Jack's Gen Con Holiday

Another Gen Con come and gone. As I tell my wife, Gen Con is like my birthday and Christmas all wrapped up into one. I get to meet fans, play games and catch up with old friends. I absolutely love it.

I thought I'd give you guys a run down of the games that looked interesting to me and what the big releases were.

Warmachine Legends - Within minutes of the convention opening, I bought a hardcover and a softcover (for one of our artists). Warmachine and Hordes are both devastatingly awesome minis games by Privateer Press. We have a league here at the company. I can't recommend this highly enough.

Monsterpocalypse - A collectible minis game about giant monsters. For those of you who don't know, my own personal obsessions are: No. 1 superheroes/comic books and No. 2 Godzilla. So this was a natural. It hasn't been released yet, but in October, go out and buy this at your local hobby game store.

Pulp City - A new start up minis company. The rules are free on the web site and the minis are going to be distributed in America very soon. Pulp City is a super hero game with a very unique feel to it. It's not exactly four color, and it's not exactly gritty. It feels a little pulpish mixed with those other genres. Very cool. And they've got a giant monster game – Pulp Monster – on the horizon.

Witch Hunter: The Invisible World – I passed by the Paradigm Concepts booth and noticed this gem out of the corner of my eye. I picked up the Bestiary book and was blown away by the creativity in there. I quickly snatched up that and the core rules. Can't wait to read it!

Hunter: The Vigil - This is a Gen Con tradition for me. I always buy the latest addition to White Wolf's terrific World of Darkness setting. This edition is a reboot of the Hunter game, where players are those hunting the supernatural creatures of the world. As always, there's a little more than you might think going on.

Wild Cards RPG – I stumbled across the Wild Cards books twenty years ago. It was an anthology about people with superpowers (I'd only loosely use the term superheroes here) and how the world changed because of it over the decades. A little known author named George R.R. Martin started it ... maybe you guys have heard of him? :) Anyway, Green Ronin has done the latest RPG version of Wild Cards and like all things Green Ronin, it's a gorgeous product.

Jungle Temple – The Miniature Building Authority produces prepainted buildings and terrain. I've purchased many of their products in the past and they are now used on our gaming tables every day at lunch. I saw this beautiful product and couldn't wait to order it at Gen Con – only I discovered it was SOLD OUT! I despaired, but left my name in case anyone canceled their order. Last night, the Authority guys called me and said they in fact had one for me. Hooray!

You'll notice that I love minis games, and inevitably you might ask, "how the heck does he have time to paint?" Well, I don't. I use a great painting service: www.paintedfigs.com. They're affordable and reliable. Give them a try if you can't paint yourself; you won't be disappointed. Tell them Jack sent you!

Talk about this on the forums!