Monday, May 27, 2019

MuseOn Con


This weekend I attended MuseOn Con, a local convention that is put on by Muse On Minis.  Muse On Minis is a company that makes tokens and accessories for various miniatures games such as Infinity, Guild Ball, Warmachine, and the Batman Miniatures Game.  This is the fourth year that they have put on this convention in West Des Moines.

I discovered the convention when I was browsing the internet one day.  I reached out to the organizers to ask some questions.  I wanted to know if there was going to be any open or casual gaming, or if it was going to be all tournament gaming.  The person I talked to was friendly and told me that there was some open gaming and that I could come down, meet some people, play some demos, and hang out.  

I headed to the convention Friday after work, paid for a day pass, and walked around the convention.  There were people playing Warmachine, Malifaux, Guild Ball, and the Batman Miniatures Game.  There were also huge tables set up for Infinity.  These looked awesome, as Infinity is a game is a game that requires a lot of buildings and terrain and the tables were full of beautiful cyperpunk style buildings.

I walked around and chatted with people.  Eventually I found a friendly gamer named John (pretty sure that was his name) to give me a demo of Batman.  I played a team with Batman, Nightwing, and three Arkham guards.  John played a gangster crew with the Ventriloquist, some thugs, and Clayface.  We played without a lot of the rules which was nice.  Since it was my first game I was little confused but I had a great time.

Here is my borrowed Batman crew.  Thanks John!
I also played a demo of the game Judgement.  Judgement is a MOBA inspired miniatures game that uses 54mm figures.  The models for the game look amazing.  The object of the game is to battle with a team of figures and to either collect souls or or destroy the opposing team's base.  I have no experience with MOBAs, but I could see the video game influences on gameplay.  Dead characters respawn at their base and there are game mechanics that involve pushing characters around the field.  The demo game that I played  used MuseOnMinis tokens and neoprene playmats which made for an aesthetically pleasing experience.

On Saturday I headed back down to the convention to try some more games.  I played a demo of the new version of Monsterpocalypse.  The game was fun as we threw our kaiju into buildings and caused much destruction.  I also played Aristeia!, a board game published by Corvus Belli, the company that produces the Infinity miniatures game.  Aristeia! is an arena combat game that takes place in the same universe as Infinity.  The game involves fighting with a team of miniatures and trying to score points by occupying zones on the board.  You have a have of cards that allows you to play certain tactics during the game.  I really liked this game and have put it on my wishlist.  I finished off the night with another game of Batman Miniatures.  A guy named Jason lent me a Poison Ivy crew and I played against his Gotham City P.D. crew.  We played on a neat terrain setup that was a sideshow carnival.  The Batman game is very thematic, as Poison Ivy sprouted killer plants while Commissioner Gordon called in helicopter support to shot at the bad guys.

Overall, MuseOn Con was fun!  My goal is to return next year with either a Batman crew or an Infinity crew.  Muse On Minis' tokens are really nice and I recommend getting some.  Check out their website.  I don't have any pictures of their stuff so here is a video of Guerrilla Miniatures reviewing their latest tokens for the Batman game: