Indianapolis was cooler than it was last year. I’m not sure what the temperature was when I left for the Convention Center this morning but my lack of interest in precisely how hot it was is perhaps indicative of my general lack of concern about the weather. I was also wondering if United was going to actually get my suitcase delivered and it may be that preoccupation that kept my from looking for any temperature displays. All of my spare batteries, cable and even my mouse were in the suitcase so until it arrived I was without additional batteries for the video camera, camera or lacking any means to recharge my laptop. All of that was secondary of course to the main goal, getting into GenCon and taking some photos.

I am not sure what the numbers are going to be but the show certainly feels busier. The trade floor was as crowded today as it was last year on Saturday. Many people have commented on it and the product is certainly flying off the shelves as many booths are already low on stock or have had to restock. Due to the crowds and my inability to snap just one photo of a mini I have yet to actually go to all the booths that I wanted to visit. I think that I have perhaps seen about a half of the show and about a third of the booths on my list.

As was the case last year I was able to enter the trade show floor an hour early and used this opportunity to, again, make a beeline to the Privateer Press booth to get in line to do some Ninja Shopping for friends. There is a reason why I do this in the one hour prior to the show starting. Several Kiltlifters and a copy of Legends later I started making the rounds of the Privateer Press booth to take photos of the painted Warmachine and Hordes minis as well as take some snaps of the Monsterpocalypse demo table and figures.

World of Warcraft
After that I decided to stop by the Upper Deck booth to have a look at the World of Warcraft CMG. I got a quick demo from John and a look at the figures. The minis are, to my mind, rather so-so in execution. The painting is standard for a Wizards CMG and the sculpts are rather plain looking. Part of the problem appears to be that the sculpts are not intended to be detailed fantasy figures but instead are sculpted to look like the WoW in-game art with is very stylized. I think this may turn off many traditional gamers. The gameplay looks interesting and the “clock” in the game really adds some interesting tactical problems to playing the game.

Alkemy
The Kraken Editions booth was quite busy but I was able to get in and take some photos of painted Alkemy figures that they brought. I have to say that I was very impressed with not only the paint jobs but the figures themselves. Quite detailed, interesting poses and fun looking minis. I had a quick demo of the game and I really came away impressed with the possibilities inherent in the system that Kraken have developed. There seems to be a lot of options for play and strategy that are apparent just from a quick demo. Even better, the starters are new available in English.

Aberrant Games
Simon from Aberrant Games was free to take for a few minutes and we discussed their upcoming Warlands post-apocalyptic combat game. In what might be a surprise the game was revealed to be a 20mm scale game with vehicles similar in size to the old GW Dark Future game and commercially available Hot Wheels or similar vehicles. Set to be released in November the starters for the game will be about $25 US and will include vehicles and no troops. Blisters with troops will follow later but the game requires larger number of troops to combat vehicles (vroom, vroom, squish) and so in order to keep the cost of the starters down they decided to include only vehicles in them.

Vehicle models will be resin with metal accessories. The sample figures they had on display were well detailed and looked quite promising.

AE-WWII
The Darkson Designs crew were on hand in Wasbash 2 giving demos of AE-WWII including some of the new miniatures from the upcoming Occult expansion for the game. Rob and Matt had a “work in progress” version of the rulebooks with some very exciting cover art. Also on hand were several miniatures from the Russian ROA faction and the British Druid miniature. The new figures looked good with the Druid being the best of the lot.

Fantasy Flight Games
The Fantasy Flight Games booth is a beast. Not only does it now contain their demo tables and board games but it now has stacks of Confrontation and AT-43 boxes. And both games were selling in huge numbers at the show. The new Operation Frostbite boxed set was available as was the AT-43 Tactics RPG. In their display cases were several new AT-43 vehicles as well as several Confrontation and AT-43 resin masters and painted samples. At 2pm the new Battlestar Galactica game went on sale and if you were careful you would have noticed a poster for an upcoming Gears of War board game.

Next to the sales booth were a few samples from the Dust Tactics game including three walkers and three infantry models. As you can see from the photos the vehicles look amazing and the infantry looks good as well but it was difficult to see if the models were production models or paint masters.

Fantization
Fantization Miniatures is always a fun booth the check out since they carry so many miniatures: Hasslefree, Darkson, Heresy, War Crow, Andrea, Enigma… Also this year, Fantization are showing their own Rusted Heroes miniatures and had several samples of the range including some painted samples. Perhaps it was a problem with their use of GIF files but the painted models are light years better looking than the images they have previously provided TGN for news posts. Steve has assured me that they will be using JPEGs from now on to ensure that their photos actually match the minis.

Also interesting were the new plastic figures from Magnificent Egos. I’ve not seen any press from them about these minis but they looked very nice (crisp details) and didn’t feel as if they were made from soft plastic. The figures did appear to be a bit larger than the standard 32mm figures one finds in fantasy ranges these days.

The guys from Mercs Miniatures were not there when I visited so hopefully I will be able to chat with them before the show ends.

Impact! Miniatures
It is always great fun to talk to Tom from Impact! Miniatures as he is just so enthusiastic about his company and fantasy football in general. This year Impact! had quite a few new miniatures to show off including Gnome Contraptions and the Siringit team of African themed fantasy football miniatures. All of the figures looked quite good and showed some originality that isn’t usually brought to the fantasy football genre that often. Top marks to Impact! for coming out with them.

A little less original but still fun nonetheless are the Gnone and Dwarf Centaur models. All of them look like the sort of goofy fun you want in a fantasy football figure and the Gnome Contraptions have interchangeable arms making it easy to build your own custom Contraption.

Wyrd Miniatures
Wyrd Miniatures had an amazing table set up to run demos of their upcoming Malifaux weird west skirmish game. Wyrd had boxed sets for the game available for purchase each with five miniatures from one of the six(?) factions for the game. As usual the figures they had on display were amazing and I hope to get a demo of the game tomorrow or Saturday.

Reaper Miniatures
Reaper was running several demos in Wasbash 2 including a Reich of the Dead game and a Warlords demo table that was eight feet long and filled with dungeon corridor terrain. As you can imagine I took more photos of the Reich of the Dead table. Reaper was also demoing the game, at a smaller table, in their booth on the trade floor. Currently it appears that they only have four or five German Kroid and US troop miniatures all of which are available for sale in their booth. The figures look a little larger than standard 28mm figs so they may not work well with AE-WWII minis but should work well with Artizan or Bolt Action figures. I’ll be having a better look at those tomorrow if time permits.

Other comments
Todd Boyce was at the show displaying his Ninja Magic spacecraft miniatures which are excellent as usual. He also has a prototype of a mini version of his flight adapter to use with much smaller spacecraft and aircraft miniatures. Rich and the crew from Rattrap Productions have a much bigger booth and several demo tables including one showcasing their new Broadsword Adventure rules and miniatures. I was pleasantly surprised by the figures as they have much more details than the online photos show and they painted up quite nicely.

So far the highpoint of the day really was the Alkemy figures and the game demo. Seeing the minis online is one thing but getting to handle then up close really shows the character and detailed design. The game also sounds like a lot of fun. After that I have to say that Warlands from Aberrant sounds like a lot of fun. Simon is enthusiastic about the game and his energy is contagious. There is also something appealing about gaming battles from the Mad AMx movies.

Tomorrow I will be checking out Wizards and attending FFG’s Flight Report event and hopefully finding out where Pulp Monster has their booth :-)