Strategy GameCon and Dust

Headed off to Strategy GameCon in Telford at the weekend to see what it was like. The couple of halls of CCG championships were packed, but the "main hall" with a smattering of boardgame vendors and assorted others was absolutely empty - all very weird.

The saving grace though was the stand put up by the STAGS Telford wargaming club. They had about 6 3x3 demo/participation games going on including Tanks, Team Yankee and Dust, and people on everyone keen to explain it all and play a game. We missed the chance to play Tanks! but did get the chance to play Dust, which, not being a Weird War Two fan I mainly wanted to play because a) it had troopers with jet packs and b) used a grid movement system so fits well with an article I'm writing. Jo and Tom beat me but it was a fairly even match.

A nice overview, not crosses for grid corners, and dots for centre points

My hero (on the ground) trying to fend off Jo's flying Valkyrie!

The Team Yankee talk-through almost tempted me to buy the rules (and I would have if I'd realised they were only £15), but as input to my own WW3 gaming rather than to buy into the system.

Battletech Radar Map for air assets

The other neat idea was on the Battletech game next to the table was an "aerial environment" map/scan, where air assets first appear and make their way through a couple of levels, and possibly hostile AA and CAPs before appearing on the table. Must adapt that!