The best four days of gaming

I have found it interesting that so many miniature gamers seem to be completely unaware of the largest gaming convention in the world (I believe it passed Spiel at Essen in attendance last year).  Or maybe it is just those to play (or used to play) GW games - since until recently GW ignored it as well.

This year looks to be bigger than ever, as Gencon is celebrating it's 50th anniversary this year, and plans for a huge number of events, including a concert by "They Might Be Giants".  Gencon is a HUGE event, with over 60,000 unique attendees (i.e. badges) (turnstile attendance was over 200,000 - so if you had a 4 day badge you count 4 times, while a 1 day badge just counts once.  This beat Spiel in Germany which had 174,000 turnstile attendance).

While I would, of course, love for everyone to come just because of our events, that it not realistic. The badge prices keep going up ($90 pre-registration for a 4 day badge ($120 at the door)), so if you only want to play in the Kings of War Tournament (and who doesn't?) it may not be worth the cost. So come for all four days (you can't truly see the entire exhibit hall in just one day, not if you want to actually stop and look at booths / talk to people / demo games.  So if you can, you need to go.  (Plus they do now have a 'Sunday Family Fun Pass' - which allows a family of 4 in on Sunday for only $45 - though it doesn't allow you to play in ticketed events (you can still browse the exhibit hall and play demo games though).


So enough of that - I'm not called that "Kings of War Guy" for nothing - I run LOTS of Kings of War events, and this year is no exception.

A lot of people are interested in the big tournament on Saturday.  Not only is it a lot of fun, but this year it counts as a Masters Qualifier for the Midwest region!  In the past this was a "Clash of Kings" event - but Mantic wants to use that title just for their championships (at Adepticon, and in the UK in October). So we have titled our tournament this year "Kings of Gencon"!  In addition, we want to make it a bit unique, so we have decided to go with an escalation format.

Kings of Gencon Tournament Packet

What that means is you will play four games, but each game will be bigger than the last.  So you will play games at 1000, 1500, 2000 and 2500 points.  One restriction is that once you add a unit to your army, you may not remove it, nor can you take a smaller size.  The unit can get bigger if you want, and you can change up Magical Artifacts as much as you want.  Allies and Living Legends are allowed, but each of your 4 lists must be legal (and of course allies and Living Legends follow the above restrictions).  There are 24 slots available so pre-registration is recommended.  Also, please send your 4 army lists to puggimer AT gmail.com by August 13th to receive 10 sportsmanship points. The tournament pack will be up soon here.  And if we can stay on schedule we will be done in time for you to attend the annual Mantic Night at the Colts Grille!

Kings of War: How You Use It Tournament Packet

If you want to try something a bit different, on Friday we are having our "How You Use It" Kings of War tournament.  This is a 1000 pt tournament, but all the armies are pre-made and provided.  Each round you will not only have a different opponent, but will also be playing a different army!  So it tests your tactical and strategic skills a you try to win with four different armies (and they are definitely NOT optimal armies (in fact, they are my demo armies), and use NO magical artifacts). This looks to be a lot of fun.

Of course we are bring back our Mega-Battle on Thursday night.  If you get a ticket, then you get to use one of my demo armies in a huge battle.  However if you have your own 1000 pt army you want to use, bring it and 2 generic tickets and you will get in the game!  So there is no limit to the actual number of players we can have (if they bring their own forces).  Since you will be playing with several other players on your side - this is also a good opportunity to bring out some of the big monsters and heroes (no Living Legends - sorry) that you normally can't fit in regular games.  The scenario changes every year (and I haven't decided what it is going to be for this year yet!).

If you are just getting into Kings of War, well we are running 9 Kings of War: Learn to Play! sessions (with 12 seats for each).  So come and learn the rules, or if you are a veteran get in a light, fun game.

To top this off, Mantic is also running 3 Kings of War Big Games.  I believe these are Elves and Dwarfs v. Undead - with everything provided.


We are also going to be running 9 sessions of Warpath: Learn to Play!  So come and try out Mantic's new large scale sci-fi mass combat game with everything provided.

Mantic is also going to be running both Deadzone and Walking Dead scenarios all weekend (6 and 8 sessions respectively).

This year, Mantic has their own game HQ in Hall B - so look for the banners!  Event registration opens on May 28th.  You can check out all 38 events on the Gencon Event Finder .

And for planning purposes, here is a quick reference grid to everything by day

Day
Time
Event
8/17/2017
8:00
Kings of War: Learn to Play!
8/17/2017
8:00
Warpath: Learn to Play!
8/17/2017
11:00
Kings of War: Learn to Play!
8/17/2017
11:00
Warpath: Learn to Play!
8/17/2017
13:00
Deadzone: Cataclysm
8/17/2017
13:00
The Walking Dead: All Out War - Unhappy Campers
8/17/2017
14:00
Kings of War: Learn to Play!
8/17/2017
14:00
Warpath: Learn to Play!
8/17/2017
16:00
Deadzone: Cataclysm
8/17/2017
16:00
Kings of War Big Game
8/17/2017
16:00
The Walking Dead: All Out War - Unhappy Campers
8/17/2017
17:00
Kings of War: Learn to Play!
8/17/2017
17:00
Warpath: Learn to Play!
8/17/2017
20:00
Kings of War Mega-Battle



8/18/2017
8:00
Kings of War: Learn to Play!
8/18/2017
8:00
Warpath: Learn to Play!
8/18/2017
10:00
The Walking Dead: All Out War - Unhappy Campers
8/18/2017
11:00
Kings of War: Learn to Play!
8/18/2017
11:00
Warpath: Learn to Play!
8/18/2017
13:00
Deadzone: Cataclysm
8/18/2017
13:00
The Walking Dead: All Out War - Unhappy Campers
8/18/2017
14:00
Kings of War Big Game
8/18/2017
14:00
Kings of War: Learn to Play!
8/18/2017
14:00
Warpath: Learn to Play!
8/18/2017
16:00
Deadzone: Cataclysm
8/18/2017
16:00
The Walking Dead: All Out War - Unhappy Campers
8/18/2017
17:00
Kings of War: How You Use It!
8/18/2017
20:00
Kings of War Big Game



8/19/2017
8:00
Kings of Gen Con : Kings of War Tournament
8/19/2017
10:00
The Walking Dead: All Out War - Unhappy Campers
8/19/2017
13:00
Deadzone: Cataclysm
8/19/2017
13:00
The Walking Dead: All Out War - Unhappy Campers
8/19/2017
16:00
Deadzone: Cataclysm
8/19/2017
16:00
The Walking Dead: All Out War - Unhappy Campers



8/20/2017
8:00
Kings of War: Learn to Play!
8/20/2017
8:00
Warpath: Learn to Play!
8/20/2017
11:00
Kings of War: Learn to Play!
8/20/2017
11:00
Warpath: Learn to Play!

Because it is all fun and games . . .

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