The Preparation

Here are some more pics of Gabon a week out...

Squeaks, doing what he can to make it hard to type. If you have ever wondered what a gamer stuck in central Africa must do to get some games in, this is how. I use VASSAL a lot to grab games with my friends -- particularly Warmachine.

So, yeah, lots of flipping in various books as I play Warmachine. You can see my army in the background, getting ready to be packed in foam. I'll post some pics later in the week discussing the tender loving care my army will get in anticipation of traveling across the pond.

Its just about the end of dry season here in Gabon, so its not a bad time to leave. Still, its been beautiful the past few days, so it will be hard to leave when the weather is so nice. Doubly hard is that Squeakers will stay for the duration with some of our friends. Hes a great cat, and been my best bud these weeks I have been on my own with Tracie in Winnipeg so I'm going to be quite sad not to wake up with him next to me. Still, its better for him to stay here and avoid all their airplane travel.

The first leg of my travels will get me to Winnipeg to visit Tracie for a few days. I'm looking forward to that. After Winnipeg/N Dakota its off to the midwest and GenCon. Its been 2 years since I went to GenCon. I am stoked. I'll post my plans and the events I will attend in a later blog (oh, cliffhanger!).

I normally hold off thinking about vacation until a week beforehand in order to prevent the weeks from dragging on and make sure I concentrate on work. I crossed that arbitrary temporal barrier a few days ago - so now its time to make some preparations. I've pulled out my bags and am starting to pile things I know I will need -- as well as things that I wont need, but I should bring.

Across the table from me as I type is my Warmachine Khador army - just waiting to be packed away. I have it sitting there to help organize what I plan to bring in terms of gaming stuff. Thus far, I have the army, its SD carrying case, dice, a laser pointer, special tokens, a binder with plastic card holders for my Warmachine cards, and a bunch of other stuff.

yeah, I am getting excited.

There are six of us going to GenCon to meet up -- some are coming from Dallas, some from DC, some from Chicago, and some from Africa (me). Its going to be great to see my buddies again. In that group are Jason and Brad, my two closest friends -- its going to be especially nice to spend a week with them.

The six of us are getting together to run our own Warmachine tournament and campaign during GenCon (as opposed to playing one of the sanctioned tournaments). I expect our in-group tourney will be the focus of all of our time during the convention -- I plan to do a bunch of roleplaying as well, but the Warmachine campaign is going to continue over the entire convention. Our campaign will focus on on telling the story of a running battle between the forces of Western Immoren and the Skorne. It will be a massive horde of Skorne vs Khador (me), Cygnar and Menoth. I dont want to get pwned by my buddies, so some practice is certainly in order.

In anticipation of getting in a lot of Warmachine games I really want to get a few more games in via Vassal this week -- weekends are when I game with my buddies, so a pickup game or four may be in order.