Moon City Con 2019 Recap
/Hi, it’s Ethan, with the long promised (and long delayed, sorry) recap of my time at Moon City Con 2019! Two months isn’t too late for a blog post, right…?
This is a local tabletop game convention in Springfield, Missouri, home of our fine Role Playing Public Radio and The Mixed Six podcasting friends. It’s also home of my own brother, Neil Cordray, proprietor of his own podcast, Geek Fanthology! I also met up with long-time friend of the podcast -- and long-time name-sharing nemesis -- Ethan Fiset, who was working a booth promoting his OWN podcast, The Adventurers’ Vault. There’s some sort of trend here…
It was a wonderful three days. The con itself focused on board games and card games, and we also squeezed in some late-night RPG sessions at Ross Payton’s house, AKA RPPR headquarters.
The con had an extensive game library, so we were never at a loss for options. Every single game I played was new to me, so it was a real banquet of new games! A few highlights/capsule reviews:
Century Spice Road - played 2-player, with Neil. A good deck/engine builder, like a faster-paced Dominion. Very good, even with just 2 players.
Point Salad - played with Neil, Ross, and Ethan Fiset. This deserved the buzz it got at Gen Con. A very elegant card drafting game. We played it like three times in rapid succession, and it was interesting every time.
Heaven and Ale - played with Ross, Neil, and a friendly stranger, helpfully taught/game mastered by Spencer of The Mixed Six. This worker/resource placement game was not quite my cup of tea. Apparently I played very well and scored highly, but my board still felt kind of cramped and sub-optimized the whole time. If I feel frustrated even when I’m winning, that’s not a great sign. Also, no way could we have learned it without Spencer’s expert help.
Wingspan - played with Ross, Neil, and two friendly strangers. This one lived up to the hype, big time. Fun engine building, cool bird cards and egg tokens, and a surprisingly elegant engine design once I finally understood how it worked. Highly recommended, everyone is right. Also, I won.
Giant Killer Robots: GKR Heavy Hitters - this was our final Sunday morning game, played with Caleb, Ross, and Neil. Wowie, what a great free-for-all wargame! And those awesome robot figures! I did not come anywhere close to winning, but it was a great time.
For RPGs, the first night I got to play Eclipse Phase 2nd Edition run by Ross. Good times with a pre-published criminal scenario, we impersonated Triad goons and infiltrated a pachinko parlor while a Firewall Erasure Squad conveniently distracted their guards.
The second night was the main event for me, though: running Red Markets: Black Death for Neil, Ethan Fiset, Ross, and Caleb Stokes himself. They were tracking down an undead Bishop, which led them to a suspiciously friendly monastery of Black Leper monks. Things did not go as anyone had planned -- or even as I had planned. But it was a fantastic game, full of memorable monets and great playtest feedback. Ross is going to release it on RPPR. But that might have to wait until we’re ready to have a little RMBD Kickstarter down the line a ways…
In sum, Moon City Con 2019 was wonderful. I’ll certainly be back next year, and I hope some of you might be able to join in!
