Elves and Ordnance: A Blog On Gaming and Miniatures: #2

The 2025 Gen Con black light
dice tray from Fanroll

First let me start by saying that this is the largest convention I have ever been to in my life.

Attendance is said to have topped 71,000 people. Gen Con sold out for the second year in a row. I used to go to gaming and science fiction conventions back in the 1980s, and I still go to a lot of large annual meetings and conventions for my career and for my church each year... but this one was simply huge on a mind boggling scale.

A little history certainly is in order for those unaware of the great gathering of which I speak. Gary Gygax, of Dungeons & Dragons fame, founded Gen Con in 1967 This Gen Con 0 (as it is called now) was held in Gygax's Lake Geneva, Wisconsin home as several in his area could not travel to an International Federation of Wargaming meet in Chicago. The convention was moved around Wisconsin, then eventually to Indianapolis due to sheer growth in attendance. Now, many years later, we have a convention with a staggering attendance that covers nearly all types of gaming. You can find tabletop games, wargames, pinball machines and role playing games all under one roof.

Buying a one day badge was simply inadequate to be able to take it all in, or really, to take even 20% of what was available to see, buy, do, and enjoy.

I must emphasize the magnitude of the event. Gen Con 2025 (also known as Gen Con 58) took up the entire first two floors of the Indiana Convention Center which has a huge downtown footprint in Indianapolis (exhibit halls that were used for vendors and gaming space in this building alone equated to over 556,000 square feet). It also took up the whole of Lucas Oil stadium, a venue used for NFL events with the Indianapolis Colts, including lower level, field area, and concourses for gaming areas. Food trucks made up a Gen Con Block party that closed down the street between the ICC and the stadium. Then, even with the massive number of gaming halls, event rooms and gargantuan vendor hall, the event overflows to encompass the complete conference room capacity of six downtown Indianapolis hotels; the Crowne Plaza, the Hyatt Regency, JW Marriott, the Marriott, the Omni Severin, and the Westin. And that is not all... it also uses two floors of the Indianapolis Union Station including its' Great Hall.

The program book had 18 pages of floor maps to help registered attendees find locations and events.

As I said, the event was 100% sold out. In a Facebook group called "Friends of Gen Con," which I would have been lost without in seeking first-timer guidance, there were many persons trying to get last minute entry badges to no avail.

Even though I was a first time Gen Con attendee, I was an acolyte of wargaming and RPGs for over a decade and owned a game store in the early 1980's. My career lessened my involvement until just recently. I have always wanted to go to Gen Con. My rekindled interest in gaming along with a desire from my oldest adult son Michael to attend a Dungeons and Dragons Online player meeting, drove me to say yes to his request to go to Indianapolis for Gen Con. We purchased single day badges for Friday (Day 2) and decided to make the most of what would be a packed day. We were able to purchase a parking pass for $20 about eight blocks from the ICC. Luckily we only live about two and a half hours away from Indy as every downtown hotel was at max capacity. We arrived with mostly empty backpacks (ready to receive merchandise) and water bottles with "Liquid IV" powder for hydration. We were greeted by huge balloon sculptures and people building a giant house of cards type display for future destruction. If I understand correctly, money will be thrown at the card houses to cause collapse and the funds then donated to charity.

Waiting for the Vendor Hall to open
(crowd in front and behind us)

The experience was overwhelming. As deciding to go was a late decision for us, we had to get our badges at "will call" which was surprisingly fast (and the entire event sold out about a week after we purchased our badges). Immediately I was reminded of the fact that gamers, as a group, are very polite, kind, and helpful people. If you needed directions, people were more than happy to oblige. We had decided that the best use of our time would be to explore the vendor hall.

In trying to find the vendor hall, we went to the first large exhibitor type hall we could find. This ended up being the most massive room filled with gaming tables that I have ever seen. People were attending game demos, doing playtesting, and simply using table space to play a plethora of games, many of which I have never seen before. After checking the map again, we found our way to the hall leading into the Vendor hall that would open in about an hour. I remember thinking that the crowd of about 200 waiting was not that bad. However in the next 30 minutes that crowd became thousands.

We waited in this ever growing crowd of attendees for the remainder of the hour for the doors of the vendor area to open. While we waited, a good portion of those waiting sat on the floor and played card games. One of the neat things about Gen Con is that it encompasses a very large span of gaming.

Plotting a route through
the vendor hall

Needless to say, the vendor area was worth the wait. There were over 500 vendor booths, some small and some very large representing various table top games, wargaming, role playing games, gaming tables, dice, miniatures, paint, and every accessory you can imagine. I had heard there were concerns that the recent tariff's might decrease the number of vendors, or the number of available items to purchase. If this was the case, you really could not tell as a first time visitor to this land of wonder. The aisles between the booths were jam packed with people, most of whom had backpacks in which to carry their purchased treasures. There were also multiple booths for all range of costumes and cosplay.

And there was a lot of cosplay. This ranged from the simple (live music bands and gamemasters wearing elaborate hats and kilts) to the amazingly detailed (full animal costumes complete with fur). This brought back memories for me of late 70's and early 80's science fiction conventions and my Alien (Captain Dallas), Battlestar Galactica (Viper Pilot), and elven fighter mage costumes. This has also directly affected my planning for next Gen Con. I must get involved in this aspect as well. Yes, I am in my sixties, but have finally found something that I can define as "fun." The nerd in me has been resuscitated.

I had worn one of my Ogre t-shirts, as my plan was to visit the Steve Jackson Games booth first. Even though Ogre is not really produced any more, those working the booth smiled at the homage. It was great talking with them about Ogre, Munchkin, Illuminati, Car Wars, and back to Ogre and my wish list from Warehouse 23 for more miniatures. They suggested we visit the booth behind them (TurboDork Paint) to look at their line of metallic paints. Their metallic colors were indeed like nothing I had ever seen and I ended up buying "Fahrenheit" red and "Cool Ranch" blue.

TurboDork & Colour Forge

From there, I went on my second mission, hoping to score some primer/base spray paint from Colour Forge. Colour Forge is a UK based paint company which can be ordered online, but I prefer the in-person shopping experience. I had been told the Monument Hobbies booth would have these, which was correct. So after maneuvering through the crowds, I left that booth with three abnormally large cans of spray paint and a Velcro patch for my hat that says "HBY NRD." The rest of the day kind of went on like this with us looking for some specific booths that either my son or I wished to visit, or being pulled in by the massive number of booths selling dice, dice bags, costume components, games, and art.

I ended up getting the 2025 Gen Con black light dice tray with mini glow dice (I simply could not resist this as my take home souvenir of this adventure). While discussing dice it is important to note that the number of vendors and manufacturers of dice that were present were more than one could canvas in a day. I tried to find the Nuclear Fallout 11 dice set from DND Dice, but was unable to locate a set. I am sure there was a vendor that had them, but I did not get to even half of the booths selling dice. Luckily, they can be purchased from the company online or from Amazon. After a lot of walking, hunger began to call, We headed outside to the block party to find food.

This was a designated area with food and drink trucks. Sun King had even hatched a special
event beer for Gen Con. We had planned to have a beer, but the line was far too long at several hundred people for us to attempt this. We ended up having short rib tacos with pickled beets that were absolutely wonderful, washed down by free energy drinks from the Red Bull booth (it was essentially roll the dice till you win a Red Bull in the spirit of the event). My son bought a stainless steel flagon that got him refills of craft soda. Once fed and hydrated we headed back inside the ICC, passing a row of maybe 20 pinball machines. We passed a remote control robot game as well as two large groups of people painting miniatures for Warhammer. One group was a painting class and the other a competition.

We milled around for a bit visiting some booths that my son wanted to visit and he purchased a just released part game with multiple decks of card expansions. One of the neat things here is the many vendors and game companies that have special deals on complete games with expansions. This was one such deal where he was able to get a core card game and all of the

expansions along with two free gifts for a special, lower price. I had wanted to visit the Runaway Parade Games booth to explore the Fire Tower Game and its' expansion, Rising Flames. Again, and amazing experience being shown the demo on the game by a passionate game designer who was very proud of their creation. We ended up buying the deluxe edition with the full expansion. Saving about $25 off of the price of the regular edition and base expansion.

The backpacks were starting to fill up. I went back to the Steve Jackson Games booth and purchased Munchkin Shadowrun. I have always loved Shadowrun as one of my favored RPGs and the thought of mixing it with the Munchkin card game sounds appealing. Plus... anything from Steve Jackson Games is pure gold. This is obviously another plug for my fav, Ogre.

We passed the large booth for Catan and resisted the urge to stop (I have already played this, like it, and plan to buy it... and it is readily available locally. I then spent some time just looking through the Warhammer booth, again, a very large offering. I am really considering getting into Warhammer 40,000 as my son and his co-worker play this weekly. I spent some time looking at the specific miniatures for the one of the key groups of the Imperium, Adepta Sororitas, which are essentially warrior nuns, or "Battle Sisters." I am not yet fluent even as a beginner in Warhammer, so I have a lot to acquire and a lot to learn. With this will also come a lot more miniature painting. I plan to start with a single miniature (Palatine) and see if have the skill to create these, then move on to game play.

While at the Warhammer display, I purchased some Citadel shade paint in an odd green that I need to simulate Sinai Gray on my Israeli faction Ogre cybertank miniatures. I then tried to leave, but was drawn back in by a t-shirt displaying my favorite Citadel paint color, Mephiston Red. Purchased and into the backpack it went.

We took some time looking at very expensive gaming tables that were made to order complete with LED-lit glowing runes in the support posts.

Battle Frenzy

I had a 4pm appointment at the Goliath Coins booth as I had been selected in a pre-Gen Con drawing to receive a free copy of an unpublished game called "Battle Frenzy" for play testing and feedback. We went and received my copy. It is has six separate characters available to select from and the game is played using record cards in plastic dry erase sleeves and dice used for determining battle results against the attributes of the characters. I received all six characters and dry erase markers. It looks like a ton of quick play fun. The family is travelling next weekend so I plan to take it along for play testing with my middle son who is a heavy online gamer (and see if I can pull him into a different gaming genre).

We spent the rest of our time looking at various booths. I spent some time examining some of the costume vendors and am now convinced that as part of my rekindled joy in this hobby that I will probably be the owner of a kilt and accoutrements in the near future. It was getting close to 5pm so Michael filled his flagon with craft soda brew one last time and we snagged a shuttle bus back to the parking lot. I dropped him off at the Punchbowl venue for his D&D player meeting and I went and found some dinner at a local place.

My haul

While waiting for him in the car after dinner, I took stock of the day. I then took a picture of my Gen Con "haul" for posting in "The Board Game Geek" Facebook group. Not bad for being on a budget and a on a one day trip. I kept my spending moderate and managed to get the majority of what I wanted and some other stuff that looks like it will be extreme fun. I then realized I had missed one vendor that I really wanted to stop at... Army Painter. Will have to make that first on the list for next year.

So... tips from a first timer at Gen Con?

1. Make sure you keep that water bottle full and use electrolytes. It is mostly in air conditioning, but the ICC is huge and the parking is not close. Bring snacks.

2. Make sure your backpack has open volume big enough for games, comfortable straps, and hugs your body. The vendor hall is crowded and you could easily knock someone over with your backpack.

3. Be friendly and talk. There are a lot of cool, unique people at Gen Con.

4. Bring cash and card. Some vendors are cashless.

5. Buy the parking pass in advance and use the free shuttles.

6. Don't do what we did. Instead, buy a four day pass and take it slower. Build in time to sit and talk and explore games. Play games with others. We really missed out on seeing the entire football filed of Lucas Oil Stadium covered with gaming tables.

7. Watch the cosplayers. Compliment their costumes. A lot of work goes into those.

8. Take the time to disconnect from the world and enjoy the world of gaming. Practice a chunk of work-life balance.

9. Age doesn't matter. Sure my knees hurt as a sixty plus year old, borderline ancient, but it was worth it.

10. Lastly, collect the ribbons. These come from interactions. I didn't get a ton, but I will try harder next year. Pins can go on your badge lanyard or badge wallet.

For next year, I already have plans to help someone run a game of Steve Jackson's Ogre (we players refuse to let the game die... Ogre is now 48 years old!).

I hope this was a helpful overview of a day at Gen Con. My ribbons are below along with a few more pictures.