Last you heard, I had some car trouble, but it looked good to go. I raced home from work to find my dad and the Bravada gone. No one knew where he was at. At least I got to spend a few minutes with the wife before going.
Dad finally drove up, said my goodbyes and went to get ready to go. He had a portable battery charger and showed me how to use it in case I trouble with it again. Just before I left, he asked me if I was going off to fool around. Then he started lecturing me about not being unfaithful. Finally told him I was going to pick up my nephew before going, and he backed off. Ironically, when I went over that morning to tell him it wouldn't start, I found out mom was sleeping in a different bed. Man in glass house...
Finally got to New Castle around 6 and had to wait for Jason to get his stuff together. After telling him all week that I would be picking him up at 5, then calling around noon and left a message about the delay, that it'll be around 6. Got on the road and opted to state road 3 north instead of driving the 20 miles to get onto I-69. I was hoping to see something interesting, but saw the same stuff I see driving in Indiana all the time. We stopped to get something to eat at the KFC/Taco Bell and had to wait forever to get our order. They had one person doing all the Taco Bell food preparing.
We finally got to the hotel around 9 and checked in. Channel lineup on the TV wasn't much, just the local channels, CNN, ESPN and HBO. And the pay per view channels, just had 6 movies and Super Nintendo by the hour. Jason kept bugging me to play it, I didn't want to spend $7 an hour playing old games I had little interest in for free, plus I knew it was the usual little kid wanting something to do when there's nothing else to do on a trip. A big chunk of the souvenir and vacation industry. Started watching The Ring on HBO, with him telling all the jokes from Scary Movie 3 about it (apparently, he saw the satire before the source. I never had much interest in it, and he lost interest shortly, so we played a 400 point Marvel army as a warm up for the next day. Here's my standard 400 point Marvel army:
- Dr. Leonard Samson LE
- Nightcrawler U
- Moondragon U
- Jean Grey R
- Bullseye V
- Black Panther R
- Destiny R
- Paramedic E
For the unfamiliar, R=Rookie, E=experienced, V=veteran, U=unique, LE=limited edition, usually a prize given at tournaments. Jean Grey and Moondragon for Telekinesis (new rule while back flyers can't carry flyers, what they carry can't do anything until next turn) Black Panther for outwit (cancels one power on an opponent), Destiny for reroll ability, and Paramedic for healing. When it looked like I was winning, Jason gave up before the complicated mop up started on the rest. It was late, so we went to bed. It was cold when we got there, and we were hoping it would warm up, but it never did, but it was realized in the middle of the night. I decided to ride it out until early the next morning.
Saturday I woke up around 6:30, earlier than the scheduled 8, took a shower, and went to the front desk to complain. They offered another room, either still on the first floor but in the back, or upstairs in front. Opted for upstairs one, went and swapped out all my stuff. Got Jason up, he cleaned up, and we finished the switch. The free breakfast was pathetic by continental breakfast standards, just some bagels, few packs of cream cheese, and coffee. Jason's mom packed some Poptarts for both of us. Went to the convenience store down the road, got some OJ and V8. Had that, went downstairs and picked up our prepaid badges. Fortunately, that went quickly. They gave us a coupon for a free booster pack at the organizer's store set up, and Jason got a unique Captain Marvel in his pack. He liked the stats, and decided to put him on his team. We did some last minute rearranging, got set up, and filled out the entry for the Regionals.
Both of us ended up going 2-3 in the matches. It was complicated by no restaurants nearby, and the hotel restaurant being out of business (their web site even pimped the prepaid admission as allowing them to let the hotel restaurant know how much food to have) Fortunately, I overheard one of the workers at the con saying they were going out to eat, and asked them to pick up some food for Jason and me. Unfortunately, he slightly messed up the order, but we ended up with enough to get by. Another problem was an opponent that was unhappy that he had to play someone with a worse record than he. The judge said circumstances prevented him from doing any other kind of match up. Also, he insisted we place our objects each time we drew one (most people don't care, and it is important for setting up for your characters to use), then he waited for me to set up my army, then he set his up on a rooftop and wouldn't let me change them. It was the only time I was tempted to walk, but I didn't want to give the bastard the satisfaction. Jason played him, too, and agreed with my assessment. While I won't give out his username, it was one that was easy to ridicule, and we did so privately every chance we could. Fortunately, on my last match, I was able to take advantage of the X-Men team ability to heal up my Nightcrawler with Jean Grey, I hadn't done that before.
Another thing they had going on was Halo on the big screen, $1 for 10 minutes. I bought an hour's worth for Jason to play. First person shooters look very cool, but I get queasy and a bad headache that ruins me for the rest of the day. I made a quick run to Subway to get 2 footlong subs for each of us to last us the weekend.
There were a couple of hours before our next event, so I went up to the room to rest. Unfortunately, most of these venues provides seating that racks my back, so I had to use the heating pad. Called home to check on the Mrs, she was fine, but we missed each other.
Then we went down for the Marvel constructed. You buy 3 boosters, and build as close to 300 points without going over. Here's what I pulled:
- Nova U
- Brood Queen V
- Mystique R
- Moon Knight V
- SWAT Specialist E
- Rhino V
- Iron Man R
- Venom R
- Beast R
- Dreadnought R
- Marrow R
- Hepzibah E
I used the first 5 on the above list, for a total of 298. Ended up losing the 3 matches I played, got fed up between that and how they went down, went back up to the room, and went back downstairs to get Jason when it was over. Unfortunately, he didn't do much better, so we didn't advance either time to the finals.
Before the game started, Jason asked me for $5 to buy 2 boosters (he had $10) He was bugging me earlier, and I kept explaining that we were playing the draft where he'd get 3 boosters, just had to wait. Since he didn't get anything good on his draw, although I promised him any uniques I pulled that I already had (and Nova was), he wanted to buy some more. After his first match ended, he opened them, and got a Silver Surfer! Also, he had an extra Hulk mailaway from PSM magazine, and traded it to someone for a Beta Ray Bill unique.
That night, Jason started again on paying to play the video game system in the room, then switched to wanting to play more Heroclix. He wanted to play an all-unique army. I finally relented, and decided to do an 8 clix and 4 turns for each side. I can't recall who I had right off, but I had more fun playing for fun that in the tourneys, and Thanos is a real tough character, his attack stats go up to 15 on the dial.
Since before I left, there was talk of a storm coming into the state on Sunday. Between that, what I had run into at the con, and being homesick, I wasn't too thrilled with staying there too much longer. So I decided to bail and leave early Sunday morning. Fortunately, Jason agreed and we went home. Unfortunately, after the fact, I learned that the DC clix games weren't as well attended, and Indy even less, improving the chances to win an LE. However, staying that long would've kept us there until at least 7pm, with at least a 3 hour drive to go.
So much for curing the January blahs. Right now, if it weren't for the just fun games we played, I'd probably bail out of Heroclix. And I am interested in some of the clix coming out in the future. I just wished I enjoyed the game more. Or at least release the part of me interested in the prizes. It mainly stems from when I first got into the game and could do no wrong. I was on a hot streak, until I met a player at my local venue that royally skunked me. Since then, I haven't gotten my mojo back. Also, I'm not sure about going to Origins in Columbus in June, or GenCon in August. I was hoping for at least one more con before bailing out of the game. I guess time will tell.
