PAX: Tabletop Gaming Report
Tabletop gaming at PAX is an interesting proposition... I didn't expect to find nearly as much old-fashion gaming to be going on. In fact, tabletop gaming had entire building to itself this year. There were tons of players filling the halls at all hours, playing almost every game imaginable. That being said, outside of the RPGA presence, there seemed to be very little organized gaming. PAX basically provides the gamer with a bunch of like-minded people, a whole lot of games (more on that in a bit) and a huge amount of space, and leaves it up to the players to make their own fun. We were playing the WoW card game at one table, and at the table next to us was a game of Twilight Imperium, and on the other side a game of Catan. Behind them, a huge table of D&D. It's really amazing. 
Here's how it's laid out: The first floor of the tabletop gaming hall was pretty much WotC-controled space, running RPGA D&D games and Magic tournaments. The second floor hosted the WoW TCG, along with some minis gaming, including a small contingent of WH40K players, and a somewhat larger room where the locals were running warmachine tourneys. The second floor was also home to a well-stocked "game library" where you could check out one of the multitude of board games they had on hand (including most of the really elaborate "big box" games you get from publishers like Fantasy Flight Games and Days of Wonder.) The third floor was just a massive open space full of people and the sweet music of cards and dice.
As far as my personal gaming: being pretty new to Warmachine, I was a little too intimidated to jump into the tournament scene. I was also little disappointed that there just wasn't much space available for miniatures freeplay. It's understandable, as it was organized by local press gangers, but I wish it would have been easier to just grab some space for a friendly game. We did finally manage to snag some table space late in the night and get a few games in. We were playing 350 points, and my Cygnar went one-for-one. Up to this point, I had pretty much equated playing 350 with playing the battle box, but playing a few games at this level helped me realize just how much flexibility you actually have in 350. I also learned that a Journeyman paired with a Hunter can be truly frightening. Met some really nice people who gave me some great tips (Magnus, if you should happen to stumble across my little page - thanks for all the help - you are a stud.)
Over at the main hall, Privateer Press had a nice booth set up with this really incredible diorama. I tried to get as many pictures as I could, but given the bad lighting on the show floor, and the fact that I was shooting through glass, they didn't turn out so great, but I've included them at the bottom. I also stood at the case full of studio-painted miniatures for a long time and just drooled. The painting skill that goes into those figures is amazing.
The Cygnar Case - the Black 13th in front, and Thorn in the background.
While I was in PP's booth, I also got a demo of the Infernal Contraption card game, which was a lot of fun. So much fun, in fact, that I bought it, and we ended up playing it late into the night on Saturday, actually cutting into time we had planned to play minis. It's non-collectable, really quick to learn, and definitely worth a look if you also like casual games. Monterpocalypse was also there, and generating quite a bit of interest - unfortunately not from me.
The Cryx Nightmare. Muhahahaha!
Wizard's had a booth that was basically Magic on one side and D&D on the other. The big news here is that they had several computers running the D&Di character generation and visualization tools, both of which appear to be coming along nicely. The models and textures in the character visualizer are still a bit rough, but at least it looks like the necessary tech is coming together. Now they just have to polish it up. I was disappointed that the map editor or Virtual Tabletop were nowhere to be found, making me wonder if we aren't still a long ways off.
Folks rolling 20s right in WotC's booth.
Upper Deck was there, showing off the World of Warcraft miniatures game and the WoW TCG. The Wow miniatures look nice, but somehow the game just doesn't seem that appealing to me. Very small scale and skirmishy. I didn't demo the game, but probably should have (That is one of my resolutions for next year: I'm going to demo more stuff...)
The World of Warcraft CMG
Notably absent was Paizo Publishing, which made me a sad panda. I love those guys, and Seattle is their home town, so I had hoped they would have some presence, either in the expo hall or running their new Pathfinder Society organized play in the tabletop hall. I'm a huge fan of everything they are doing right now, and would have liked the opportunity to get closer too it.
Now, as promised, here are my (admittedly poor) pictures of the killer Warmachine diorama from the PP booth (click on any one of them for a better look):
Labels: Dungeons and Dragons, miniatures, RPGs, video games, Warmachine
