Black Gate

I’ve covered a number of new games that I saw at Gen Con, including fantasy deck-building games, science fiction games, and youth games. Some games, though, are hard to classify under a large thematic umbrella, defying the tight boxes of genre. Here I’d like to touch on some of those games.

Privateer Press

One of my favorite miniature war games is Warmachine, created by Privateer Press. In fact, my first article with Black Gate was an essay on their Iron Kingdoms RPG line. At that time, the Iron Kingdoms RPG was built on the D20 system, and it’s now a standalone RPG line … but Privateer Press is really known for their miniature line.

In Warmachine, you create an army commanded by a unique warcaster, and comprised of their large, magical, steaming metal constructs called warjacks, supported by units of troops, solo soldiers, and officers. Their companion game, Hordes, is fully compatible, but the warlocks in Hordes use a slightly different magical mechanic to command their feral, rampaging warbeasts. You assemble an army by picking one of the available factions, and then buying, assembling, and (hopefully) painting your miniatures to represent your completed army. The folks over at Penny Arcade have recently begun broadcasting full games of Warmachine for your viewing pleasure, if you want to see what it’s all about. But Privateer Press has major expansions on the horizon for their game lines.

This summer, Privateer Press released Grymkin: The Wicked Harvest, a dark fey-themed faction for Hordes. These are some truly great miniatures, from the child warlock known just as The Child (complete with her companion and protector, Dolly) to the warlock The Dreamer (along with three solos representing fragments of her dream power) to the grotesque porcine Piggybacks and the darkly amusing Neigh Slayers. Words really can’t do these miniatures justice, so check them out on the website.

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I’ve been making my through the games that I saw at this year’s GenCon, first of fantasy deck-building games and then some science fiction games, but I’d like to focus now on games with a particular audience focus: games for kids.

Stuffed Fables

Over the years, I’ve become a huge fan of RPG-in-a-box style games. While I love my old school Dungeons & Dragons, the fact of the matter is that I don’t always have the time to create an ongoing, engaging storyline, create NPCs, and so on. Games that can generate  the storytelling experience that I love from role-playing games, but eliminate much of the up front work, are definitely things that catch my eye. One of the knockout games of this type is Plaid Hat Games’ Mice & Mystics (Amazon, Plaid Hat), which I first learned about and discussed at GenCon in 2012. My youngest son was a mere 2 years old at the time, so too young for the game, but now it’s one of his favorite games, and one of the more epic games that are enjoyed equally by myself, both my kids, and my wife. The game has two expansions, Heart of Glorm and Downwood Tales, as well as a spin-off Tail Feathers (Amazon, Plaid Hat), which is more of a tactical wargame in a box, as you play mice and rats who wage war on each other by riding on the back of sparrows and ravens. There are also infantry troops, and the heroes and villains from Mice & Mystics can be incorporated as solo units in Tail Feathers.

Jerry Hawthorne, creator of these games, has a new release coming up from Plaid Hat Games, which seems like it will be equally endearing. The game, Stuffed Fables, tells the story of a group of stuffed animals who, upon the first night that their child owner is in her big girl bed, learn that there are evil forces that seek to draw her into a world of nightmares. The first in Plaid Hat Games’ AdventureBook series, Stuffed Fables is an adventures that takes place by proceeding through pages in a book. The book contains both the map for the scene that is unfolding, as well as the storyline you follow as you play, giving you directions of what encounters take place on the given map, what happens when villains are defeated (or not), whether any new information is provided about the storyline, and so on. (This is one advantage over Mice & Mystics, which includes an expansive tile-based game board but then has you flipping through a separate story book to figure out what happens on a particular tile.)

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This is the 50th year of GenCon, “The Best Four Days in Gaming” convention, since its humble beginnings as a small convention of gamers in Lake Geneva. In what I believe is a first ever in Indianapolis, the convention is completely sold out, without offering any at-the-door purchase of badges. Fortunately, mine was waiting for me in the press room.

Over the years, GenCon has expanded to fill every available space in downtown Indianapolis. In addition to using the entire Indianapolis Convention Center, Lucas Oil Stadium (where the Indiana Pacers play baketball) now house the True Dungeon living dungeon crawl, the game library, and the Mayfair Games play areas, while tendrils of GenCon spread out into the ballrooms and meeting rooms of several hotels on adjacent blocks.

And with the rise of Kickstarter, there are more small, independent game companies than ever vying for attention, promoting not only their existing lines of products but also their upcoming Kickstarter campaigns. Trying to make sense of all of the different games is easiest if I try to tackle them by theme and play style, and one type of game that seemed prevalent on the first day of the convention were deck-building games with a fantasy theme.

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