Gen Con 2018 – in Pictures!

This Year’s Gen Con was my first ever Gen Con!  Easily the busiest convention I’ve ever been to, it’s easy to get lost among the activity!   I took a bunch of pictures though so lets go through my time!

First up – I had to wait in a line that was nearly a mile long for Will Call to get my tickets to the In Flight Report.  I didn’t even have time to check into my hotel – went straight to the convention center!

But I made it!   Front row seat!   I was crazy nervous that I wasn’t going to make it in time but luckily I managed!

And was surprised with 2 KeyForge decks for attending!   I’ve got to say I’m pretty impressed with this game.  The concept of completely unique decks in every box is really ambitious!   And it plays quickly and is a bit of fun as well!

But THIS thing was the star of the show!  The Super Star Destroyer for Armada really stole my heart!   Finally being able to see it was amazing!   After the report I grabbed some dinner and made my way back to the hotel, to prepare to teach some Legion and Armada the next morning!

The next morning – right before they opened the doors and let everyone in!

Everyone wanted to get pictures of the incoming rush!

There was alot of cosplay!  X-Wing and Legion were the two biggest attractions right in front of the main door, and they almost didn’t have any Armada tables, but luckily I found a core set on a table and was able to get it set up!

We had a core set, Wave 7, and the Rogues and Villains pack for Armada!   Nobody was scheduled to demo it, but I jumped all over it and made alot of new Armada fans from Thursday through Saturday.

Andrew Cox, Fellow Orlando Gamer, took home the championship for Destiny!   Way to represent Orlando!   Now we just need to him playing Legion and Armada as well!

Got to check out some other games as well – Project Elite is being relaunched by CMON, and the new miniatures look awesome!

Finally got to see this giant Cthulhu miniature from CMON’s new Cthulhu : Death May Die kickstarter.  It’s amazing, but it’s just so big it reminded me of the fact that I wouldn’t have had the room to actually put it anywhere!

Got a nice demo from Ares Games on their new title Battlestar Galactica: Starship Battles.  This looks gorgeous!

And got some more pictures of new FFG releases!

Sunday I was judging for a Legion Team Battle!   2v2 Tournament!

There was also an X-Wing Epic Tournament going on!

And the Armada Finals!  Congrats to JJsJuggernaut on an extremely close finish!   Not exactly sure why they had Destiny promos for the Armada winners….

When all was said and done, I had a TON of stuff to bring home and just my carry-on – so I had to break everything down!

I managed to get it all to fit!   Yup I put the falcon in a sock for safekeeping!

 

All in all, it was exhausting.   Working for FFG, demoing games nonstop, over loud crowds can really drain you.   Next time I need to go as a fan instead of an exhibitor.   I’d love to play in the tournaments and have more time to actually shop and participate in the con a bit more!

I also managed to capture a bunch of video as well!   Here’s just some of what I caught!

Painting and Modding Vader

It’s not every day you stumble across a video tutorial this amazing.   I am declaring this to be the best paint job in all of Star Wars Legion.

If you found that video insightful, here are some more triumphant videos from previous years.

About this same time every year I put out some of my finest content.   Stay tuned for more next year!

 

 

Contest Finalists!

It’s been a great contest with over 60 submissions!   I’d like to thank everyone who entered!   Submissions are now closed, but you are still more than welcome to add some more paint jobs to the forums if you simply want to share!

I’ll be announcing the winner of the Legion Core Set, as well as the winner of the door prize in the next day or 2, so make sure and check back often!

I’ll be narrowing down the paint jobs soon, but here are some of the finalists:

 

Here are some thumbnails of the submissions we got over on the forums!

 

 

Painting Contest Update – Door Prize added!

I’ve had so many entries that I’ve decided to include a door prize!  This one is open to all of my youtube subscribers and as a bonus, everyone who enters the painting contest also gets a bonus chance to win the door prize!  It’s a $20 gift card to Miniature Market that you can use for an expansion of your choice!

I announce it in the video below.

The video itself is about all games in general.   If units had no printed point cost, do you think that would help the need to errata cards all the time?

Episode 8 Trailer is here!!!!

If you haven’t already seen the latest trailer for Episode 8 – stop what you are doing and go watch it right NOW!

 

Seriously though it is amazing.  There are some spoilers for the general plot of the film, but I don’t think it’s ruining anything.   If anything I think it’s setting you up for some misdirection.   I did a couple videos about it last night.   First I did a reaction video, which shows both the trailer and me watching it for the first time.

After I had some time to process it I was able to do a scene by scene breakdown, which can be found below.   Some of the big takeaways from this trailer are as follows:

  1. Rey and Kylo Ren are of similar Strengths
  2. Luke is afraid of Rey’s strength, and perhaps reluctant to train her due to that fear.
  3. Snoke wants Rey’s strength and apparently succeeds at getting her.
  4. Kylo Ren is NOT as committed to the Dark Side as many thought – There IS still good in him.
  5. Ren and Rey may join forces at some point during this movie
  6. We are finally getting a good space battle(At least 1)
  7. Finn Vs Phasma is going to happen and it looks fantastic!

This trailer focused more on the force users than our military folks, which is fine with me…. but since trailers have a tendency to mislead you as to the movies true content, we don’t know how much will focus on the Jedi, and how much will focus on Poe, Rose, and Finn.

This trailer left out a lot of information too.  For example the lack of Benicio Del Toro’s “DJ” was a significant omission.   Also there really wasn’t any mention of other important characters such as Rose, Hux, or Ackbar.   Leia didn’t speak, so we still don’t know much about how significant her role will be, but we know it’s going to be a tear jerker regardless…

Here is my breakdown.

Tickets also went on sale last night.   I got one for the 7 PM showing on Dec 14th and it feels so much more real now!   Are you as excited as I am?

 

Hoth Terrain for Legion!

Just wanted to share some pictures of my finished Hoth Terrain for Star Wars Legion!  It’s taken me probably about two months to create all of the terrain pieces.  Here are some pictures!

I also ordered the playmat from Deep-Cut Studio, which I used for the surface.  The AT-AT is from the old WOTC game, the explosions are a Bandaii Tamashi Nations effect, (Plastic pieces for posing action figures), and all the rest of the miniatures are from Imperial Assault. I cannot WAIT for Star Wars Legion to finally come out!

I’ve documented my progress in a series of videos.  If you haven’t checked them out yet I suggest you do!

If you just want to jump to the final video, that’s part 10!

Escape From the Death Star!

I’ve recently put together an interactive adventure using Armada as the basis.   It’s still enjoyable even if you aren’t familiar with Armada.

I hope you guys enjoy it!   It takes awhile to put one of these together.   I may do more in the future.