What did you learn at GenCon? (aka "GenCon Mistakes")

[Gulp]

The always honorable Matthias Maccabeus brought up something very interesting, and I would love to hear other people's stories. Like many of us, I'm already excited about GenCon, and in about 45 minutes I'll be practicing one of my armies for this year.

What silly mistakes did you make at GenCon during any of the tournaments?

I'd love to read more stories like these:

Originally Posted by Matthias Maccabeus

You mean with the Heavy / Grimnak / Raelin combo?

And just to point a few things out that I was totally stupid on. Against Braxas the first time, I moved my Raelin out to help cover defensively. Talk about stupid, Braxas bypasses defense. The second time I faced her I was trying to swarm her by keeping a grut on the move glyph. Well she kept melting them off from her little perch she was on backed by Raelin. Instead of moving a grut onto the move glyph (who was killed EVERY time by acid breath, I should have moved up Nerak onto the glyph. He's large and immune to acid breath. I would have forced Braxas off the perch to get me off the glyph, and if she didn't I would have been able to swarm her. The third time I played her I had it figured out and pretty much rolled her. It's just little things like that that I would have already played through in play testing and "theoretically" not have screwed up on in an actual game.

Let's use that ol' Scapers spirit and share what we did wrong so that this year's championship will be even more exciting.

I made the dumb mistake of having both Zelrig and Tul-Bak-Ra in my army. Both, to me, seem like openers. TBR seemed great at being able to get stingers onto higher ground, but that seemed to only be useful at the beginning of the game. I never found a good use for TBR later in the game.

Don't put Zelrig and Tul-Bak-Ra in your army, is my experience.

[wdgrant]

I played three rounds of Championship two years ago shorting myself a squad of Stingers. I only noticed because we went to time and I was counting how many points he had killed and notice my remaining points didn't add up to enough.

Always double check your army before you start each game.

[killercactus]

Don't play Deathreavers in the Main Event unless you're prepared to deal with a massive headache afterwards.

[Onion Knight]

Originally Posted by wdgrant

I played three rounds of Championship two years ago shorting myself a squad of Stingers. I only noticed because we went to time and I was counting how many points he had killed and notice my remaining points didn't add up to enough.

Always double check your army before you start each game.

That was both awful and hilarious!

Dair - "I think I... I think I just played a... I think I was short a squad of Stingers! AAAAAH CRAP!!!"

Onion - "Duuuuude!"

Good times.

[Clarissimus]

Here are some things I have learned at GenCon:

-- Don't lock your keys in your car. It's neither cheap nor quick to get them back.
-- Don't sign up for an 8-hour board game that starts at 9PM when you're already running low on sleep.
-- Don't forget where you parked. You may have to wander the streets of downtown Indy from 11PM to 1AM before you finally find it.
-- Don't leave the hotel room before checking to make sure you have all your games with you. You may have to drive back 2 hours to retrieve it.

Or did you ask what I learned about Heroscape? I went 5-6 at my first GenCon and learned a lot.

[Jexik]

Find time to eat lunch!

[1Mmirg]

Originally Posted by Jexik

Find time to eat lunch!

My first rule of the tourney scene: Always have a granola bar (or something) on hand.

[SuperflyTNT]

Here's things I learned:
> If you're looking for hotties, Gencon is NOT the place. There are some, but the ratio of hotties to homelies is 1:100.
> Bring Vicks Vapo Rub to put under your nose - M:TG people frakking smell like buttholes and dirty feet.
>Don't spend 4 days playing Heroscape. The game is great, but walking around and checking out the entire venue is a must-do
>Don't go cheap. Bring 500 bucks, because there's enough games you'll want to buy that it's a requirement
>Walk every night for 2 weeks before going, because if you don't have at least some modicum of fitness, you're going to suffer; I saw some people there that looked to need a physician immediately
>Don't be intimidated; I saw a lot of social degenerates sitting in corners and quivering due to the crowds, and just be like the TNT and not-give-a-f@#. People are people
>Secure your belongings! My buddy in Texas STILL has my favorite T-Shirt, and he keeps using it as an extortion tool...he's told me he'll use it as a jizz-mop if I don't trade him something!
>Meetup with friends you don't see often. Friends are more important than games, so don't blow the opportunity

HS Lessons Learned:
>Don't bring Elven Archers and Warriors of Ashra to General Wars....it's ugly.
>Don't let Dignan get under your skin...he's a huge talker, and it's all talking trash, but he's an exceptionally nice guy and it's just how he likes to mess with friends.
>Help Rÿchean and the crew as best you can, they do it for love of the game, so if you can help them in some capacity, do it!
>Don't go to other players and ask their scores over and over again, especially when they're playing. It's rude, disrespectful, and may end you up in the hospital.
>KNOW THE RULES! Don't go off on someone because you play one way at home and everyone else plays the right way. This happened to me, and it was both sad for me to watch because I felt bad for the guy, and humbling to him as he felt ashamed and felt the need to write an apology letter here on his "scape-blog". The sad thing is that he is a really, really nice guy.
http://www.heroscapers.com/community/blog.php?u=5732
...and the most important...
>Heroscapers, by and large, are great people, so just have fun, meet people, and enjoy life. Winning is nice, but having fun is the key.

[airdroppers]

Originally Posted by SuperflyTNT

Here's things I learned:
> If you're looking for hotties, Gencon is NOT the place. There are some, but the ratio of hotties to homelies is 1:100.
> Bring Vicks Vapo Rub to put under your nose - M:TG people frakking smell like buttholes and dirty feet.
>Don't spend 4 days playing Heroscape. The game is great, but walking around and checking out the entire venue is a must-do
>Don't go cheap. Bring 500 bucks, because there's enough games you'll want to buy that it's a requirement
>Walk every night for 2 weeks before going, because if you don't have at least some modicum of fitness, you're going to suffer; I saw some people there that looked to need a physician immediately
>Don't be intimidated; I saw a lot of social degenerates sitting in corners and quivering due to the crowds, and just be like the TNT and not-give-a-f@#. People are people
>Secure your belongings! My buddy in Texas STILL has my favorite T-Shirt, and he keeps using it as an extortion tool...he's told me he'll use it as a jizz-mop if I don't trade him something!
>Meetup with friends you don't see often. Friends are more important than games, so don't blow the opportunity

Those are golden

I died @ jizz-mop

[Jim]

Originally Posted by SuperflyTNT

>Don't go cheap. Bring 500 bucks, because there's enough games you'll want to buy that it's a requirement

A thing I learned:
Don't buy every single game that you see there and really really want. Unless there is a limited edition super cool GenCon only bonus for buying the game there, wait and order it online. It'll be much less expensive and you shouldn't have to wait more than 4-8 weeks, and you will be able to get more games for the same cost.

Another thing I learned:
If you see a new game that you really really want, demo it. If you like it, don't buy it. Come back the next day and demo it again. If you still like it and really really want it, then you can buy it, following the advice of the first thing I learned above.

[Cyborgs Gaming]

One thing I learned, along the same lines as others here, let your oppenent know that you intend to play by the rules. Don't take it for granted that just because it's a tournament setting that people are going to play correctly. What I mean by this are things like leaving engagement strikes, moving one figure at a time, move all figures then fire all figures. Rolling to see if your going to take falling or leaving engagment first then deciding not to based on the roll of those dice. I made the mistake of assuming that anyone playing at a gencon tournament would play by standard tournament rules. On more than one case after rolling for disengagment or after moving all his figures I'd had opponents want to take back moves. Some got very verbal with me over it. Now I let people know ahead of time that I don't allow such things in tournament play and avoid fights when the game is in progress. On the flipside I think such things are perfectly fine when teaching new players how to play or other casual games. With kids or girlfriends.

Another thing is just because your playing a kid, don't assume they are going to play like a kid. Some of the best players and most enjoyable games I've had were with kids under 12. It usually seems like it's adults that act childish and throw temper tantrums in the games. The kids seem to know and stick with the rules and enjoy them.

For the convention itself. Don't sign up for too many games. There are so many fun things to do for free that you don't sign up for. I had 4 Heroscape games. If and when I make it back I think I'm only going to play in 3. I would of liked more time to walk around and enjoy things, more time for demos and such. A good 4 or 5 hours totally free for such things is a good idea.

Finally, don't bother with True Dungeon. Found it to be way too expensive and not that great for the value.

[ranoobu]

Originally Posted by SuperflyTNT

>Don't bring Elven Archers and Warriors of Ashra to General Wars....it's ugly.

Hey SuperflyTNT,

Was this pointer related to the incident with butchflannagan? I assume it's alright to state his name since you link to the apology..

Also, I read his apology, but I just wanted to clarify: Was he protesting to you that the figures need to be smack center on each hex?

It'll be interesting when I finally get a chance to play and see the need to be all over the hex (as long as they are in the raised part of the hex and not overhanging off the edge) just to get line of sight.