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Hotsheet Items -
Miniatures Games
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Written by Mike Salsbury
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Jul 01, 2008 at 06:56 PM |
Miniatures games are a big chunk of the action at Origins. An entire Exhibit Hall is set aside for tables of miniatures gaming. While I didn't have the time or the batteries to document every interesting miniatures setup I saw in the hall, many of the more-impressive or more unusual ones appear below for your amusement.
 Sort of a Cowboys and Indians Theme
 A large historical battle is planned for this table.
 One of the best-looking fortress setups I've ever seen. Nice detail work!
 Middle-eastern feel to this one.
 As a sci-fi fan, I can appreciate this SG-1 themed table
 Nice replica of the Stargate
 Star Wars Space Battles
 Heroscape
 Gnome Wars from BrigadeGames.com
 Seems to be a lot of interest in this one...
 Very realistic looking water in this setup
 Minimalist but certainly useful
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Last Updated ( Jul 01, 2008 at 07:26 PM )
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Hotsheet Items -
Board Games (Non-War)
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Written by Mike Salsbury
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Jul 01, 2008 at 06:47 PM |
I took quite a few photos at Origins 2008, both to document some of the more interesting things I saw and to share with those who couldn't or didn't attend the convention a sense of what they missed.
As you walk around Origins, you'll find gamers setting up everywhere, at all hours of the day and night. Pick-up games, demos, and planned events can be found everywhere, like these tables in the walkway between the convention center and hotel:
Here are a couple of players setting up a Heroscape table:
And here are just a few of the board games in progress as I walked around the convention center:
It's possible to check out games from the Origins library to play, even if there is no specific instance of that game scheduled at the time:
If you're into train-oriented board games, you can join in the fun and even win some awards:
At the back of the room were some intense CCG championships:
In the Mayfair Games room you could play a "giant" Settlers of Catan game:
You could also have joined in on any of these other games:
As you look at these photos, you should notice that Origins attracts young and old, tall and short, slim and "not so slim", men and women, the costumed and the plainclothed, etc. It's a pretty good cross section of society, all in one place to have fun.
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Hotsheet Items -
Other Gaming News
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Written by Mike Salsbury
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Jul 01, 2008 at 06:27 PM |
It's hard to believe that Origins 2008 has come and gone already. For
those of you who have never heard of Origins, or those who've heard of
it but never been there, this article will try to convey some sense of
what Origins is all about, why people go there year after year, and why
you might want to consider attending Origins 2009.
The Origins
Game Fair is an annual event run by the non-profit Game Manufacturers
Association (GAMA). There are essentially two sides to the show, an
exhibition of games and game-related products, and a nearly
round-the-clock opportunity to play just about any kind of game you
might be interested in. Game players from around the world converge at
Origins to play their favorite games, meet game designers, talk with
game manufacturers, and pick up the latest releases.
Origins
runs for 5 days, usually at the end of June, at the Greater Columbus
(Ohio) Convention Center. Some 4,000 tournaments are held during the
convention, in addition to hundreds of casual and serious games.
Origins 2008 offered attendees the chance to play these and other card
games:
- Pokemon
- World of Warcraft
- Yu-Gi-Oh!
- Star Wars
- Magic: The Gathering
- Shadowfist
- Chez Goth
- Vs. System
- Chaotic
- Naruto
- Vampire: The Eternal Struggle
- Dragon Ball
- EVE
- Kingdom Hearts
- Star Trek
- Middle Earth
- Dungeoneer
- Chez Grunt
- Bleach
- Fantasy Imperium
- Dragon Storm
- The Settlers of Catan
- Fluxx
- Wits and Wagers
- Texas Hold 'Em Poker
- Clue!
- Scrabble
- Taboo
- Diplomacy
- Risk
- Twilight Struggle
- Federation and Empire
- "Oh My God! There's an Axe in My Head"
- Advanced Civilization
- Carcassonne
- Munchkin
- Pirate's Cove
- Puffing Billy
- Star Fleet Battles
- Car Wars (Card Game)
- Kingmaker
- Lord of the Fries
- Trailer Park Wars!
- Power Grid
- Redneck Life
- Venus Needs Men!
- Are You a Werewolf?
- Axis & Allies
- Arkham Horror
- Tannhauser
- Ticket to Ride
- Tide of Iron
- Bootleggers
- Robo Rally
- Age of Napoleon
- Battlestations
- Zombies!
- Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator
- Victory at Sea
- Desperados
- Saganami Island Tactical Simulator
- Heroscape
- Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures
- Attack Vector: Tactical
- Full Thrust
- Seapower II
- Warhammer 40,000
- Injurius Games
- Silent Death
- Battle of Verdun
- Clear for Action
- Command at Sea
- Rezolution
- Car Wars Deluxe Edition
- Classic Battletech
- Red Actions
- Reich of the Dead
- WARMACHINE/HORDES
- HeroClix
- Zombie Hunters
- Heirs to Olympia
- Midway
- Volley and Bayonet
- Dark Age
- AT-43
- Sailpower
- Classical Hack
- Liberty or Death
- Seekrieg
- Star Wars Miniatures
- Call of Cthulu
- Champions
- d20
- Fantasy Imperium
- Witch Hunter
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Spycraft
- Twilight: 2000
- Star Wars Saga Edition
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse
- GURPS
- HackMaster
- Hero System
- Stargate SG-1 d20
- Nobilis
- Aces & Eights
- Hollow Earth Expeditions
- Shadowrun
- Star Trek
- Mutants and Masterminds
- Ubiquity
- National Security Decision Making Game
- Serenity
- Legend of the Five Rings
- Amtgard
- Rising: Live Action Survival Horror
- Mind's Eye Theatre
- Shattered Glass: A Murder Mystery
- Heirs to Olympia
- Werewolf: The Forsaken
- Pokethulu
- Heroes
of Peacetime: A small band of airmen during the interwar period risked
all and lost much. Matt Caffrey decribes their deeds.
- Little Big Horn: Pete Panzeri presents videos and photos to support his conclusions regarding the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
- Global Trends 2008: LTC Jaime Laughrey examines the common causes of conflict – population, culture, resources, and economics.
- Live-Action Teaching Tools: A seminar/workshop designed to utlize Live-Action Role-playing in the education environment.
- GM Mastery: Seminar for beginning and experienced game masters.
- Miniature Painting
- Modifying Games for Classroom Use
- Leatherworking 101
- Special Ops in Vietnam
- Design Your Own Games
- LARP 101
- Soviet Tank Units in WWII
- Advanced Game Design for Teachers
- Modern Tactics
- Art Show
- Card Workshop (make greeting cards)
- Various film screenings
- Morning Yoga
- Beginning Tatting
- Beginning Scrapbooking
- Belly Dancing Basics
- Nifty Knits
- Beginning Counted Cross Stitch
- Family Scavenger Hunt
- Beginning Knitting and Crochet
- Basic Meditation
- Origins Live Game Auction
In
the area near the Columbus Convention Center where Origins is held are
a number of restaurants. Some of my personal favorites include the
Japanese Steak House, Barley's Brew Pub, and various stands in the
nearby North Market. Barley's Brew Pub, as one example, features an
on-premises brewery and offers several micro-brew draft beers to enjoy.
The Columbus Convention Center itself offers a wide selection of
restaurants, too.
Since you still might not have a picture of
what a day at Origins can be like, I'll recount one of my days at
Origins 2008. I woke that morning around 9am, showered, and headed to
the Convention Center with my brother. We parked in the garage on Vine
Street, practically across the street from the convention. We entered
the convention center, grabbed a morning beverage at the coffee shop,
and headed to the exhibit hall or "dealer room" to look around. We
spent an hour or two looking around at what the various vendors had to
offer, making mental note of where we'd seen the best deals. I stopped
at the "Paint and Take" area to pick up a free miniature and sat down
to practice my painting skills while waiting on our first game to
start. We had lunch, and a couple of beers, at the Brew Pub across the
street. We walked around and looked at some of the setups in the
miniatures room before heading off to our first game, a Mayfair Games
card game called "Family Business".
When Family Business was
over, we went to the Japanese Steak House across the street to have
dinner. After dinner, we went back to the convention center and
arrived at the Red Shirt Games area to play "Injurius Games: Keep What
You Kill". This game ran until around midnight, whereupon we went home
for the night.
During the course of my time at Origins, I had the opportunity to play in full or demo versions of all of the following games:
- Zombies
on the Moon: A miniatures game where a squad of astronauts must defend
itself against a horde of zombies while attempting to reach (and
destroy) a strange alien artifact at the center of a moon base.
- Family
Business: A gangster-oriented card game by Mayfair Games, where the
object is to eliminate the members of the rival mobs. This was so much
fun I ended up purchasing it.
- Injurius Games - Keep What You
Kill: This miniatures game by General Glen of Red Shirt Games is
reasonably light on rules, with a subtle arcade-game feel, plenty of
action, and is a perennial favorite with my brother and me. If you
manage to kill an enemy unit, you're awarded an unpainted version of
the same miniature at the end of the game. Needless to say, I have
quite a few of the minis in my collection.
- AT-43: This Fantasy Flight Games product relies pretty much on the standard six-sided die and a
relatively simple but effective set of rules. Matt and I found it pretty straightforward and easy to play, not to mention fun.
- Dungeons and
Dragons Miniatures - Monster Bash: This Red Shirt Games variant of
D&D Miniatures allows you to get a feel for the full game, in a
battle to the death between good and evil. Red Shirt Games made it
very easy to pick up and play this game without my ever having seen it
before.
- Trailer Park Wars: This card-based title by Gut Bustin' Games places you in command of a trailer park.
On your turn, you play cards from your hand which might place a
desirable tenant in one of your trailers, place an undesirable one in
an opponent's trailer, add an amenity (such as an above-ground pool) to
your trailer park, or cause a disaster to befall an opponent. The
object is to collect as many pink flamingos as possible. The player
with the most flamingos at the time the "bank" runs out wins.
Matt and I had a great time at Origins 2008, as we do every year at Origins, and are already looking forward to next year. |
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Last Updated ( Jul 01, 2008 at 06:32 PM )
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Hotsheet Items -
Miniatures Games
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Written by Mike Salsbury
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Jul 01, 2008 at 12:40 AM |
This is the first of my reports from Origins 2008, which ended on
Sunday, June 29, 2008. I brought back around 130 pictures, which I'll
be sharing the rest of the week here on the site.
The last few years at Origins, I've played a game run by Red Shirt Games. This year was no exception. The game in question is their "Injurius Games"
product. Injurius Games is a futuristic squad-based gladiatorial-style
arena tabletop miniatures game that has a relatively easy to learn rule
set but enough complexity to keep it from getting old. As they
describe it on their site, "this system is based on the premise that
gamers want realism, but not at the expense of gameplay and fun."
In
past years, Red Shirt has run Injurius Games with its human gladiators
on a 3" by 3" grid. This year, the human gladiators were replaced with
Mecks like these:
There are four basic types of Meck units in the game. First is the "leader" unit, known as the Jumper:
As
you may be able to read in the picture, the Jumper packs 3 Autocannons.
It has no energy shield (ES), armor against physical impacts (APAC) of
8, 2 movement points (MP), and it requires 4 command points (CP) to
"inspire" its performance (i.e., improve its chances to hit). The
Autocannons can fire at targets in short range (1-5 squares), medium
range (6-10 squares), and long range (11-15 squares). If the
Autocannon shoots through the enemy's shields and does damage, two
12-sided dice are rolled to determine the damage. Higher damage
amounts are treated as critical hits. The attacker rolls a d12 to
determine the effect of the critical hit:
A
critical hit of "1" is a kill and takes the Meck out of the match.
Critical hits of 5 or 7 take a weapon offline. Take both a Meck's
weapons out and that's considered a "weapons kill". Critical hits of 9
and 11 take out a Meck's legs, scoring a "movement kill". Each kill
allows the attacker to gain a "battle honor" which improves the Meck's
abilities, including speed increases, extra command points, better
to-hit abilities, increased damage, and better armor.
In
addition to the Jumper, each player also controls two Spartans. One
Spartan features two Twin Lasers. The other features two Rocket Pods,
each of which fires 3 rockets.
Each
player also controls two Runners. Runners have the most movement
points and 3 separate weapons. Runners are the weakest of the 3 unit
types in terms of their ability to take damage, but have the effective
Static Charge weapon which can cause considerable damage at melee range
due to the ease with which it hits other targets.
Injurius Games is played on a tabletop with terrain pieces such as the one below from this year's Origins:
Or this one, used for a scenario version of the game:
This is a relatively inexpensive game to get into. As you can see from the price list on the Red Shirt Games site,
you can pick up the rule book for $20 and miniatures relatively
cheaply. They even offer sets for $40 with a rule book and enough
miniatures to get started immediately.
As I said, I've played
this game for the last several years, and specifically the "keep what
you kill" variant played at Origins. I usually manage to take home a
few miniatures and have fun winning them. The Red Shirt team at
Origins always seems to do a good job running their games and keeping
things both fair and interesting.
If you encounter the Red
Shirts and Injurius Games at a convention you attend, I definitely
recommend checking out the game to see what you think.
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Last Updated ( Jul 01, 2008 at 12:46 AM )
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