Daycon 2017

Daycon is a new game day (I won't call it a convention quite yet) that is being headed up by Randy Miller.  This is the first year for it, and he hopes to grow it into first a full weekend then perhaps an even longer convention.  While I have yet to be able to get in a game with him, Randy was aware of our Ohio War Kings 'club' and Facebook group, and several months back asked us if we wanted to run something at his new event.

Never one to under schedule myself, I of course said yes (ok, I didn't realize at first that this put me at three tournaments in a row (though I am only running two of them, having been 'volunteered' to fill in as a mercenary for the West Coast region at the Masters).

I had not really begun to promote this, just mentioning it a bit, but already managed to drum up some excitement for it, and when registration eventually opened we very quickly sold out all 12 seats, and Randy opened up two more, which we also sold out.

For several people, this will be the last chance to get in practice games before the Masters, which is the next weekend.

Come the day and the weather was beautiful - what is with the temps in the mid 60s in the middle of February?  So of course we are spending the day inside playing games.

12 players at Daycon - Jesse, Tim, Erich, Aaron, Jon, Steve, Amy, Kara, Dave, Joe, Dan and Felix

Of the 14 we had pre-registered, 12 made it (the other two being to sick and tired to play.  Seriously, one was sick and the other just too exhausted after working a double shift the day before to get up before noon).

DayCon at Rona Banquet Hall in Fairborn OH

Round one got underway just a few minutes late.  I was originally going to run some of the brand new scenarios from the upcoming Clash of Kings book, but then realized that many of the players were using this as a last practice for the Masters tournament the next weekend, so I made sure we only did scenarios from the Masters tournament pack.  The first one was fairly new - Control!

Round 1 gets underway

Dave Baker's Abyssals take a beating from Dan Payne's Undead

Jesse Cromwell's Goblins pull out a tie against Jon Carter's Undead

Tim Bowie's Ratkin send Felix Castro's Herd running with their tails between their legs

Amy Stamper's Dwarfs tie Joe Cottrell's Abyssals

Erich Trowbridge's Orcs put a serious beating on Aaron Raleigh (using my Ogres)

Steve Malone's Twilight Kin slaughter Kara Brown's Abyssal Dwarfs

Between the first and second rounds we took a lunch break (and the food at the con was surprisingly inexpensive and good - cheeseburger for only $2!) and everyone set up their armies for appearance judging.

Joe Cottrell's Forces of the Abyss

Erich Trowbridge's Orcs

Felix Castro's Herd

Timothy Bowie's Ratkin

Jon Carter's Undead

Jesse Cornwall's Goblins

Aaron Raleigh playing my Ogres

Daniel Payne's Undead

Dave Baker's Forces of the Abyss

Kara Brown's Abyssal Dwarfs

Steve Malone's Twilight Kin

Amy Stamper's Dwarfs

In addition to the army shots, I also tried to take some more closeups of things I liked.

Erich got some awesome hand painted banners for his orcs as a Christmas present from a friend 

I find it a bit of a shame that with 2nd edition, fewer and fewer people are doing cool banners

Dave Baker used a Deadzonoe Chovar Psychic as his Chroneas

Dave also use a yellow paint scheme for his abyssals, and his fiend turned out great (and I'm not saying that because he got it from me).

Kara Brown used Dave's idea of Deadzone plague for Tortured Souls, but added some of the really big ones along with the 2As.

Kara also had an interesting Abyssal Halfbreed unit - made from mechwarrior mechs!

Kara also just finished a new Overmaster model last night

Joe Cottrell used plastic fishing worms as larvae for his Abyssals ( these are commonly seen as Bloodworms in Night Stalker armies)

Joe's version of Chroneas - a bones Dragon Turtle.

Joe added 40K heads to his Mantic Ogres to make Molochs

So after lunch, Round two quickly got underway.  This was a new Push! scenario - think of it as a double loot where the units can START with loot tokens (plus one in them middle to claim)

Joe takes is on the chin with a loss to Jon

Jesse pulls out a tie against Amy

Kara gets a whooping from Dave

Felix beats up newbie Aaron

Erich defeats Timothy

Steve loses to Dan

Jon's Vampire Lord on Undead Dragon tries to eat the Efeet, but finds it a bit too spicy for one bite

A war trombone finds itself in a target rich environment

The final round actually got started a bit early, as everyone finished round two with twenty minutes left on the overall clock.  This is a straight invade scenario.

Round 3 is on!

Erich and Dan battle it out on the top table

Amy watches as Dave abyssals are all on her side of the board.

Steve rolls against a huge line of Jesse's goblins

Kara and Aaron battle for the wooden spoon!

Tim checks his measurements against Jon

Joe does a beat down on Felix

And round three wrapped up, giving us our winners.

Aaron took the Wooden Spoon, and Best Sportsman!

Joe's Abyssal army won him Best Appearance.  I almost felt I should have docked him points because he painted the army up in only 1 week :-)

Erich tied for best Sportsman, but took home Best General

And in a repeat of the Gem City Massacre, Dan took Overall

Daycon 2017 Final Results

Place	Name	Army	Opponents	Battle	Attrition	Paint	Additional Painting	Players Choice	Appearance Total	List	3list	Favorite Opponent	Best Sportsman	Total	Awards
1	Daniel Payne	Undead	Dave Baker, Steve Malone, Erich Trowbridge	92	3220	20	1	1	22	5	5		10	123	Overall Champion
2	Erich Trowbridge	Orcs	Aaron Raleigh, Timothy Bowie, Daniel Payne	85	4690	20	6	2	28	5	5	3	13	120	Best General
3	Dave Baker	Abyssals	Daniel Payne, Kara Brown, Amy Stamper	79	3260	20	7	2	29	5	5	1	11	112
4	Joe Cottrell	Abyssals	Amy Stamper, Jon Carter, Felix Castro	68	4355	20	11	2	33	5	5		10	100	Best Appearance
5	Jon Carter	Undead	Jesse Cornwell, Joe Cottrell, Timothy Bowie	69	2850	20	10		30	5	5		10	99
6	Timothy Bowie	Ratkin	Felix Castro, Erich Trowbridge, Jon Carter	81	1815	8	5		13	5	5		10	99
7	Jesse Cornwell	Goblins	Jon Carter, Amy Stamper, Steve Malone	63	3040	20	6		26	5	5	2	12	95
8	Kara Brown	Abyssal Dwarfs	Steve Malone, Dave Baker, Aaron Raleigh	57	3765	20	9	1	30	5	5	2	12	90
9	Amy Stamper	Dwarfs	Joe Cottrell, Jesse Cornwell, Dave Baker	55	3380	20	8	3	31	5	5		10	88
10	Felix Castro	Herd	Timothy Bowie, Aaron Raleigh, Joe Cottrell	55	2354	20	2	1	23	5	5	1	11	87
11	Steve Malone	Twilight Kin	Kara Brown, Daniel Payne, Jesse Cornwell	74	3650	0	2		2	5	5	1	11	85
12	Aaron Raleigh	Ogres	Erich Trowbridge, Felix Castro, Kara Brown	30	1440	20	5		25	5	5	3	13	63	Best Sportsman, Wooden Spoon

Daycon wasn't just about Kings of War however.  There were three sessions of scheduled games and a lot of demos and several vendors (even Mayfair games had a booth upstairs).  I picked a few new resin terrain pieces (who can't use more walls and ruins?) myself.

After the tournament I even managed to do a demo of Mantics "The Walking Dead: All Out War" for a couple of people.  We ran through a simple demo scenario, and they both had fun as the threat escalated and they started to learn how to use noise and mayhem to draw walkers into their opponents (I don't think Derick was able to move for 80% of the game because, while never dying, was constantly fighting off walkers).  In the end Sandra snuck around to grab the last loot token and then run around a car so no walkers could get to her, while Derick was finally surrounded and about to bite it after Rick shot a walker that pulled three of them over.

Felix and Donny try out the Walking Dead: All Out War as Aaron (more than just his arm) watches

Thanks to Randy Miller and the rest of the staff at Daycon for providing a great show and place to have our tournament.  Also I want to thank Bill Robertson (again) for his great tournament scoring software warscore - it makes doing the round pairings and scoring so easy even I can do it.

You can check out all the pairings and scores at the warscore page for the event.

Because it is all fun and games . . .