Toon Con 2020 Weekend

What a crazy weekend! I am used to Prairie Expo in Regina which happens about 3 to 4 times a year. It's run by Comic Readers at the Core Ritchie Neighbourhood Centre in a smaller gym they have. This event is only one day, with tournaments, LTP games and a few tables for some larger games in the back for Warhammer 40k, Star Wars Armada, etc. This January I ran some of my friends and my brother Shawn through some Kill Team, we had to wrap up before finishing but it was fun to get 4 players involved.

So going to Toon Con for the first time for the WHOLE WEEKEND was a blast! Renting out the Ramada for more space is definitely nice. There were several tables for the same board game, making it easy to setup for new, intermediate, and experienced players to play.

It was also nice to see advocates for smaller games, like Gaslands, being run there as well. I bought the rules awhile ago, but haven't got in a game yet. It's an easy game to get into, only needing rules and some matchbox cars. I had painted up some cars for my birthday party, but the 7 player Scythe game we started took basically all afternoon. (lots of newer players playing with us.) Not that I am complaining, Scythe is a very fun game and 7 players is a bit nuts!

We stayed at my friend Jared's place while they were out of town. This cute Border Collie was our host for the weekend.

Day 1 - Friday

Friday night was Blackstone Fortress with Tim, when I signed up the system let me pick another game at 8:30 even though BSF was slotted for two time chunks, Ooops! Tyler was watching us play before I left and he hadn't played before, he jumped in to finish up the game. Glad to be able to play one encounter before jetting off, but I'll need to check the schedule a bit better for next time!

Rachel and I were both placed in the expert table of Scythe. Playing with other people you catch rules that you might've missed or were using wrong, it's a nice way to solidify what you know... or really don't know.

The owner of the board we were on, Ryan, went all in, even got some meeples from the developer of the game himself!

Ra Ra Rasputin, Russian's Greatest Love Machine..

Rachel won our game of Scythe despite not being the player that triggered the ending of the game by collecting 6 stars for various achievements. This would become a recurring theme of the weekend, and she wasn't shy about pointing it out.

Day 2 - Saturday

To start the day, I played Gaslands in the morning and Rachel was playing Wingspan (one of her top favourite games, she likes birds and tree games.... oh and burning stuff).

Gaslands is an Osprey game, which for the most part doesn't have their own miniature lines for the games they make or at least doesn't force you to use them. All you need to play is some micromachine (or whatever brand of dinky cars you prefer) and the rules which just got a refined hard cover at the end of 2019.

I was playing with James (who I played Necromunda with on Sunday), Dana (who played Hellboy with me that night) and Ken (who played Puerto Rico with me in the afternoon as well). I can't recall the instructor's name, he didn't have a name tag on. I am so bad with names to begin with.

Starting positions

I had taken the Volkwagon with the front mounted minigun, seemed like a fun car to start with. James had the yellow car with the giant ram, it also had a 360 degree turrent which gets 1 die less for shots but you didn't need to worry about facing. The Black Pontiac? across from me was driven by Dana. Ken had the beat up Suburban.

A cautious start

Almost got rammed!

went for a tight turn only to spin, which helped me turn into position to fire my forward facing gun.

I enjoy the activation in Gaslands, it's determined by how fast you are going, gears range from 1 to 6 depending on the cars. Everyone starts out in gear 1, if you want to keep playing you'll need to shift up a gear, causing hazard. Templates are chosen from a range of turns and straights, depending on your current gear. If you are in slower gears, some maneuvers are trivial, granting an extra shift which cancels out harmful effects or lets you shift gears. Once you go faster, the templates would give you hazards which might make you lose control if you get 6 of them. Shooting happens after every movement, usually firing the big guns and a handgun or two depending on the crew in the car.

Meanwhile on the other side of the table....

Turrents pelt an cars that pass within their range, only firing once a gear phase.

An actual crash!

Ken caught the tail end of Dana's car, normally once in a crash the crew is shaken and can't fire their guns, but the Suburban had a special perk the allowed it's crew to shoot as well as ram.

I decided I wanted in on the carnage too.

But missed... and drove off the edge of the table, finishing the game.

Dana had only one hull point left, he crashed into James and exploded, turning them both into a wreck!

It was a great game with little setup, we did a Death Match for the L2P, there are different scenarios in the rule book, like one with a monster truck hunting down smaller cars to crush. 

While I was playing Gaslands, Rachel was winning at Wingspan. They were playing with a rule that let players play more then one bird on a turn. We both were a bit confused about this rule and Rachel read the rules again to see if she missed something. Anyways, the whole table was using this rule so their points were a bit higher then what we normally get for Wingspan with Rachel at 120 I believe. She got a gift card to Dragon's Den for her troubles.

Rachel and I had a break between games after Wingspan wrapped up, we left to take care of Dixie our host dog. Walking her around the block before running back inside for warmth. We came back for 2:30 for Puerto Rico with Ken, Eli, and Brad? Bryan? oh I am so bad with names! I had played this awhile back at King Me when we lived in Saskatoon, but needed a bit of a refresher to get started. After a round I was set. 

Rachel once again won. Netting herself another gift card to Dragon's Den. I think I was 3rd? 

Rachel had fun with that game and she pointed out that there were two copies in the up coming auction. She figured 20 bucks max for the almost 20 year old game would be a good cap. I did bid on the standard edition, which I stopped at our max, it sold for 21 bucks. Oh well, shouldn't be hard to find a copy or play it at Boards N Beans sometime. 

We sat up at the front so we can base our bidding decision on the box art, how Rachel mostly buys games. Next time we will need to do a bit of research and pick out max bids we want for the auction. We didn't go too crazy, mostly because I wanted to grab some of the bigger games that started closer to $100 bucks or knew they would get up that high. We bought Agility as a thank you/ gage gift for our hosts for $3.

I ended up getting the Hellboy, the figures were all painted, a bit more care went into the characters, with the minions only getting a base coat. I checked the raffle and I had won a card game called High Society. 

I played Hellboy that night with Tim and co. Rachel left to catch up with some nursing friends. 

Day 3 - Sunday

Necromunda, Tim's break down of the game is really well done, I might've shown my hand to the Cawdor player a bit too early.

We all lost the "objective" of killing Karloth Valois, but Rachel was pretty happy with herself for burning some zombies and scoring a couple wounds on Karloth himself!

I had a great time at Toon Con, really nice to see such a well organized even, and it had a lot of space for even more games for it to grow in the coming years.Thanks everyone who runs the Con and Dragon's Den for sponsoring it.

Speaking of which, we went to Dragon's Den afterwards, as the also had a 20% off board game sale during Toon Con. Rachel picked up the Scythe expansion - The Wind Gambit, for about $4 with all her gift cards and the discount. I couldn't pass on the 20% off sale, so I grabbed some Taun Tauns for Legion.

Our haul from Toon Con

Dana's friend Brad came by our table while playing Hellboy, he wanted to give him a raffle prize of 2 admissions to FRAG Con that was happening in Regina near the end of the month. Tim mentioned that I was from Regina, so Brad gave it to me. I'll have to find someone to go with.

Coming soon!

Comic Readers has announced a painting competition for their next Prairie Expo in May. There are 10 categories, I might be crazy and sign up for all 10 to help keep me motivated to keep painting. Doubt I'd win, but would get me through building and painting the Chaos Warshrine for my Slaves to Darkness army.