which was a small gun had a die with the least numbers. So your chances are increased of hitting with the more powerful weapon. But since your hand didn't always have the most powerful rifle so you couldn't always play it. Not a fan of party games so this game wouldn't be a game I would consider buying.
Well I was tired and the convention was over after the game, but before I left I did some shopping and got my daughter some steampunk goggles, my wife a bracelet, and my son a giant 20 sided die. I bought a large miniature to paint.
