Charcon General Review

Let me start right out by saying that Charcon was simply AMAZING!  We had an absolute blast playing a ton of different games and spending time hanging with some great people.  The action started on Thursday with a dinner out that included the special guests from the show.  Unfortunately author Eric Flint was unable to attend due to an illness in the family but it was wonderful to have dinner with everyone.

The folks at Charcon have great industry connections and as always make preregistering worth the time and effort.  Not only did you get to select your choice of Charcon T-shirt color but the pre-reg bags came with a copy of the PC version of the game Puerto Rico and a small deck of magic cards.

The first order of business for Jeff and I was to go to the boardgames area and sign up for the Charcon Premier Board Game Tournament.  Each year the organizers arrange for a number of new games to be available for the tournament.  This year the games were Founding Fathers (with the designers attending), Egizia, the Adventurers, Charon, Inc., and Road Kill Rally.  There are two rounds of games and those who win during the first round are asked to play in the finals.  I was able to play four of the five games during the first round winning three of them.  My record in the finals was good but not nearly as great as I placed second in each of the three finals I was eligible to play in.  I came in second overall with a point total of 27.  The first place winner scored 29 and the third place winner 15.  The tournament was fantastic fun and I came away with a bunch of great games as prizes including one of my favorite games of the tournament, Road Kill Rally!

Figure 1 - My Loot from the Tournament

On Friday night we hosted our first convention western game, A Busy Night in Distraction, New Mexico.  We had a full group of six players for the game and everyone seemed to have a good time.  Look for a full report with pictures this weekend.

On Sunday I hosted and played in the annual Charcon DBA tournament.  Again this year we had generous prizes provided by Scale Creep Miniatures.   And, again, we had a poor turnout.  This year we had only myself and Nick competing so we played a quick game pitting his nicely painted Macedonians against my Early Imperial Romans.

Figure 2 - Your humble narrator in purple and Nick in green

Figure 3 - The Roman line makes contact with the Macedonian pikes.

Figure 4 - Alexander and his cavalry wreck havoc on the Roman left, building a 3-0 lead in stands lost.

Figure 5 - The view towards the Roman left.

Figure 6 - Nick contemplates hitting me with the ruler :)

Figure 7 - Once the Roman blades made contact with the pikes I began to make up ground.  Eventually my general element was able to contact his artillery and a quick close combat phase later the game was one for the Romans.