BayCon Games Convention 2012

INTRODUCTION
I love playing board games with everyone at the Chippenham Board Games club and occasionally I get to play board games with my family but it's not enough. So going to a board game convention seemed to be the logical next step. With BayCon receiving glowing recommendations from others at the club who had become regulars I decided to join them and see for myself what all the fuss was about.

ACCOMMODATION

Most BayCon attendees stay at the Exeter Court Hotel where the event itself is held. However, with the hotel having no more rooms available my options were limited. Fortunately, Kennford International Camp Site is only a five minute walk away and perhaps not surprisingly for the time of year had a spare pitch or two. Arriving on Wednesday evening I pitched my tent alongside Tony's polyester palace.

LOCALITY
After a freezing cold night in the tent it came as some relief to get up and about the next morning. With the convention not starting until the afternoon Tony and I had time for a cooked breakfast at our tents and a stroll into Kennford. The village has a useful well stocked shop and a decent looking pub.

VENUE

On arrival at the venue I had a slight feeling of jealousy towards the board gamers who were staying at the hotel. Being able to roll out of bed in the morning and have breakfast cooked for you must have been nice. It was a very tidy place and the staff were always friendly and
happy to help. It had a comfortable bar complete with Satellite TV for those wanting to keep track of football scores or simply take a break from gaming. The bar was right next to the main gaming room where there were plenty of tables and chairs for the large majority of
convention goers. Other rooms were set aside for groups of gamers wanting to take on longer games such as train games in the 18XX series.

FOOD
Not knowing quite what food would be on the menu at the Hotel I took enough food for the entire weekend and had intended to go back to the tent to do some cooking every meal time. However, after seeing that the menu created for BayCon 2012 had a good variety of snacks and larger meals at a reasonable price I soon changed my plans. This had the added benefit of leaving me more time to play games.

GAMES

I started off by playing games with Tony and Mike with other players coming and going from game to game. It wasn't until the second day that I left Tony and Mike and ventured out to play with other people.

There was a wide variety of games available thanks to people bringing their own games. Some people brought whole car loads while others brought a couple of bags full. I want to thank everyone whose games I played over the weekend and also want to thank anyone who taught me how to play a game. I even got to play a prototype game that I wouldn't be surprised to see snapped up by a publisher at some point in the future.

For players who enjoy organised competitions or for people who just like the chance of getting stuff for free, there were a couple of tournaments to enter. Both involved games at the lighter end of the gaming spectrum, Quarriors! and King of Tokyo. Being lighter games it
was possible that even if you had never played the games before you could still be in with a chance of doing well in the tournament after a practice game or two.

At one stage Tony and Mike disappeared to the bar to join a large group of people ready to take part in a parlour game called Fictionary Dictionary. The game involved obscure words with made up definitions and had similarities to the TV show ‘Call My Bluff’. It looked like a
lot of fun and was a good option for anyone wanting to do something a bit different.

It came as a pleasant surprise that the volume of noise created by so many gamers never became a problem and just faded into a background buzz.

Over four days I played seventeen different games. Fifteen of those games I hadn't played before. The other two games (Agricola and Dominant Species) were games I took with me and had been finding difficult to get to the table elsewhere. My only two wins came in
games I hadn't played before (Homesteaders and Kingdom Builder). I hope the following summary of each of the games I played gives some idea of the wide range of game experiences on offer.

Thursday

01 HIVE
Being two of the first people to arrive Tony and I had difficulty finding more players so we settled for kicking off the weekend with a few games of Hive in the hotel bar. Tony managed to surround my Queen Bee three times and therefore won all three games of this taxing tactical bug manoeuvring game.

02 BILLABONG
After registering and collecting our name badges we joined Glen and Morgan at the check-in desk for a game of Billabong. Who'd have thought that racing brightly coloured wooden Kangaroo's in a circle around a Billabong could be so much fun? My team of four kangaroos
trailed in last after being convincingly out jumped.

03 SANTA CRUZ
When Mike and Steve arrived Tony and I joined them for a game of Santa Cruz (at what was to become 'our' table for the next few days). Much to Tony's amusement I managed to just steal third place from Mike by virtue of having collected more hidden 'parrot' points.

04 NOTRE DAME
Keith then joined us for Notre Dame (a cheap game I had picked up from 'The Works' but hadn't yet had the chance to play). At one point Paris suffered a flash flood with Gin and Tonic lapping at the walls of the cathedral. Thankfully, the quick reactions of Tony helped to minimize flood damage. Despite coming in a lowly fourth I enjoyed the challenge of trying to strike the right balance between scoring victory points and keeping the rat population down.

05 HAWAII
Keith was replaced by Howard as the five of us tried our hands at Hawaii. I lost this one badly and I'm sticking with my excuse of having to go first and take the penalty of having no fruit to spend. There were various strategies employed by all players. Some opted for
one or two large villages while others went for a greater number of small villages. There seemed to be lots going on in this well presented game.

Friday

06 BREAKAWAY RIDER
While we were waiting for Steve to surface on Friday morning Mike brought out an old cycle racing card game called Der Ausreisser (Breakaway Rider). Early on Tony fell off the back of the pack and was never really in contention after picking up penalty tokens. Mike set the pace for most of the game while I tried my best to keep up but it was to no avail as Mike crossed the line first.

07 HOMESTEADERS
When Steve arrived the four of us decided to give Homesteaders a try. I really liked the sound of this one and was not disappointed. The theme of building a homestead in the American West was something a bit different and I tend to like games with an auction element. Starting out I didn't have a strategy, but after the first couple of auctions it seemed it might be worth my while to go down the railroad route. It only just paid off as I scored my first win of the weekend by beating Tony on the money tie break conditions.

08 POWER STRUGGLE
The same four players then tried another of Tony's games, Power Struggle. After a lengthy and confusing explanation of the rules we started the game by receiving our secret rival player cards. This game was all about trying to get to high levels of boardroom nastiness before anyone else did. The most interesting thing about this game was trying to bribe other players into giving you one of their cards by passing them some cash under the table. I got this game all wrong and was lucky to finish third.

09 MAGE KNIGHT
I started the evening with a game that I knew I would be playing before I had even arrived. I was keen to try Mage Knight and had already arranged a walkthrough of the game with Paul. Three of us set off on our adventure into the unknown under his expert guidance. Chris had chosen the Dragon character Goldyx, Greg took on the guise of an Elf called Norowas and I became the Blood Cultist Arythea. The characters start with different abilities which they can add to as they level up during the game. The game has a strong deck building element to it. On your turn you can use your cards to move, influence or fight. There's a lot to like about this game and I enjoyed it so much I have since got hold of a copy. I won the game but it doesn't really count because of the amount of help I got from Paul.

10 IT’S A TRAP
Greg and Chris then took the opportunity to give their own prototype game 'It's a Trap' a run out. Their friend Jamie also joined in to make up a group of five for what turned out to be an amusing short game. In turn we played combinations of cards as traps down the centre of the table. Villagers would then attempt to find their way through our carefully laid traps to reach the red button of safety. Some would get killed and become Victory Points for the player(s) who had laid the successful traps. Others would escape with wounds and return to
the village where they could regroup and try again later. The unique aspect of this game was how the traps were put together. One player could use the cards 'Acid' and 'Darts' to make an 'Acid Darts' trap, another player could then add to it with the card 'of Doom' to make the more dangerous trap 'Acid Darts of Doom'. An entertaining game that I hope lots of people get the chance to play.

11 QUARRIORS!
Paul, Greg, Chris and I stayed on for a game of Quarriors! (That's the game's exclamation mark, not mine). The many colourful dice in this game represented different creatures and spells of varying degrees of power. The idea of this 'Dice Building' game was to fill your bag with useful dice and hopefully get a lucky roll to gain points for defeating other peoples dice or buy even more powerful dice for use later. The first player to reach a certain score was the winner; needless to say that player wasn't me. Despite not fully understanding how all the different dice worked I enjoyed the game enough to enter the Quarriors taking place the next day.

Saturday

I was up bright and early for the Quarriors! tournament where I was up against Jamie, Richard D and his daughter Lauren. I put up an OK show but I did go out in the first round. However, I took heart in the fact I was knocked out by young Lauren who went on to win the tournament. Not only did she win a copy of the game she also won a place in the Quarriors! world championship taking place in America! (that is my exclamation mark). Competing in the tournament did mean that I missed out on a day at the races. Mike, Tony, Steve and Ian enjoyed a competitive game of Grand National on the day of the real thing. Even
with four days of gaming I wasn’t able to do everything I would have liked to.

12 AGRICOLA
After lunch Mike, Ian and Timothy joined me for a game of Agricola. It was good that everyone had played the game before because we got to play with some of the cards I usually leave out when playing with newcomers to the game. Despite Mike and Ian trying to do as little farming in the game as possible they both finished with respectable scores. However, it was Timothy who built the best farm and it was clear that he had played the game once or twice before.

13 DOMINANT SPECIES

After a fair amount of planning five of us gathered to tackle Dominant Species. This time Timothy, Mark, Steve C, Howard and I took part in what turned out to be a six hour game. Steve did a great job of explaining the rules to the two players who hadn't played before (Timothy and Mark). The thing I liked most about this game is how well the theme was represented. It wasn’t just about having the most of your animals on the board it was also about how well adapted they are to the ever changing environment. The thing I liked least about this game was that it become a bit of a chore once I realised that I was destined to finish last when I still had another couple of hours to go.  Mark was the eventual winner after some really good use of the Birds migration bonus right at the end. I later found out I was
playing with some of the convention's heavy hitters so I don't feel so bad about finishing last now.

14 SAINT PETERSBURG
It came as a relief to end the night with something lighter, and that came in the form of Saint Petersburg. Keith joined Howard, Mark and I for this city building card game. Players have to use money wisely early in the game to pay for craftsmen and buildings that in the latter stage of the game will earn victory points. Points were also scored for collecting as many different types of aristocrats as possible. I'm not saying I would have come anywhere close to winning but my strategy was hampered by so many aristocratic authors showing up. I did really badly at this game but I still enjoyed it and look forward to playing it again sometime. It was a nice way to round off the day.

Sunday

15 COLOSSEUM
I was determined to make the most of the remaining time I had at the convention so I was happy to find a few others ready to play some games. Mark, Richard P and I spent a few minutes going through some of the many options available to us at the main table of games. After much deliberation we plumped for Colosseum, and I'm glad that we did.In this game we tried to put on the best shows, attract high rankingRomans and expand our arenas. I started with a very useful (andapparently unbeatable) combination of gladiators, horses and show contracts. Mark and Richard feared the worst but they needn't have worried. I failed to take advantage of my early luck and could not pull out a big enough lead to prevent myself from being overtaken at the end of the game.

16 SEELAND
Keith joined us to make up a group of four to play Seeland. This game had come to my attention a few weeks earlier so I was fortunate to get the chance to actually play it. In this game players are rewarded for building windmills to drain land and for growing a variety of crops. Purchasing windmills and seed took place on a rondel of moving coins in the corner of the board. This was the aspect of the game that I liked the most and I hadn't seen anything quite like it before. The amount of coins available to a player on their turn is determined by the position they hold on the trail of coins. Players further to the front have less to spend and their purchasing options are limited. Players towards the back have more to spend and therefore have a greater choice from the marketplace. The coins at the back of the trail get placed at the front when the player furthest back moves from them. I really liked this game despite losing again.

17 KINGDOM BUILDER
With the games room beginning to empty we ended the convention with a couple of games of Kingdom Builder. This game saw players placing settlements on regions of a map according to the type of card they drew and where they had already placed settlements. Tokens were available from cities on the map when a player placed a settlement next to that city. These tokens gave players more flexibility on where they could place there settlements. Points were scored according to how well players managed to meet the conditions on the three target cards. With randomly drawn city tokens, varying winning conditions and a modular board I expect this game to have a lot of replay value. I appreciated the relatively short playing time and easy to understand rules. It was also good to get my second and last win of the weekend.

SUMMARY
I thought I was just going to Devon for a few days but it turned out to be much more than that. My gaming first took me to the Australian outback for a spot of Kangaroo racing. From there I took in the delights of the Islands of Santa Cruz and Hawaii in the vast Pacific Ocean. On the European leg of my tour I found myself draining flooded land in the Netherlands and soaking up more than just the atmosphere in Paris. After a flying visit to the Russian city of Saint Petersburg it was on to explore ancient Rome. However, the highlight of my gaming trip around the world was probably my short stay at a homestead in the American West.

I played against seventeen different opponents over the course of the weekend and will be looking out for some familiar faces when I return to BayCon next year. I'll also be looking forward to meeting some new people and playing many more games.

For anyone else who would like to play more games and meet some interesting people I would highly recommend going to BayCon. I would probably stay at the campsite again but for those that don't fancy that remember to book your room at the Exeter Court Hotel early.

By Kevin Shaw