a personal account

Winter StabCon '99 was held in Manchester on the weekend of 9/10 January 1999.

I'd signed up for this, my second convention, after enjoying myself at MidCon and was due to go with Steve Ogden and Jake Thornton from the games club. As it turned out, Jake was unable to go, giving it up in favour of working like a dog. Some people have all the fun. Not Jake, though.

I was to be driver for the trip and, after sorting out 101 things on the car and myself, arrived at Steve's place only 45 minutes later than promised. We headed off along the A6, winding its way through the peaks, and, with only a little trouble finding our way in Manchester, arrived at our destination at around 11am.

The convention itself was held in one of the student halls at one of the universities (sorry, I can't remember which one - perhaps it was the Manchester Institute of Technology?). We started on a game as soon as we got there. This game was called 'See If You Can Reverse Your Car Along This Tight And Twisty Route Now That You've Found There Are No Parking Places And That It's A Dead End!!' Slowly and with some encouragement from Steve, I negotiated the course to find, to my surprise that there wasn't a collection of students at the other end, pointing and laughing. I expect they were doing it from indoors where it was warmer.

We eventually found somewhere to park and headed inside. This was a somewhat smaller affair than MidCon and looking around, I found that there were a number of groups playing RPGs, reducing the boardgame contingent further. There were also the groups of people playing long-term games like 18xx, Civilization, Republic of Rome, etc. Steve immediately got taken away to play 18xx with some prior acquaintances, leaving me all on my own, patrolling the aisles, looking for an opportunity to pounce on some gamers who might be into the same kinds of things as me.

As it was, someone pounced on me first, looking for someone to join a game of Before I Kill You, Mr Bond. I had played this one over the new year, having given it as a present, so it was good start. It is another one of those little card games from Cheapass Games. The idea is that you are an evil mastermind who likes to kill spies of the James Bond ilk - a well known hobby of evil masterminds. You lay cards to build up your evil lair to be strong enough to hold spies of varying sizes. Powerful spies like Mr Bond and Mr Kelly (?) will destroy all but the strongest lairs, meaning you have to start building it again from scratch. This becomes important because any player can send any spy in play into any lair - so you send spies to destroy other players' lairs and to get captured in your own. Once you have a spy captured, you can taunt him or her before killing them, such as by telling them how you are going to take over the world's tapioca supply. Each time you taunt a spy before killing, you double its value. But there are two copies of each taunt card and, if an opponent, plays the matching taunt, the spy escapes and, once again, destroys your lair. Fun and light, and breaks the ice quite well.

After a couple of games of that, I introduced my two fellow masterminds (now no longer evil) to Samurai. They enjoyed the game, but showed a distinct lack of gratitude by beating me at it. Oh well at least I'd been successful as an evil mastermind.

One of the players, Bob, then had to go off somewhere, so the remaining two of us headed off into the main room and soon found two others. I took the opportunity to get out my copy of El Caballero, which was still awaiting its first game. None of us had played it before, so we were relying on my memory of the couple of times I had read through the rules. I'm afraid that I overlooked three important parts of the rules until well into the game, or in one case, a few days later... Firstly, we were restocking tiles after each player's turn instead of after a round. Secondly, we were allowing players to regain caballeros when removing cards. And thirdly, we were allowing players to increase to the same total of caballeros as other players on an island. I think each one of these omissions significantly alters the game, and the tactics required to play, so it is very difficult to say how good it is.

The other players resisited the urge to hang, draw and quarter me, so we decided to have a game of Manhattan. We got all the parts out and then, discovering a misunderstanding about anyone having played it before and an absence of English rules, we put them all away again. Instead, I introduced them to Tycoon, a game I was introduced to at my last convention. As always with this game, it went down well. It also gave me a bit of a surprise. I explained the rules and told them how important it was to get enough loans at the beginning of the game. They then showed a worrying trend towards free thought by doing their own thing. The game was won by Jon after patiently listening to my lectures about how he didn't stand a chance unless he took out more loans...

One of the players had to leave at this point, so I got out Schnäppchen Jagd for the rest of us. I always prefer to play this game with three. I can't remember how it went, but I probably got beaten again.

Then on to my first exposure to Modern Art. I had heard of this game before, and how highly respected it was - it probably being the main game that Reiner Knizia built his fame on. For any others who don't know it yet, the idea is that, on your turn, you sell a painting to one of the other players (by some form of auction usually) and, on other players turns, you buy paintings from them. You can buy your own paintings, but it is expensive. Obviously you would rather sell for more than you buy but, more importantly, you want to buy for less than the value of the painting at the end of the round. The paintings are by five fictional (I think) artists, and their value at the end of the round depends on how popular that artist currently is, and that depends on how many of his/her paintings have been sold that round - only the paintings by the three most popular artists are worth anything. If an artist is popular in more than one round, those paintings are worth an amount dependent on the cumulative popularity, but if an artist is unpopular, those paintings aren't worth anything - no matter how popular they were last round. After four rounds, the player with the most cash wins and the other players comment on what an eye for art s/he has. I now see what a good game it is and, more than many a game, it has occupied my thoughts quite a bit since playing it. What I find strange for a Knizia game (given the ones that I know) is how well the theme fits the game (or vice versa) - I really get a feel for the fickle whims of the art dealers and critics as they decide who is 'in' this year. This is definitely one I shall be buying.

I'm not sure, but I think at this point, I must have collected Steve so we could go off and get something to eat. He had pointed out to me that we were close to an area of Manchester famous for its Indian restaurants and take-aways - known colloquially as Curry Alley - so what else could we do. When we got there, I had to acknowledge the large number of Asian eateries - it made me wonder how there was possibly enough business for them all. That's probably also a thought in the minds of the proprietors - which would explain why we were leapt on by one as we looked at the menu in the window. He tempted us inside with offers of special dishes not on the menu and a 10% discount which I was dubious of - but they seemed as good as any other. We had our meal and got the bill, in which the 10% discount seemed to have mysteriously metamorphosed into a 10% surcharge - but we were happy enough so we paid and headed back to the car. We apparently weren't very far from a rough area of town, so I was glad to find the car still where we had left it - and with the same number of wheels...

Heading back to the convention, we got into a card game called The Honor of the Samurai - another new one for me. Each player has a Samurai card and tries to accumulate various army cards (for fighting strength) and other cards (for honour and special abilities) to follow that Samurai. The Samurai then has to follow a leader (a Daimyo), who allows him to get honour (it's all about collecting honour). I turned up at the start of the game to be told I had been dealt the strongest and most honourable Daimyo. This sounded like a good thing, until I found that it just meant I would be under attack right from the start up until Steve managed to steal the Daimyo from me for his own Samurai. Having no Daimyo, you have to attach, as a second Samurai, to someone elses Daimyo and then try to kill off the first Samurai (this was how I lost my Daimyo). But for most of the game it seemed that, whenever I attached myself to someone else's Daimyo, another player would have him assassinated. Stangely enough, despite all this, and not being too sure what was going on, I won - hah! I'd play the game again, but I don't think I will be buying it.

With four of the five players from the previous game, we rounded off with Hornochsen. This fine game was seriously spoilt for one of the players by the colours of the cards. He was red-green colour-blind and had a great deal of difficulty telling the cards apart - a fundamental part of the game. It was an eye-opener for me (if you'll forgive the expression) as I never realised that the colours could look so similar. You would have thought that games publichers would be more aware of it and follow a course similar to that in Schnäppchen Jagd, where each different colour is accompanied by a different shape.

Anyway, that was it for the first day. Time for sleep in our student rooms with paper thin quilts in the middle of winter - lovely! Actually it wasn't as cold as I'd been expecting, so there were very few deaths from hypothermia reported the next morning.

The day started well because I managed to happen across a game of Ursuppe just about to start, and slid my way in. Any of you who read my MidCon report will remember the trouble I had there trying to get a game of Ursuppe. We were all beginners, so someone kindly explained the rules for us before we started - and we relied on the reference sheet after that. The game went really well and I enjoyed it immensely - I think we all did. Who would have thought you could have so much fun as an amoeba! At the start of the game a couple of us started getting left behind by those who were proliferating madly - one of who was specifically avoiding evolving in favour of reproduction. Slowly but surely, though, the development we had put into our amoebas began to show as we overtook at high speed half way through, never to be caught again. I had taken the Struggle for Survival gene and was busily chomping my way through the other amoebae, as they started to get defensive genes, when the game ended and I had won. Great - I was having a lot more luck with new games than I was having with the ones I had brought with me. It is definitely an interesting game, but possibly one that can only really develop if you play a lot of games with the same people - not really a situation I find myself in very often. One observation worthy of note was that, a little later I passed by the table again where another game was underway. My three previous opponents were still playing and, curiously, each of them had a gene or a combination of genes that someone else had in the previous game. This fitted with my own feelings during the game, where I often wondered how well I could play with a certain gene combination in light of someone else's play.

As I was leaving Ursuppe, someone tried to collar me for a game called Credo (I think). I went over to have a look and ask about the game, but turned it down because it looked like a real time and brain burner. I felt quite bad about doing so, but I think they got someone else soon enough. So I wandered for a little, looking for a group that was looking for me, so to speak, wondering if I was really going to regret not playing Credo when I had the chance.

After a while, I sidled up to three people at a table until they asked if I wanted a game. That group included Angela, who gets a special mention as the first person I have met at a convention who has given any indication that she has visited this web site. Wow! Anyway, they were looking for something light, so I suggested Tante Tarantel. This went down really well and was so good that I've had to revise my previous opinion of the game from 'nice but usually too silly to play with adults' to 'entertaining light game with more twists than a spider has legs' - or something like that.

Angela and David had a new copy of Kraut & Ruben that they wanted to play. I had bought a copy of this at Christmas for my dad and had played a few times before. It is an enjoyable game of bluff and tactics about planting vegetables in gardens. Each player has a secret agenda of vegetables that must be planted, but can plant in any garden. So you try to plant the required vegetables in your own garden and unwanted vegetables into those of the other players. The trouble is that you do not know which vegetables they do not want or, at first, which of the gardens are theirs. It went down well, despite a slight disagreement over the rules before we started...

Two of our five players moved on at that point and, being back down to three, I got out Schnäppchen Jagd again, with some success.

After buying a stack of games from Best Books and Games, who had a stall there, I found Steve and we prepared to head home. He managed to talk me into a couple of races of Ave Caesar first, though.

For the trip home, I decided to head over to Sheffield to catch the motorway, little realising that it entailed going over the Pennines along winding roads behind large lorries. We made it in the end, though, tired and talking of where to go to next.

Thanks to all who played: Bob Dowling, John Cloke, Jon Thompson, Rob Towersey, John McSorley, Rupert Wainwright, Nick Halstead, Ian Crowther, John Meredith, Martin Burroughs, Angela Caunce, David Blowers, Ian Pendlebury, Geoff Hardingham, Keith Loveys and Dave Smith (who I also played with at MidCon). Thanks to you all, see you next time.

Bye for now.

Trev.