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I haven't dealt with my pictures yet, but I thought I'd drop in some
reflections on the past weekend.
I'm really glad I marked off the weekend for Brickfest back when the
date was first announced. I really had a great time, and it's nice to
finally put a face to so many of my fellow Lugnetters.
I want to especially thank Denise and Stephen for organizing the event,
George Mason University for hosting us, and Buffie for supporting the
event with here presence and the special shopping time.
North Carolina was represented by Thomas Main, his wife, and myself.
Thomas brought a 6399 Airport Shuttle and 12v trains for display (I
think the 398 USS Constelation was his also). I brought my Blacktron I
creation, my train creations (engine, cars, and water tower), and a ton
of pirate stuff. I also had most of the dino Adventurers sets by virtue
of them still being in the box from Wednesday's meeting at Cary Clark's
house with Martin Legault and Sheree Rosenkrantz.
Due to not packing at all Thursday night, and the amount of stuff I had
to pack, I didn't get going until 1:00 PM (instead of my planned 8 or 9
AM). After Wednesday's trip to Cary's house, I realized I might want a
larger car than the compact I had planned to rent. When I got to the
rental agency Friday morning and asked about an upgrade, they had no
larger cars, but did have SUVs, so I rented an Isuzu Trooper for $45 per
day (instead of $36 per day for the compact car). I packed it quite full
of stuff. Due to stops for cash and lunch, and rush hour traffic, it was
about 6 PM by the time I got to GMU.
The dino sets were the hit of Friday night. Many people had not seen the
sets, and much fun was had by all playing with the "action" bits. The
All Terrain Trapper with it's dino-ram-net-launcher was the most fun
(the front bumper is rigged up so it launches the net from the back of
the car when it is pushed in - usually by ramming a dinosaur).
We didn't end up doing much pirate set up (though we did get out many of
the ships and ooh and aah over them). Lindsay Braun showed up a little
later with his Gloire, and HUGE early steamship. He also had built a
heavy mortar, mounting one on a short wide ship for a bomb ketch (I'll
need to figure out how to work that into the pirate game - it could be
used to add a bit more capability to deal with shore installations).
When we got kicked out of the building, we retired to a bar, at which
point I realized that I hadn't had food since lunch. Lindsay also had
not had food, and Chris Weeks and I were sharing a room, so the three of
us walked the block from the bar to the IHOP and had a late night
breakfast.
Saturday morning saw us off to a slow start at setting up the pirate
game. I think it was 11 by the time we were ready to start. We had a
break for lunch and a few breaks for demos, and finally wound up at 6 PM
or so. We learned a lot about running the game (like it was a mistake to
only have one GM given the number of players Stephen had rounded up by
the time we were ready to start). There was also some confusion caused
by areas which the rules don't specify well (like dealing with aligators
on shore).
I also only got out three merchant ships. Captain Scar (played by Shiri
Dori) tried to capture the first ship, but was handicapped by a wind
direction favorable to the merchant and her starting position and she
never caught up with it. Lindsay managed to capture the 2nd ship. Two
players (Chris Weeks and Jeff Stembel I think) cooperated at the end to
capture the third ship. A pair of people (at least one of which was an
AFOL spouse, I didn't quite catch if they were a couple, or both spouses
of other AFOLs) played captain Wanda and first mate Colin. They had good
success at shooting skeletons (killing three on the first turn of
personal combat), and their ship eventually shared the plunder of
skeleton isle with Jeff Stembel's ship.
Chris Weeks was awarded the perseverence award for taking out an
aligator on dino island after much effort (and one lost crewman who
mistakenly ventured onto the island). Stephen's ship found a huge pink
chest of silks on dino island.
All in all, a good time was had with the pirate game, and hopefully in
the future I can streamline some of the things which slowed the game
down. I will definitely use at least one assistant in the future (though
I have some ideas to allow assistants to be more participatory than the
GM can be).
Saturday evening I mostly mellowed out, looking at other activities
going on, trading, and slowly cleaning up after the game. Among the
interesting trades I made was to trade an extra NIB 6411 Sand Dollar
Beach for a NIB 6078 Royal Drawbridge and trading a pirate gal and
several pirates to Buffie for a pair of white train cabs from 6557 (she
will be putting the pirate gal on her store name tag - and I was happy
to contribute to the cause).
Sunday morning was spent at the store. A good time was had by many
during the feeding frenzy over all the "scratch and dent" goods. I also
won the "prize" set. Buffie had a single set she knew was desireable, so
she just said "who wants a $42 set that I know you want (and it's not a
scratch and dent set)", she wasn't getting much bites (though I was sort
of expressing interest), but when she added that it was Octan related, I
spoke up louder that I was interested. It turned out to be 6337 Fast
Track Finish, which I'm quite happy to get a 2nd copy of. I had planned
to take pictures of Colin and Wanda at the store, but things just got
too hectic. I suggested that the world tour be adjusted to allow for an
official visit to the store (note that what I brought along were
actually clones of Colin and Wanda).
Sunday afternoon was spent mellowing out (I was pretty exhausted by this
point) and attending the animation presentation and Rich Shamus's brick
abuse workshop (where he talked about painting and mutilating bricks,
and altering clone bricks to be more LEGO like and fill some special
need). I then started to pack up, which took a while (and on two
separate "I'll check just one more time in case I missed something"
trips which found things I had missed [almost left my BSB and RSB and my
water tower]). I said goodbye and finally rolled out at about 5 PM. I
was pretty exhausted so I decided to stop at a Shoney's once I got out
of the metro area for a rest and good dinner. I finally made it back to
Raleigh before 10:30 and unpacked. I returned the truck by 11:30.
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Brickfest
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| (...) A couple requests: If you played in the pirate game, and haven't already identified yourself and your ship, please let me know your ship's and captain's names. Also, pointing out yourself in one of the many pictures would be helpfull (though I (...) (24 years ago, 13-Jun-00, to lugnet.org.us.wamalug, lugnet.gaming, lugnet.pirates)
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