We (Sam, Joe, Adam and I) set off on Friday, keen and eager. We arrived after a pleasant drive, stopping off for food at a service station famous for its ducks. We didn't see any, though. However, once at the Britannia, early signs weren't good. Behind us in the queue to check in was a man who smelt quite strongly of piss. He made idle chat with us during a hold up at reception, and I held my breath and nodded non-committally.
We then set up in the hall, and started to play. Downfall of Pompeii was first, as it encourages back-stabbing and betrayal in a light-hearted and amusing way. We followed that up with a new game, Singapore, which is a lot of worker placement and resource conversion. Nice, but not earth-moving. Joe did manage to miss his mouth with a crisp twice in succession, though.
Downfall of Pompeii
Joe 9
Sam 8
Adam 7
Andrew 5
Early days, empty tables... |
Singapore
Adam 79
Sam 74
Andrew 60
Joe 42
Then we thought perhaps we should mingle a bit, but time was getting on and we'd be going to eat soon. Adam played on the internet, because he was in the middle of a game and it's rude to keep people waiting.
Not ostracised, just playing Civ. |
Joe taught Sam Elk Fest, a flicking game where your have to get your tiny wooden elk across the table on stepping stones. And then we played Biblios. We spiced it up by rolling the dice before we began, meaning each dice started with a random value. We play hard and fast in Stabcon.
Beer, butter and elks |
Following that, we went to the carvery, and a very nice man found us a table while we stood at the bar and drank the beer made by (?) the band Elbow. During the meal, we discussed what we wanted to play next so when we got back to the Hotel, we were all geared up to play Africana. It was Adam's first attempt at this game which involves doing laps up and down Africa while picking up adventures and treasures along the way.
Africana
Andrew 41
Adam 38
Joe 36
Sam 34
Then we took another break and wandered around for a while. After that, Sam and Adam played Elk Fest while Joe taught me Traders of Carthage.
Then eleven o'clock rolled around and we thought it was too late to mingle, so we broke out the Tinners' Trail – a game we knew and loved. Halfway through, Cuz from Area 51 came over to see if we wanted to join in a game of The Resistance. We were too far in to stop, so we declined, and he seemed disappointed that we were only playing amongst ourselves.
Tin-mining in Joe's forehead? Anyone? It's quite dry . . . |
Tinners' Trail
Sam 96
Adam 92
Andrew 75
Joe 66
That was the end of Friday. On Saturday, after breakfast, a shower and a shave I was walking towards the games hall when I met Sam who told me we were about to play test a new Martin Wallace game! This is what Stabcon is all about! I was very excited that we four humble gamers would be in on the ground floor of designing a game. The game, Northern Empires, is set in a mythical Britain where the humans battle each other, calling for help from elves, goblins, giants, etc and even help from other players.
Martin planned it as mostly a bidding game, but I like to think we added something with our plotting and bluffing. We certainly added to the running time, since Martin thought the first round was too long, and in the second round he removed a lot of the bidding and negotiation. It wasn't as much fun, and also there wasn't much reason to help each other unless you had nothing better to do with your troops. Some nice ideas, though, and Martin seemed happy that he'd learnt how to improve it.
Northern Empires
Joe 58
Adam 52
Martin 51
Sam 47
Andrew 41
After a quick bout of Elk Fest, Sam went off to do some paperwork from his job, and Adam, Joe and I proudly rolled out Joe's green felt Pax Porfiriana playing area and sat down to revolutionise Mexico! We got a few admiring glances, but we were mostly too busy trying to plough through Pax's dense forest of rules and text dressed up as a card game.
Sam came back, and we didn't seem to be anywhere near finishing. Adam tried to topple the government and I almost let him, but I couldn't just let him win because we were tired so I played a card to see off his revolt. Joe happily said "I think I can end this game!" The fact he said "end" instead of "win" gives a good idea of our priorities at that point. Shortly afterwards, Adam did win and we couldn't do anything to stop him even if we wanted to. And we didn't really.
How we felt after playing Pax Porfiriana |
After two pretty full-on gaming experiences, my brain was frazzled. Certainly too tired to do any socialising. Instead we dug out Manila, the jolly game of betting and piracy, and followed that up with Arkadia. Joe thought that the theme was a bit tacked on, and it was really just an abstract game with a historical lick of paint.
Manila
Sam 142
Joe 138
Adam 108
Andrew 104
Arkadia
Adam 79
Andrew 73
Sam 72
Joe 56
After this was a series of quick two-player games, mostly against each other, with one other passer-by playing against Sam at Elk Fest. Joe taught me Battle for Hill 218, and Adam taught Sam Mr Jack in New York.
We also played what was, for me, the best new game of the Con (not that I played many), Hana-bi. In this game, each player had four cards held out so the others can see them. You are then allowed to give your fellow players information about what cards they have in their hands (either colour, or number, both not both at the same time). The idea is to lay down the hands in numerical order. It's quite a test of memory.
Joe successfully traded a green jelly baby for a Nurofen. |
The reason for this sudden run of short games is because we were waiting to leave the hotel to have dinner with Martin Wallace. He really wanted to speak to Joe about some work he may have, but the rest of us managed to be invited too. He said he knew a nice gastro-pub near here, and that's why the four of us were heading down unfamiliar roads following a man in his car just because he designed games.
The pub he had in mind was too full, but the pub across the road wasn't, and luckily the food there was pretty good. We discussed games and no one said anything crass or embarrassing, so all in all a very nice evening. Martin then went home, so we relied on Adam's GPS to get us back to the hotel.
At the hotel, we played Railways of Mexico, where I eschewed the more sensible tactic of short tracks bringing in quick profit and instead went up to my eyeballs in debt building a cross-mountain railway because it looked nice. Meanwhile, the tense rivalry between Joe and Adam concerning this game continued unabated.
Railways of Mexico
Adam 47
Joe 46
Sam 27
Andrew 22
We ended the day with Hana-bi, using the tone of our voices to indicate if a card was good or bad and, my, what acting skills we have! Didn't complete it, though. Then we played Biblios and No Thanks and went to bed.
Sunday morning rolled around and Joe and I were up nice and early. While we had breakfast, Joe dropped a bombshell. He and Adam hadn't gone to bed at 12.30 like Sam and I. Instead they tried the two-player version of Le Harve, thinking it was a quickish half-hour simplified version of the 3+ player version. But it took them up until two o'clock to finish and Joe didn't seem keen on repeating the experience.
After breakfast we found ourselves in a deserted games hall. We played some Traders of Carthage, and Sam and Adam, when they arrived, battled again over Elk Fest. Then Joe got invited to play Pax Porfiriana with Martin Wallace and a couple of others. Adam, Sam and I rather cruelly chose a game to try and make Joe jealous, so we broke out Brass. With departure time in a couple of hours, this would be our last game of the Con.
Adam gave Sam a quick refresher of the rules which extended quite a long way into the game, and I think everyone consulted the rule book a couple of times during the game. I decided this was to be my last try on the Shipyard tactic, and I really went for it, building three and selling a fair amount of cotton to ports, too. Did no good.
Brass
Adam 205
Sam 164
Andrew 161
After we finished, and Joe came back from playing Pax, we packed up since we were already behind our schedule. Once back in the car, we mused thoughtfully about our lack of socialising. While it was nice to play so many games, if we weren't going to mingle, there really was no point in driving all the way to a hotel in Stockport to do it. Perhaps it was simply too close to the festive season this year. After festivities with families and friends, did we really need more festivities? And the level of nerdiness seemed a little higher than usual. Joe told me how twice he'd said "hello" to people and they'd just stared back at him.
While games conventions are great, we may have to reconsider next year's trip. If we're being honest, the timing's wrong, the location's wrong and I don't like the carpet. Perhaps we will feel different next year. We shall see.
The final Olympic style leaderboard includes all the little games we played, and it's hat's off to Adam, who came top of the pile!
Gold | Silver | Bronze | |
Adam | 9 | 5 | 2 |
Sam | 5 | 9 | 3 |
Joe | 5 | 7 | 2 |
Andrew | 4 | 3 | 4 |
Whew. Nice write-up Andrew. And well-played Adam. And well-driven Joe.
ReplyDeleteI thought I was allowing my exterior world intrude on the games one and kind of annoyed with myself for letting it colour the weekend. But clearly it's not just me. While I love games and it's fun and interesting to be at stabcon, I'm not really going there to socialize (Martin aside)... and it's a long way to go for that admittedly unique ambience. So I agree - next time I vote cottage.
On a lighter note my top games were Railways, Tinners Trail, Hanabi, Mr Jack and ElkFest was quite fun too!
ReplyDeletePretty sure Stabcon was a Joe thing by the way...
Oh and other highlights were Playtesting with Mr W, cheese-gouging and the pastie-selling-bastards song.
ReplyDeleteBut you were the one who thought it would be good research on board gamers. We should've just looked in the mirror...
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I played a lot of big games. I've worked out that I like games some kind of a narrative. That's why I'm so hopeless at them, and why I go for tactics that look nice but rarely score points. Brass, Manila, Pompeii, Tinners, even Africana is thematically strong enough that it's easy to imagine some kind of mad dash across the dark continent with some toffs in a jeep looking for trinkets. Even Pax is thematic enough to make me think that, although I'm not actually enjoying myself, I am in some way learning something.
I vote cottage :) Does Martin read the blog? Might have been embarrassing after my last post!
ReplyDeleteYou're right Andrew I did say that.
ReplyDeleteChris i doubt Martin reads the blog but if he ever visits there's plenty of love for him on here!
It was never explained why he wanted to speak to Joe over dinner?
ReplyDeleteHe wants to design a game with him!
ReplyDeleteIt was the cliffhanger Chris, to get you to read the next blog!
ReplyDeleteSorry I missed what sounds like it could be the last Stabcon, but I'm up for CottageCon. Hang on, not sure about that as a name... StabCottage?!
Well la de dar!
ReplyDeleteNot sure StabCottage will catch on....funny though.
StabCottage - perfect!
ReplyDeleteMy favourite games were Railways of Mexico and Tinners Trail.
Favourite new games Hanabi and Traders of Carthage.
Special mention for Pax Porfiriana - for all the frustrations I remain intrigued, despite Martin Wallace's description of it as Fluxx Porfiriana - ouch!
The real epiphany for me was wandering the tables and seeing endless variations on a theme (I'm talking about the games here). I realised I don't need any new games that are basically games we already play with a twist. I came home and spent half an hour culling 40% of my collection.
Not entirely sure what to do with it - going to sell it so you guys will get first dibs; I'll post a list sometime soonish.
By far my favourite bit of Stabcon, as it is every year, is the road trip - the camaraderie, the crosswords, the chutney sandwiches. Steve your text on sunday was most appreciated, and strangely prescient! Thanks to all you guys for making it - along with the hand-wringing and soul-searching I had a lot of fun!
ReplyDeleteAnd of course thanks Andrew for the write-up and scoring.
Thank god for your last comment Joe. Reading the previous one I thought you'd undergone some kind of reverse-game epiphany, welcomed by most perhaps, but not us here at GNN Towers... I won't be buying any games myself (I assume you're not selling Colosseum!) but I hope some of them stay inside the magic circle.
ReplyDeleteOnly 40-odd games, Sam - that's less than half!
ReplyDeleteAnd not Colosseum.
Looks like I'm late to the commenting party!
ReplyDeleteMy lasting legacy from Stabcon this year appears to be Norovirus, I hope the rest of you avoided it. Deeply unpleasant.
On the games front Railways of the world, Elkfest and that Hasbro plane-flying rotating game were my favourites. Although I may still be delirious...
Its a relief that you haven't had a Damascene anti-games revelation Joe, I guess this means more time spent getting good at the games we already own rather than learning something new every week. I can get on board with that!
Ah man - I'm so far Noro free, but it seems to have been doing the rounds judging by the emails from Stabcon organisers.
ReplyDeleteMore time with games we already own is EXACTLY what I want to spend, yes indeed. I am in no way leaving the magic circle. And you should know that Pax Porfiriana is not on my culling list. I'm going to discover its hidden depths... my new strategy is to play it wearing a sombrero and handlebar moustache.
I vote against Adam getting better at anything - bar his constitution of course. I had that bug before Christmas, horrid...
ReplyDelete