WBC open gaming review, along with comments from my first time at WBC - host hotel, 18xx, Lancaster and the whole experience!
UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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My first boardgaming convention experience was at Origins this year, documented here: http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/56123/first-board-game-con... .
I went primarily for open gaming, and only participated in the first round of one tournament. I will talk about the host hotel, family suitability of the surrounding area, the games I played, and how I would review open gaming.
For gaming, I was solo and knew no one ahead of time. I spent time trying to find some people with similar gaming interests ahead of time, which led me to meet 2 of the players I eventually gamed with.
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1.
Board Game: Hotels
[Average Rating:5.34 Overall Rank:7507]
UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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I stayed at the Lancaster Host Hotel, the convention WBC was held at.
The hotel is fairly old and only has one elevator in the entire hotel, which made bringing my luggage with a ton of games back and forth from the gaming areas a bit of a pain. Some of the lighting in the gaming areas were a bit poor, but otherwise, nothing stood out as being run down.
The hotel has a lot to offer for the family. An indoor pool, a very nice and large outdoor pool with a staffed bar and grill, a volleyball court, shuffle board, a ping pong table, and a large outdoor sandbox. It also had a nice sized room with a tv and a ton of very nice jungle gym like equipment for young kids to play on.
I only sampled the breakfast buffet, and it was ok in some areas and awful in others. Due to being lazy, I ended up there 3-4 times anyhow. Only once was there anyone around to seat you. The pastries were always fresh and quite good, however the pancakes and french toast/waffles(which alternated by day) were often as hard as a rock. The eggs ranged from very good to hard. Once I sat down and for 15 minutes not a single waiter came by. I walked up to one to ask for water and she never came back. I complained to the woman up front, which offered to comp me the breakfast. When someone came over, I explained this to her, and she did not come back either. I just walked out.
The first open gaming room, for Monday through Tuesday, was tiny and half of the tables were "reserved" for demos... How did you end up finding out they were reserved? The tables were empty, and after you sat down and started setting up, someone came over to inform you of this. Apparently, getting a piece of paper with the word "reserved" on it was too much to ask.
The first open gaming room was turned into the vending room for Friday on. The space was claustrophobic and difficult to get around when people were actually in the vending room, and the air conditioning was not able to handle the traffic.
The auction and open gaming after Tuesday took place in a showroom, which was a decent enough size, but tables were full by Saturday, which I will get more into later.
Other tournament rooms ranged from tiny, to very spacious. They were adequate and seemed well ventilated. As I mentioned, I only played in one tournament, and it was in the largest of the tournament rooms, so it was fine for me.
The area around the hotel had plenty of conveniences. A cici's pizza, applebees, olive garden, panera bread, Target, Walmart, etc, were all within a mile. Dutch Wonderland, a children's theme park, was within walking distance. Within 10 minutes drive was an amazingly well taken care of downtown area of Lancaster, which had a shocking amount of restaurants and shops. Additionally, within 10 minutes were amish farms that you could go to, horse and buggy rides, a Strasburg train amusement area, amish country mazes, and more.
The rooms of the hotel were nice and solidly built, and I never once heard sound from the adjoining rooms. Reasonable price as well, at $99 a night(gong up to $104 next year for WBC). The space under the door seemed a little larger than normal, and excess light did leak in.
Although the outside doors into the hotel indicated that from 7PM until sometime in the morning they would be locked, needing keycard access, they were in fact never locked the entire time I stayed.
The AC in the room worked well enough and the bathroom was decent.
The internet was free, but pretty slow and unreliable. One time I had to call the front desk to send someone over, because the network would not be identified on my computer. Their expert assured me it was me. He checked and rebooted 2 components in the hotel and came back to confirm this. He was convinced it was just my netbook and windows 7 starter that was the problem, and his wife's computer had trouble with networks sometimes. However, he was not familiar with windows 7 starter somehow. It wasn't til I showed him that even my blackberry couldn't connect to the network that he realized it was on their end, and came back to announce that they needed to have something fixed with their ISP.
Cell phone coverage in my room, with Tmobile, was good, but non existant in the lobby and in all of the basement rooms, including the open gaming.vending rooms. The internet setup for the showroom for future gaming had 1 bar cell reception and required you to wirelessly connect to "linksys" instead of the "Lancaster Host" you normally connected to. I found out that this was theirs as well. Would have been nice to know it was theirs ahead of time.
On to Dutch Wonderland!
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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My wife and 2.5 year old came along on Sunday. The plan was for them to stay til Tuesday morning with me, when I would be starting the con.
We spent the first day at Dutch Wonderland. The tickets were $44 each, for 2 days of entry. Our son was free. The place was within walking distance, as mentioned earlier. It was well maintained.
There were a ton of rides, including a sky ride, 2 roller coasters(one for kids), boat rides, bumper cars, a tilt a whirl, a motion space ship simulator, a carnival slide, a buccaneer type ride, a log flume, and tons more. Many unique rides like a house you sat in, that would spin around you, giving you mild vertigo, and a small train cart that children would self propel by turning a handles(with the option for adults to push them along with a stick if the child was too young). The rides restricted access by height, and was mostly reasonable.
The lines were short, and when we returned at night, the lines were non existent, so you could go on as many times in a row that you would like.
Excellent.
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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My son got sick, and they left early monday. I went to the open gaming area.
I started by trying to use a white board that I brought tto advertise the games I wanted to play the most, along with laying out my games on the table. I believe this was Baltimore and ohio, veld/pampas railroads, american rails, and maybe 1-2 others.
As stated earlier, I was moved from a table that wasn't labeled as being reserved. This apparently happened to some other people I ran into later at the con. None were pleased about how these tables were unmarked. "Demos" were run occasionally on these tables but showed no rhyme or reason for their random appearances and the randomness of what games were played. They seemed to get preference though, because WBC volunteers helped gather players for them.
After about 30 minutes, someone I had been in touch with on BGG had stumbled across me and showed interest in trying American Rails. We played Dvonn and Yinsh until 2 other players were willing to give it a shot.
After American Rails, we played Santiago with the same group.
3 of the 4 players were willing to play 18MEX. This was my first day.
From these players, I continued to play with 2 of them for the rest of the convention(Paul and Pat). Through one of the other players, I met an 18xx enthusiast that I gamed with throughout(Pierre). Someone that observed us playing American Rails(Daniel), also ended up gaming with me.
So, how was Open Gaming? Well, the library was decent, but I brought every game I wanted to play, except for Age of Industry, which they had.
The first open gaming area was way too small and disorganized, with part of the room for demos, part of it for some tournaments, part for the library, and maybe 1/4 left, of this already tiny room, for open gaming. The second area, on Wednesday, was much larger.
However, there were some problems. There were maybe 30 large tables total. About 1/3 of these tables had either a bag left on it, with no people attending, or a game set up, with no one to be seen anywhere around it. Apparently, people had no problem just taking up prime tables with their items and just walking away indefinitely. No one nearby, no one coming around for long periods of time(and hour+).
By Saturday, half of the tables were "reserved" in this way, and therefore, though I had a group of gamers ready for a game, not a single table was "open."
Origins had a MUCH bigger open gaming and Board game ribbon room, and you NEVER couldn't find a table. I also saw pretty much none of the drop your crap on the table and then walk away problem that was at WBC.
So, can you find a game if you are by yourself and know no one? Yes and no. By the first day, I had gathered a few gamers with similar interests. Through them, I was extremely social, and tried to remain in contact with them and friends of theirs, in order to find games for the rest of the con. How many random folks actually joined any of my games? I think maybe 2 people the entire convention.
You could have many games on your table and no one will show up. There were quite a few times I brought my netbook along to keep occupied and would sit for 30-40 minutes with my games on the table, just to walk away frustrated back to my room.
Now keep in mind, I am NOT a wargamer. I am also not a casual player(more mainstream games). The games that I brought were:
Brass
Imperial 2030
Yinsh
Dvonn
1825 unit 2
18MEX
Baltimore and Ohio
American Rails
Veld/Pampas Railroads
Dutch Intercity
Santiago
Clippers
Indonesia
Neuland
and probably a few others(definitely a few more winsome games).
I eventually got to schedule a game with another BGG player that I had contacted prior, on BGG.
However, had I not been super social, and had been lucky enough to get a few players on my first day, and meet some of their friends, I would have likely given up and left by Tuesday/Wednesday.
At Origins, I was lucky enough to bring a friend, so I had 2 players to start for every game. We had NO trouble playing a majority of the games I brought(some overlap, but not completely the same set of games). More euro gamers, people who were more willing to try new games, and overall a friendlier and more open minded group of gamers.
I also found that there was an overall younger group that came to Origins. This is not necessarily a good or bad thing, but I thought I would note it for readers interested.
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4.
Board Game: Auction
[Average Rating:4.50 Unranked]
UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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So, how was the auction?
The auction store had some amazing prices and was decently well run. Some people complained about game sellers coming in with boxes and getting there early, but I didn't care really. There were prices for the open, 2 hours in, and 2 hours after that, each time usually lowering the price a few bucks.
Stephenson's rocket was $25 at the open, for the english version. If I didn't already have it, that would have been an amazing find.
The regular auction? There were only 2 games I was interested in from glancing at the list prior. 1825 Unit 1 and Steam Over Holland. I decided to stay from the open to the train games. To do this, I scheduled a game for later on, instead of the morning. It turned out 1825 unit 1 was just a kit, and not the full game. This was noted nowhere on this list and I didn't find out until I waited a full hour for the train games to show up. Steam over Holland? Apparently, this would not be sold with the train games I had just wasted my time to get to. It was considered "collectible" and would be part of the very last batch of games to be sold, 3 hours later. Why collectible? Because it was considered valued at over $100. I don't believe this was a new in shrink copy, so why on earth would anyone pay for 100, when you could buy it brand new for just over 100?
It ended up selling for $75... Great job figuring out the estimated value guys! At least it sold to a cool guy that I had contacted prior to the con, whom I would play with enjoy myself immensely on Saturday.
I ended up buying Quarto for $11, which was decent.
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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On to the games!
My first and last full game of the con was American Rails, all to new players(though the second time had one repeat player). All involved enjoyed the game, and the 2nd game was one of the most tense I've played thus far. Limited print run and winsome style container with plexiglass cover tends to scare off some gamers, but once I convince them it is a better version of Chicago Express, people are willing to try.
Won both times, but I had the advantage of having previous played. I barely scraped a win the second time, almost overtaken by a fellow geek who had come screaming ahead after I had an extreme early advantage.
Being reprinted again this month I believe.
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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Played this game for the second time ever, and enjoyed it again, despite coming in last place. It has a decent amount of chaos, but is has a lot of interaction, has a small imprint, is relatively short, and has a ton of player interaction.
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7.
Board Game: 18MEX
[Average Rating:7.84 Overall Rank:1697]
UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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My only previous experience with 18xx was half a game of 3 player 1830 and 2 games of Baltimore and Ohio(semi 18xx).
I recently had received this game in a trade, and had read the rules before gaming. I played with another newbie and an experienced 18xx player who had played Mex before. I explained the rules(to reinforce the rules to myself as well) and we finished after about 5 hours.
I almost went bankrupt, but barely was able to stay in the game and came in at(to me) a fairly strong second place. Money at the end of the game was about 5800, 5300, and 3900.
This was the highlight of the convention for me as I enjoyed the game immensely and it reaffirmed that I was right to give 18xx another shot after a lackluster experience with 18xx.
What I liked:
-The stock market, which was fairly volatile, and did not have ledge protection early on.
-The ability to lay 2 tiles a turn
-Large and varied map with not many red areas
-Fairly balanced railroads
-Played excellent with 3
-Should be playable in 4 hours or less with a group that has played once before
-Bankruptcy ends the game
-Not having crazy privates that give a frontloaded advantage and makes it difficult for new players
-The Mexican national railroad merger was actually fairly interesting.
-Liked the 1 train per round restriction for first part of the game(more newbie friendly)
Played with a player named Marc. Through him, I met Pierre.
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8.
Board Game: 18NEB
[Average Rating:7.65 Overall Rank:2054]
UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
-
Played this directly after 18MEX, with Marc and a friend of his. I screwed up the private auction, leaving myself with not enough cash to do well with a railroad. My next mistake was to take the Union Pacific Railroad.
Take a look at the image that I choose for this geeklist item. The Union Pacific has an extremely limited starting position with only one way out(can be upgraded after the 3 train is bought) and only 2 station tokens. To compound this, we didn't play the rule correctly where the first round is played from lowest par price to highest. I started the rail at 100 and would have gone last. This would have allowed me to buy the 3 train and immediately upgrade my starting tile, which would have given my route choices a lot more freedom. Instead, I was fairly screwed early on, and realized I would be boxed in. To compound these 2 problems, I needed money, so sold one of my privates to the company for $80, leaving it with low cash.
Then, I was forced to sell stock to the bank for more money, and shortly, I was screwed. I did the lame thing, force myself into bankruptcy, so I wouldn't be forced to play a 3-4 hours game in which I had no chance in winning. Yes, I know this is frowned upon, but they agreed to stop the game early and knew we made that one rule mistake.
Things I liked about NEB:
-Theoretically plays well with 3
-Shorter game
Things I did not like:
-Way too many red areas on a tiny map, which creates(to me) boring and more scripted routes from east to west for the bonus and red to red for the high values.
-Union Pacific is a poor railroad. Do not start this if you are a newbie!
Playing correctly and intelligently has potential., and I do want 3-4 player games that are short. However, amount of reds is the biggest thing that turns me off enough that I will likely not get it.
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9.
Board Game: 1846
[Average Rating:7.92 Overall Rank:1006]
UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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Next, we joined up with Pierre, another of Marc's friends, and with the 3 of us NEB players, tried 1846, another game I had been looking into.
Some privates are randomly removed from the game at the start. Some privates allow some of the rails to be decent, while removing them makes them extremely weak. I do not like this.
I also do not like how the drafting of privates work, and I randomly was picked to draw last and had very poor choices.
I felt that the IC had a very rough time compared to the others, even with help from the minors. Likewise, the Chesapeake was poor(maybe due to removal of privates) and baltimore also was(could be from privates too). I felt the 3 companies in the top right of the map(don't remember the names offhand) were able to easily expand to each other's reds and had easy access across the map to Chicago, since they were all planting routes in the same direction.
The stock market was flat and every company was progressing at the exact same speed, giving little to no way for companies behind in turn order to change things around. Did not like this market.
The game also tended to have a much slower pace(maybe more ap from players?). The 3rd player from NEB(can't remember his name), went bankrupt after about an hour and a half. In 1846, this does NOT end the game. He was out of the game and left. I survived, but with no way to compete competitively. After another hour or so of not much being able to be done, I was allowed to resign from the game and they called it.
-Plays ok with 4
-Slow playing
-Very unbalanced companies
-Random removal of privates, crappy(imo) random draft of privates
-Crappy stock market
-Crapload of reds in the east part of the map, and pretty much all over for that matter(and from above, I don't like reds)
Enjoyed playing with Pierre.
That night I spoke for a while with Pierre and requested that he bring 18EU the following day.
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10.
Board Game: 18EU
[Average Rating:7.74 Overall Rank:878]
UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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From here on out I do not have exact memory of order of the games that I played, so definite chronological order no longer always applies.
Got to play 18EU with Pat from the first 3 games of the con, Pierre, and his friend Barry(hope I got his name right! I am terrible with names).
The game is very frontloaded with the initial auction, but it is a very fascinating auction. After we were halfway done, I requested we start over since I had just gotten the feel for it, but they convinced me that I wasn't completely out of it. I believe I won minors 2, 12, and 7. I had about $25 left over. I was the only player that ran only 3 companies, instead of 4.
I like the minors/merge gameplay, and the map is nice and large and isn't full of tons and tons of reds right next to each other. I wasn't too crazy about the limit of only one tile lay/upgrade, and much prefer the pacing of 2 tile lays from the previous games.
I did make one critical error with the merging, that would have screwed me out of the game if Pierre had not merged his 1 with my company at start... I don't recall the exact error, but it was a partial misunderstanding of the merges. It might have been that I was counting on Pierre's merger to provide the 5th(5th or 6th, whatever was required int he game) share to float the company after my 3 mergers. I would have been annihilated, but Pierre was kind enough to merge, floating the company.
The game finished in about 4 hours. Pierre left for about 45 minutes after about 2/3 in and got back for the very end. He had a friend substitute, but the front loadedness of the game meant that even if his friend wasn't as good, he couldn't screw it up THAT much... I do not have enough experience to know whether his friend did or did not play well.
My company was the merged 2, 12, and 7 that I owned, with Pierre's 1. My rail eventually became one of the best dividend payers, and I came in 2nd.
-Large map with not many reds
-Interesting minor/merging mechanics
-Interesting initial auction, but tough on newbies... better to do a partial auction round and then start over again for new players
-Plays well with 3-4
-Slow tile lay
-Play is short, 4 hours, even with 2 newbies.
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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Played with Pat, Barry, and Barry's friends. Played differently than previous times, which just proves the game has legs. Played with Jester's custom map and catan roads. Love this game.
By being the only one who previously played a few times, I ended up with a blowout win of $575, compared to everyone else in the 300s.
This game needs a large publisher release for the exposure!
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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Got to play Baltimore and Ohio with Pierre, Paul, and newcomer Daniel. I met Daniel briefly during the first game of american rails, when he came over and took a look. He came all the way from California, and apparently taught 18xx games to Clearclaw(who is the one that inspired me to try Chicago Express, leading to my train gaming enthusiasm).
Daniel had played before, but the other 2 were newbies. I used my netbook with Hubajube's amazing Baltimore and Ohio program, which easily reduces games by an hour. No long time calculating different routes or how they will change if you buy a train, trash and buy, etc. Be sure to check it out: http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/56872/bo-assistant
The game started out standard, but Daniel quickly dumped all of his shares of the Chesapeake, leaving the company to Pierre with 1 share and no money in the railroad, with few low trains. He started the New York and New Haven. The chesapeake consequently sunk in share value down to 35 at its low.
Owning the Baltimore and Ohio, I was able to get 4 coals and peake at endgame with a 620 income. I only ever was able to get 6 shares, however.
The game was decided at 2 crucial junctures. Eventually the Chesapeake had the first expansion all the way to chicago and had withheld enough to finally have a chance at the 4 train, which would have spiked its income to around 300, and there were 9 shares in the orphan pool.
Daniel had run to get dinner, and had just come back. He must not have been paying attention, and apparently forgot his plans. He was player 1 in the stock round and did not scoop up the Chesapeake. He started another company, either the Erie or the Nickel Plate. Pierre and I were tied exactly in income, and so maintained previous turn order, so he got 2nd turn.
He picked up all of the Chesapeake. If I had paid attention, I could have withheld the previosu round, so I would have gotten the turn order, but who would have expected Daniel not to have picked up the company!? Daniel had fallen behind considerably and wasn't a threat, so I figured it was fine for him to get the company.
Had this been all, I still would have won with flying colors, due to the tremendous income of Baltimore and Ohio. Unfortunately, I made the biggest mistake I could possibly have made.
At the time, the New York Central was a great railroad, but only had a 1 and 2 train. It barely got enough to buy its first 4 train.. Pierre had 9 shares of the NYC, and now with Chesapeake scooped up at $35 a share, was poised to kick the crud out of me.
I made a ridiculously stupid error. I started the Wabash and bought 4 shares, which gave the company $370. The 4th train would have been bought out by another company and I needed $380 to buy the 5th train. For some reason I had gotten it into my head that I would need to buy the 5 train in order to stop green from getting a train. Daniel refused to help me fund the railroad and didn't catch the mistake. I did not have enough cash to fund the last share. I was forced to sell one of my 6 baltimore and ohio shares to fund it. keep in mind that this share was giving me $62 a round, and I just traded it in for a company that in the first round would give me $6 for that same share.
I lost the game by $70.
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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I had been wanting to try my Indonesia for a while, and finally had my opportunity at WBC. Daniel helped me recruit a third player at about 12:00 at night. We struggled with the rules for 20 minutes and Daniel knew someone that had played the game. The guy was incredibly nice and taught us the game. By 2:00 we had played a few practice rounds and finished the first era.
The next day we played 3 player with Pierre.
Very fascinating game, with a truly interesting dynamic of shipping, running companies, merging, and researching upgrades to your abilities. Played in under 3 hours, and despite the chaos of who ships through whom, and the possibility of a newbie player to throw the game by making a critical error, I thought the game was brilliant. I lost to Pierre by $19., I believe he had 1011 and I had 992.
Would like to play again and experiment more. Daniel and I did play 1.5 eras worth on Saturday before I had to go out. I played around more with the mergers. Probably the most hard to grasp game I own and have played thus far.
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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Played a 3 player game of Age of Industry. Brass is one of my favorite games. I like the idea of having expansion maps in the future, with 2 to start.
A few comments:
-The entire map was filled by the end of the game, and the end had to be pushed along with multiple take card actions by 2 of us to end it. The normal tension of Brass endgames just didn't exist here. This might have been because building rails in this game does not require discards. Not sure, but everyone agreed the ending was poor.
-Rails are no longer worth vp per flipped tiles. It is now worth $2 and $1 for each flipped tile and every $5 in the game is worth one vp. This just adds unnecessary monotony of calculations to what is supposed to be a lighter and easier Brass.
-With all tiles being filled up, you need to overbuild your own things if you want to keep moving up your VPs in endgame. Boring.
-No automatic card redraws mean that initial card hand luck is greater than in Brass.
-You get victory points for tiles unflipped at endgame.. WHAT!? Completely lame imo.
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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Finally got to get this one played. I modified my game to play with the first edition rules. Very brain burny euro. You need to plan ahead your entire turn ahead of time, or else one miscalculation can severely screw you. Super tight game. I liked it, but it won't be easy to get to the table. It only plays well with 3, which is both good and bad.
Came in second. If Paul needed one more action point, I would have won.
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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The only tournament I played was Chicago Express. I don't like tournaments because just the idea of being in competition for something(moreso than just fun) stresses me out. Illogical, but true. I played in the tournament because Pierre was going, and I was able to convince Daniel to come. Additionally, if you made it past one of the 3 preliminaries, you got a Chicago Express Tote Bag!
I wanted to be in a game with both of them, but it was randomized. I cheated and convinced someone to switch their assigned table with me so I could play with daniel. He didn't know the game at all. he took a look and said, "Is this anything like Wabash Cannonball?" I said yeah, it IS Wabash. We played with 2 new players and all had a great time playing and fooling around. I made some mistakes and lost to Daniel by a few bucks.
Played a second game with 1 newbies, a Japanese player who spoke enough English to get by(and was very friendly), and another player. I played smarter this time, but still made some mistakes. Luckily the other players helped me along and eventually I was able to be far and away the winner. The Japanese player(Ak something, I'm bad with english names as it is!) urged one of the other player to make a move that would have been great for everyone but me, and he wouldn't listen. this allowed my victory.
What I took away from the games: In a 4 player game, the first red share is not worth more than $14-15, because the 2nd share will always be auctioned off in the first round of the game, thus diluting your dividend payout...so if you pay more early, you'll be behind in cash, and red is a volatile company.
My son ended up having an ear infection, which explained why he wasn't feeling well. They ended up coming to town and we were planning to go out that night to downtown Lancaster with one of her friends, so I was unable to make the semi finals. Luckily, Mr. Bohrer was nice enough to still give me a tote bag!
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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We ended up going to downtown Lancaster Saturday night. Shocking beautiful town for being in the middle of nowhere, rural PA. Nicely cobbled streets, well maintained and new looking buildings, nice pubs, homemade ice cream shops, antique stores, even a magic shop. Very cool place.
The surrounding areas of Lancaster are beautiful too, amazing farms, lots of buggies driven by horses in the streets, tons of entertainment from amish attractions, bed and breakfasts. I definitely want to go back to explore it more, outside of WBC.
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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As mentioned, my final full game was American Rails, and it included a player, Chris, who I had contacted ahead of time on the geek, and his friend, Brian.
After a very tense game of AR, we all ended up talking for over an hour and a half. Telling stories and talking about his group. I'm not going to mention his ID or group name without getting his permission, but both of them were really fun to talk to. Definitely the highlight of my trip.
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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Well, that wraps up my first WBC. Hope I didn't bore you.
Despite the few shortcomings, the convention was an amazing time. I got to play tons of games I have been unable to play locally, met some great people, found a great new city, and had a blast.
Still, if you go alone for the first time and don't play wargames, try to hook up with people ahead of time, and try to be very very outgoing/social early on, so you could find gamers to play with for the week.
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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Yes, I know, it was supposed to end.
One thing I forgotten to mention. We tried Miller's Smorgasbord, which is advertised throughout the Host hotel. Even with the coupon, it is a high $20 a person for the buffet. At least my 2 year old was free. The food was great, but I had terrible stomach problems after going the first night. Keep in mind I have stomach problems in general, and buffets are generally rougher on the stomach due to how long some of the food is out... but beware... My wife liked it, so we went back on Saturday and again I had stomach problems! For all I know it could have been the carrot cake, which was great, but I can be sensitive too.. but just a word of warning to any of those that have sensitive stomachs!
Hope that didn't gross you out!
The end.
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UA Darth
United States
Garwood
New Jersey
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Ok ok.. last one I promise.
Daniel and I went to the Host's bar, since I pretty much hadn't eaten all day and it was midnight. I was eating teddy grahams at one of the tables and he had a roll he was going to eat. I had my HUGE bag with me, leaning against the table. We were thirsty, so we went to get drinks at the bar(water for me). When we returned 5 minutes later(it was only 10 feet away), 2 people were sitting at our table and our food was gone. My massive bag was still leaning against the table.
They claimed to have no clue what happened, but had no problem sitting at the table which my bag was leaning on. Daniel found that our food had been dumped over the railing and onto the floor. We didn't get pissed or accuse them, and instead left with the food.
When I went to see if I could salvage my teddy grahams, I noticed that they dumped trash into the bag that held the teddy grahams.
Pretty disgusting and rude if you ask me. It was completely bewildering to me that it happened.
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At least six other members of BGNJ were there as well. 