Genghis Con XXXIII - Wrapped Up

Much as I figured I wouldn't be able to post much during the convention. The auction Friday night ran from 7:15pm to about 2:15am. Its becoming quite a marathon and I have to figure out a way to shorten up the time it takes. However, it was a pretty successful auction overall as people seemed to have more money to spend than they have had over the last few years. Once again no one bothers to take pictures of the auction and the wall of games that faces me when I start selling stuff off. My first auction as an auctioneer was at Genghis Con VI so this was my 28th appearance. For a lot of those years we were doing two auctions a show, one on Friday and one on Sunday but that quickly became overwhelming. I have done all the auctions at Tacticon as well so coming up will be my 24th appearance there. I have also put in guest appearances at other conventions, Origins three times, GenCon twice, LA twice (forget specifically which LA cons I was at though) and every Reapercon (except the first, because there was no auction at the first one). Reapercon may be my favorite auction because there is no money involved, you can only use Reaper Bucks and all the stuff coming up for auction is provided by Reaper so the reality is that the auction is "free". Its a ton of fun. In fact I highly recommend going to Reaper Con at least once just to experience a very different type of game convention. Helping with the auctions and being an auctioneer is one element of a game convention that I really like doing. Probably because all that attention is focused on me and no one can escape my bad jokes.

Most of Saturday was spent getting entries into the painting competition and then 4 hours of judging. Everything is entered into specific categories like Single Fantasy Miniature or Dioramas. Within a category we award medals; gold, silver, bronze or certificates of merit. If a person has multiple entries in a category then the judges will discuss which piece will be judged. After this there is no more discussion and judges award a score between 0 - 4 (0 being try again, and 4 being gold). The sheets with the scores are turned in and put into a spreadsheet. For each entry being judged the high score and the low score are thrown out and the remaining three added together to get a result from 0 - 12. Judges are also allowed to put a + or - next to their score indicating that they are willing to go up or down a step if that puts them more in line with what other judges are indicating. The scores break out as follows:
11-12 - Gold
8-10 - Silver
5-7 - Bronze
2-4 - Certificate of Merit

After the entries are judged, we select the category winners (sometimes that's easy sometimes its hard). From the Category winners we select Best in Show, Best in Competition and Best Theme (Mongol). We have a separate category that we call Master Class, this is the class that people who have won previous Best in Show awards, GW Slayer Swords, that kind of thing. Typically Best in Show, at Genghis Con, comes out of this category, so we created what we call Best in Competition, the best non-masterclass entry. The winner of this gets moved into the Master Class category and hopefully gets pushed even harder to bring in his/her best work. The quality of the entries continues to climb every show, its almost mind boggling.

There were lots of painting classes on Saturday and Sunday as well, followed by getting everything packed up and headed back to the house.

I took my painting slave....er guest of honor, Marike Reimer, skiing on Monday at Keystone. We had a great time but the wind yesterday made it really cold. Still feeling the effects of that today, some muscles are loudly complaining about how hard I skied. I have skied since I was 12 and I'm very good, did a little amateur racing and so I tend to attack the hill pretty aggressively and I'm getting a little old to be quite that aggressive anymore. My knee was letting me know that towards the end of the day.

Anyway, it was a terrific show, one of the best we have done and they only seem to be getting better. Genghis Con is growing again, I think the final attendance numbers were between 1900 and 2000 (starting to push my attendance numbers when I ran it) which is really good to see.

Genghis Con XXXIII - Day Two

Well day two of the convention finds me...at work busily writing requirements and use cases (if that makes sense to you then you have my condolences). I did manage to acquire the painting guest of honor last night, so one quest successfully completed. Of course her plane was an hour late getting in and it took her forever to get from the plan to the main terminal (Denver International Airport is pretty big and she came in on the farthest concourse out). Then I'm driving us back to the hotel only to discover that the highway leading directly to the hotel is closed and I have to take to the streets and add another 20 minutes to the drive. Upon arrival at the front desk I try to get her checked into her room, politely asking the nice hotel clerk for Marike Reimer's room. Marike hands over her ID, the clerk looks grim, there is no Reimer in the system. She looks a bit more and discovers that it had been setup as Marike, Marike in the system...whew dodged that bullet. So I politely haul her suitcase and 70# backpack up to the room.
Today she is in the hands of  Jen Kaufman, my right hand at the show. I expect to zip into the painting area after work, then proceed directly to the auction where they should be starting to check in items to go up for bid tonight. I'll sort items and develop a game plan and probably from 6 - midnight will sell as much stuff as I possibly can. Well actually we will sell all of it. I expect to move somewhere between 400 - 500 lots this evening. So there may not be pictures of anything going on today. But I will update this with pictures tonight if I get a chance and there will definitely be pictures tomorrow as the convention will be in full swing on Saturday.

Genghis Con XXXIIII - Day One

UPDATED with pictures from Thursday night (Thursday is traditionally the zero slot for the RPG events when the judges get to play, my painting group and the boardgamers have kind of attached ourselves to Thursday as well. No miniature games tonight.

Actually day one hasn't officially begun yet, things don't kick off until tonight. However, I have my car loaded down with all my usual equipment to get the painting conference and competition portion of the convention up and running. The CMPA is even running a class or two this evening, which I believe are already full (we only have 5 spots per class). I'm already feeling the effects of a weekend of gaming as I have tried to combine last minute painting, organizing and the homework of my first college class (my last one was 15 years ago, hopefully this time I will finish) into these last few days before the convention. Late tonight I'll get some pictures up at least showing off the banners that we made for our sponsors this year. I was hoping for a green of our Genghis Gal mascot but we just didn't get that far along. Which reminds me if anyone sees a miniature (a green in this case) of someone that looks like Lysette (see the picture on the top right of the home page) let me know. The green was sculpted by Gene Van Horne and was stolen from my box as I was taking her on tour to the local FLGSs. Anyway, hopefully pictures tonight of the start of another great convention (Genghis Con, obviously is in its 33rd year and I have been to every single one of them!).

 My Part of the Con

  

First painting discussion of the con

 And the classroom

 JMD comes through big time again

Thursday Night Boardgames

 Thursday Night RPGs

Genghis Con XXXIII Show Banner

Rant - Gaming Models and Historical Accuracy

Usually I can keep this stuff to myself, let it burn a little and let it go. Not this time. I'm contemplating getting into SAGA along with a few other friends. I already have a fair number of vikings painted and ready to go. So what what should the next project be for them? Well a longship of course. So I'm browsing around looking for 28mm reasonable representations. Really the best bet is a Revell kit that will have to be cut down to a waterline model (not hard, annoying, but not hard) or the one by Gripping Beast, pricey but very nice. Now there is a company out there making a lasercut kit version. Initial excitement, hit the web page, huge disappointment. With so many sources available now on viking ships of all types, this one doesn't measure up. One quick search will take you straight to a museum that not only has the recovered remains of viking era ships but has actually built them as well. Not only that I think we can safely get away from building replicas of the Oseberg and Gokstad funeral ships now and work up some nice gaming models based on actual warships and trading vessels (oh my like Gripping Beast did). And for the record, for most people what I consider to be sub-par resulting from lazy research are going to just fine for most gamers. But for me there is just to much historical interest to be satisfied with something that barely looks the part. The temptation to sit down and build a longship board by board is very strong, but time is short (especially since I just started college again, fourth time is the charm) so it looks like Gripping Beast is the winner by a huge amount and I'll be sending some dollars their way when the tax refund arrives. Oh and here is the link to the museum in Denmark just in case you need to see what a viking longship probably looked like: http://www.vikingeskibsmuseet.dk/en/

Railroad Prototype Photos - Derelict Crane Car

Well, as it usually happens during the convention season, my railroad model activities drop way off. But I was going through pictures today and I thought this car in particular was very cool, so I'm posting it as something a little different from what I have been showing off lately. I think this belongs to the Union Pacific Railroad. Check the RR prototype album for more pictures.