Pacificon 2024 recap

 

So there I was, minding my own beeswax when I get a text from Dai:

"Dude, are you at Pacificon right now playing some sort of desert game?"

sends pic:

Me on the left.

I replied "Suuure am.  Where'd that pic come from?" 

he said "friend of mine. I have EYES everywhere."

And I thought 'OK Sauron.'  And also 'there's probably a lesson somewhere in this about social media that my daughter needs to learn.'  

It's the inevitable post-convention write up.

Pacificon Game Expo 2024

Labor Day Weekend here in the states I spent at the Pacificon Game Expo held in the SF Bay Area, about 2ish hours from my usual haunts.  The plan was to leave late morning on Friday and return late evening on Sunday.  In between the plan was to squeeze in as many games as I could.  Which realistically was about 2 - one in the morning and one in the evening- with a nap in the middle.  Because apparently, I am lame now.  I didn't used to be lame.  

Friday

Friday afternoon was a rare chance to a thing at a convention that I...rarely do.  That was good writing.

It's play in a good ACW game.  The rules were Rank and File.  Run by Mr. PM

Friday afternoons, before the official start of a holiday evening are typically slow because one needs the whole day off.  This game was at 1PM and had 6 players so that worked out.

Red rings are re-rolls.
White rings are casualties.
Yes, it should be the other way around.

Been awhile since I played a game of Rank and File; tweaked a little bit here and there for the ACW. Good fun, nice people.  Usually, I'm the one giving the goodness of an ACW game, so it was nice to take a turn taking.  That's more good writing there.  Good thing blogs are free.  

Friday evening, I returned to a game I played last year, the Circus Maximus chariot racing game.   

15mm chariots on a large track.

Everyone likes to play in this game.  They had two tracks with 8 players on each track.  The top 4 from each game would race a second time for a championship.  The rules are some Avolon Hill board game from a million years ago; just upscaled into miniatures.  Like last year, the idea is not so much to do a good job racing but to do an average job racing while doing a good job at making the others crash.  Lots of fun.

In the first lap my racer lost his right eyeball to a whip attack.  One the second (and last) lap I took a turn too fast, flipped the cart and died.  

Then it was a late snack, some socializing, and bed.

Saturday

After the buffet breakfast, I played in a game of FFoL Bigger Battles that was run by my buddy Mr. DR.  As seen in the first picture of the post.

The scenario was that native types were attempting to stop a British column from reaching the oasis.  

Here was a reintroduction into the lessons of wargaming. Lesson number one: Don't prematurely stop the game.

Playing on the side of the natives, 1/3 of the way through the game I thought the natives had it in the bag.  Not just me, We ALL did.  Forgone conclusion we all said, not point to keep on playing except that we're here at a con and we're here to play and what else is there to do.  And you see where this is going...

2/3s through the game and it's HOW ARE WE LOSING?  

I really like Fistful of Lead for skirmishes, and this was my first experience with the bigger battle version.  It's a little iffy.  Units just end up annihilating each other pretty quickly.   I'm starting to see the issues that Ben Cato runs into with games of FFOL Bigger Battles on his blog.

That game was 10 till about 2 ish; and afterward I was tired.  My next game wasn't till 6.

So I took a nap.  And after I got over my shame for being lame, felt much more refreshed.

Saturday evening was a chance to try out Achtung Panzer. 

I like tank games, and I've heard about Achtung Panzer from the internet.  So this was a nice opportunity to try out a ruleset without having to purchase it.  

My American tanks.
A firefly and a Sherman.

whole table. 
28mm tanks are HUGE

I took charge of the Americans because I was well rested from the nap, and we were blowing up German tanks left right and center.  The Panther moved onto the board, and we played an airstrike card and blew it up by rolling lucky.  The GM had to give the Germans a Tiger for reinforcements just to stop us which... which worked, but just barely.

Everyone was having fun though and being good sports even if the luck was all one sided.  When the Germans finally killed an American tank even the American players cheered.  

The rest of the night was spent socializing and drinking.  

SUNDAY

Last day.  Woke up early because my body betrayed me once again.  First it was my eyesight, now it's waking up at 6 when I should sleep till 8.  

Breakfast, and then back to bed for a lie down as I was tired and still shaking off the alcohol.  When did I become such a whimp?  

10AM and it's time to play.  Mr. MH put one of his standard stunning games. 

a 4x4 jungle.

The scenario was based off the 2003 movie "Tears of the Sun."  I've never seen it either.

But basically; a special ops team has to go into a Nigerian jungle to rescue a Doctor and some refugees from the militia.  The rules again were FFoL but like a halfway version between the skirmish rules and the Bigger Battle version.  It mostly worked.  

Refugees and doctor being lead through the jungle
by special ops.

And being covered by a helicopter.
Having a helicopter is definitely cheating.

Fun scenario, though not much too it.  Playing the militia who were horrible troops; it was just a matter of running up and trying to unload on the OPs team, or the civilians,....anyone really.  Do some damage if you get lucky but then get massacred.  The militia were probably horrible people, so no one cried.   

late Sunday afternoon the place seemed to clear out for miniature gamers.  Which I thought was weird.  Miniature gamers are such babies with no stamina; probably need naps.  There were only 2 miniature games scheduled for Sunday evening starting at 5PM; a WWII game and MY game of 'This Quar's War."

It's a no contest, right? I'm gonna get ALL the players because who's ever heard of WWII?  No one.  

In the end we both got enough players easily.  

My set up.
4 players.
And some others hung out to watch for a bit being curious.

I had a good group of people who enjoyed the rules and the silly figures.  

I really need to finish up some Quar specific terrain to sell the look of it all.

One person joked it was QCW.  

Anyway, the game played really well, we all had some fun.  The only negative was that players had a hard time identifying which miniature is which in an easy way (like which one is the NCO, which has the LMG, etc..) but I'll fix that for next time by adding some colors to the back of the base.  

I was happy that I had enough pretty markers.

The game was wrapped up around 9 and I was on the road home by 10.  

Overalls

I had a fun weekend, though it's hard not to have a good time when all you do is eat, sleep, and pay miniatured games.  The con had good food, room was nice, everyone I interacted with was in a super good mood.   Every game that I wanted to play in I played in, though I suspect that even if that weren't the case I could find something of quality to play in.  I got the impression that there were not enough players to fill every game.  One day, I'd love to do a study of some sort that looked into the factors that people consider when choosing games to play at a convention.  

Speaking of quality games that I didn't play in.  Here is a smattering of other games that caught my eye.  I made no effort to document every game that there was.  I'm not a reporter.  I'm a player.

Mr. K. put on 2 great looking Vietnam games.  

Rules were TFL "Charlie Don't Surf."
Which IMO are awful and almost unplayable.
But I could make an exception to play on a pretty table.

There must of been a memo that said "Saturday afternoon is ship day" as there were lots of games with ships.  2 games had giant 28mm ships.  

lastly, Thunder Alley was back.  I played in this game last year and wanted to do it again but missed the opportunity.  It's hard to capture the scale but the track is like 20 feet long.  

And that's it.  Nothing else to talk about. 

Nothing like a fun and carefree weekend; my biggest concern was trying to decide if I had enough time to walk to the taco place and back before a game started.  

Thanks for reading.

Double thanks for writing a comment.

Till Next time.