Stories from GenCon

Let's just call this "Picking a fight with a Universal Overlord".

It's not much of a secret, I don't like to lose. I don't come into a game expecting to get my butt handed to me on a silver platter. Last Gen Con, somewhere in there, I remember getting trounced, no, wrecked by Warlord Voss and his band of induibdule space rejects. I was playing Haka and there was only three of us in the game. I know what you're saying. 3 People against Voss? Yeah I didn't know what I was doing but that didn't stop me from wanting to win.

Flash Foward a year...

It's Sunday, the last day of Gen Con. I want to get my Sentinels games in. I've been putting it off because I'd been dealing with building my friends computer (He wasn't being a good sport about it, always wanting to 'leave early' so we could finish installing stuff). However, he too was a sentinels fan and I told him that I wanted Voss. Not just a little bit either, I wanted every piece of this dude and I wanted to humiliate this guy all over again. The day before we rolled over Apostate with a few road bumps but a mixture of Wraith (Me), Tempest (my friend), Argent, Unity and Zero kinda made him look rather stupid. That didn't sate my hunger though.

We dropped into a game that was already in progress due to one of the other sidekicks getting sick, not really sure. Regardless I was introduced to Unity, whom I immediately just understood and began laying out the pain in good manner. Plague Rat unfortunately was beaten handedly as my friend got just a taste of ExPatriate. The game broke up quickly but my fire still remained, there was Voss and there was time.

It looked bleak at the beginning with the possiblity of not enough people to play a full 5 on 1 against my arch nemesis. I wanted to take this dude down and in amazing fashion. It ended up being Argent, ExPatriate, Ra, Unity and myself as Finest Legacy. We were fighting him in the Chemical Plant, obviously new for me. Revenge was just waiting for me to serve it to this Overlord and send him and his friends packing. I elected to fight this dude on Advanced since all the players at the table had been playing or had played previously and we had a guide also in play (Argent).

--- The Fight Pt. 1 Everything was going just fine until...

He pulled out a guard and everything got a whole lot harder. I did draw a lot of good cards. Unity couldn't get any momentum. Ra was just trying to outdamage the guards and all the other soldiers flying out. Pat was didn't get Pride or Prejudice out the first turn and Argent had no instruments. Myself, I had immunity to damage but they had every type under the sun. We got rolled over quickly. Withing three or so turns, things were just not going our way. We got a little healing thanks to a healing vat which promptly exploded searing all of us with even more pain.

My mind was beginning to gnaw at my confidence and determination, saying it was true foolishness to even attempt Voss. He beat me solidly just last year, doling out pain and serving it up with a side order of crushed dreams. Had I seriously, due to a petty grudge just cost the others a possible grand finale because I wanted an advanced Warlord Voss? I didn't let it get to me, I just pressed on, taking damage and trying to use every power I had to either mitigate, tank or heal everyone I could. It was just enough, but it didn't mean I was doing the best. Each draw I got seemed like I was digging a hole for us, one shovel full at a time. I had two immunity cards out but could only play one power which was punching them hard enough to heal us for one.

--- The Fight Pt. 2 Jane Austen

ExPatriate got out Pride and very swiftly Predjudice along with Hollow Points and a sweet little infinite that allowed her to keep changing ammo but reload over and over. Argent managed to get a healing skill but again no instruments. Ra was now immune to fire and was throw everything he had at the minions but it was just one minion at a time. It was slow, grueling and it was wearing all of us down, bit by bit, turn by turn. My will was still fading, all of us and I do mean all of us slipped into the teens and it was getting a little dark. We were just not doing enough damage. Unity's cards were starting to make a differenc and yet once again i felt like I was weighing down the team.

We pressed on, killing one, two minions, hitting Voss when he flipped due to having no friends out. It was just tedious by this point because for myself, I was taking the damage but I wasn't dishing out anything close to it. I was healing the party as well every time I could unless I was galvanizing them to work their hardest.

--- The Fight Pt. 3 Tanks a bot!

It went south when we got a cryo tank that did ice damage to us. I was now to the point of shaking my head. It was going the way the last fight did. Right now down the crapper and I was polishing up my chalk to put another streak in the losing column. I didn't hear it at first, as many of my senses were dull from the constant hum of the crowd and the din of noise around me.

We got a healing vat which once again negated our damage from the cryo and gave us one HP every turn. Stacked up with myself and Argent we began to gain back 3 HP every turn, throwing everything we had into it. Ra scorched the earth killing off every minion Voss pulled out which caused him to flip and go nuts. Unity continued to pressure with bots and attacks finally getting one other thing. The Stealth Bot. This robot, for better or worse, saved our entire party. The combination of the tank giving a damage reduction of 1 and the stealth bot giving a damage reduction of one and redirecting all the damage to it negated everything Voss could throw at us. More so, we began to heal up. I buffed up the party with a +1 to everyone ongoing. Ra was taking pot shots at Voss while saving his next Scorched Earth for the next round and ExPatriate continued to pull the trigger (litterally) on Voss' minions.

--- The Fight Pt. 4 That's no moon

Dammit was the word of the day. Voss pulled out his starship. Along for the ride came the other starship. Argents head sank and so did my heart. It was going so well, things were coming together perfectly, we just stabilzing and we were doing damage healthly by this point. The ships opened fire and took all the health we had within two turns. Pat and Ra focused down everything they had on one ship, blowing it out of the sky in spectactular fashion while me and Stealth Bot mitgated and redirected all damage everywhere we could. Argent for better or worse was doing al the heal duty he could muster while still point us in the right direction on who to attack first and such.

The second ship lingered, causing annoying havoc. As long as we had that -1 damage because of the Healing vat, we were fine, especially with Argent and myself healing as much damage as possible, thus maintaining our lives. The next card, an explosion. The vat blows up and with it, I feel so do our chances. Voss and us all get covered, taking damage and further damaging his spaceship. Stealth bot nearly bites the dust putting us all on alert. Another wave of minions. Above our heads, we're informed of 30 minutes left on the convention. My heart sinks...

--- The Fight Pt. 5 We're waiting for a train

Ra opens up with Scorched earth, pealing most of them off us with ExP putting bullets into Voss, still cycling the ammunition. Myself, punching anything with a face or a hard part to it to squeez the health out of it like a vampire to put us over the top. It happens. Argent finally, nearly all the way to the end pulls an Instrument card which pushes us into it. It's a comeback train and it's coming down the tracks. Our health begins to increase, the spaceship goes down. Unity's is tanking with Stealth bot, I'm saving up my one big attack that I can use to hit Voss with it. Ra and ExP are just hammering away at Voss who seems to begin showing signs of wear as his minions continually getting massacred round after round. We're not officially warmed up.

Unity gets out a construction pylon, I crunch through the guards and Ra burns Voss one more time. He's down two 18 HP and I think to myself, where do we fall now? When's the carpet going to be pulled out from underneath to reveal that spike pit? When do we fail?

--- The Fight Pt. 6 If it's served, it's served cold...

We have 5 minutes. All around us is chaos now, people are selling behind us, auctions and loud shouts as people get in their last purchases of the afternoon. My heart is racing, the sound of every final boss music ringing in my ears as I watch in bated breath. It come around to Voss who can not draw any minions out without them dying. Sure enough, one comes out and Unity dispatches of it instantly leaving me still holding my heavy hitter card, Ra and ExP. With 18 points left, I said "We leave it on the table or we don't leave at all." I had 2 HP left, it was him or me and I didn't come to lose, I didn't aim to fail. The little voice in my head was hyped.

I hit Voss for 4. Ra hit him for 7 and we both looked to ExP who smiled and pulled the trigger. She did 6. He had one HP left, he was just ready to fall, ready to eat the floor and of course send me into a fit of pure unfiltered joy. Argent played the song and sure enough, Voss, in all his spacey glory was sent reeling and hitting the floor in a horrible thud. It was the Avengers, except Tony Stark didn't save the day, it was Argent. An alien invansion thwarted, a nearly dead Legacy and everyone at either single digits or very low double digits staring at the wake of it.

If revenge was a bitter flavor to taste, it smelled sweet enough for me. One year later, I was standing over the only man to ever put my down. I put him in the dirt and left everything else on the table. There was not much to say or do besides shake hands, say good game and collect my sentinels points. I turned them in for extra large Villain Cards. As I walked away, after saying goodbye to my friends and team mates, I was only left to wander in my thoughts. Both my fists shot straight up as aI bowed my head and smiled under the darkness of my ballcap. I couldn't think of a better way to clear my conscious or have a better way to end this convention.

--- The End

TL;DR I nearly died fighting Warlord Voss on Advanced with my friends but we pulled out a win so close it nearly got me killed and I got my revenge in the process. Smiles were hard, along with knuckle bumps, highfives and a shout of oy.

-_- Sim

Well, I had a ton of fun demoing the games for people, and it was great to meet a lot of nice people while doing so. I wish they were all here on the forums, because there were some really nice people. Though some of them are on here already. I met AWP in person, as well as his wife, and we shared some losses together. Trying to prove how tough we were, the two of them joined Dakota and me to take on the Ennead on advanced mode, hoping to score some bonus SPs. It didn't turn out well at all. Within four turns, The Ennead were "in force", and it was mostly downhill from there. I don't remember who we faced after that, but we lost again.

I guess the part of Gen Con I liked the most was a suggestion that Paul made to Dakota and me. We were sad because getting a shirt would cost 2500 SPs, which we knew we couldn't reach by conventional means, so Paul suggested we try and ask others who didn't want their coupons (worth 10 SP each) if we could have theirs. So, we went around asking people for theirs, and got a pretty huge amount by the end of the day. Eventually, after making some deals with Adam and Paul, we managed to get 50% off a shirt, so we bought two, and now Dakota and I have a matching pair of the blue SotM shirts, which I will wear to WKU with pride.

Oh right, classes start next week. Well, Gen Con was a great end to the summer.

Wow. GenCon stories. I was one of the minions (the ginger dude without an epic beard) running games and handing out Sentinels Points, and it was a blast. My tally for games played came to about 24 over the course of the convention, and I still want more. It was nice meeting a few of the regular forumites. And seriously, what could be better than talking board games with Richard Launius himself? That was definitely my highlight moment.

This was my second gencon and I had a BLAST!  Played a bunch of awesome games, picked up a copy of Sentinels (LOVE it), and two of the friends I went there with are now engaged!  

Richard Launius was there? Really? Where was he?

He stopped by the booth at least once. I don't remember when it was, probably Friday...

Richard actually came by every day at least once. On Saturday, he hung out with us for about an hour and a half, chatting about all sorts of things. He's a very laid-back guy and we always enjoy chatting, so it was good to have him in the booth.

Sorry you missed him!

I'm especially entertained by the fact that, while I was probably there the entire time, I didn't notice. Probably because I was head-down doing demos/playing...

I saw him once while there as he was leaving the booth.

My GenCon game highlights were Legacy soloing Ambuscade, killing Gloomweaver on advanced, and me killing Akash'buta in one turn with Unity. Gooood times.

I was the one who played Unity in this game, my first time playing Unity I might add. Have to tell you this was the most fun I ever had playing. Unity is such a cool character. The bots are amazing. Yes, the Stealth bot definetly can tank if you have a healer on your team.