MeepleCon 2017 Recap

March 24, 2017

by Ambie Valdés

I went to MeepleCon in Las Vegas for the first time this year, and got to meet Cassadi and Crystal in person! This was the first time all three of us were even in the same state together, so it was a big deal for us. I had an awesome time playing games with Cassadi and Crystal and eating good food.

Since the MeepleCon library was only open from 10am to midnight each day, we took it easy and actualy slept a reasonable amount of time! I had 31 plays of 24 different games, 12 of which were new to me. We also played some craps at night, since we were in Vegas!

When we flew in Thursday night, Crystal and Cassadi were at the airport waiting for us! We got to visit Meepleville board game cafe to take a picture with the world's largest meeple. After giving away Blitzy the meepillow at Blitz Con, I had decided to make some more meepillows for the occassion.

Ambie, Cassadi, and Crystal with Blitzbie, Blitzadi, and Blitztal

On Friday I didn't actually get the chance to play games with Cassadi and Crystal, but I played a bunch of other games! Sam Healey from The Dice Tower had wanted to play Dungeon Petz (Amazon) after seeing my Strategically Thematic segment, but unfortunately it wasn't in the library. Since we brought Pret-a-Porter, which has a similar feel (of building up and exhibiting things), we taught that to him! A lot of people came by making fun of Sam for playing a fashion game, but we were having a lot of fun!

Look at all those lovely designs!

We also played a couple play-to-win games. One of my favorites from the weekend was New York Slice (Amazon), a game with an "I cut, you choose" mechanic. It was very interesting trying to slice it so that it would be hard for other people to pick a portion. Also, I like the pizza theme!

New York Slice - which section would you choose?

On Friday night we all went out to the Studio B Buffet at the M Casino. My husband Toby loves buffets, and we had been wanting to go to this one for a while. It was really good - free beer, wine, and cider are included in the buffet, and the dessert selection was great! It was nice being able to hang out with Cassadi and Crystal outside of the convention, especially since Crystal was so busy with being staff at the convention.

Dessert is my favorite part about a buffet, and the dessert was great!

On Saturday morning, we got to play 1889 with Cassadi! It was her first 18xx, so now all three members of Board Game Blitz have played an 18xx! Cassadi enjoyed it, although she doesn't think anyone in her game group would play it (if you're in Cassadi's game group and reading this, you should play!).

Look how excited Cassadi is to play 1889!

Saturday afternoon we finally got to play our first games together - Ghost Blitz (Amazon) and Ghost Blitz 2 (Amazon)! We pretty much had to make this our first game, because of the Blitz thing. =P

This was the giveaway copy of Ghost Blitz - we signed the box afterwards!

We then decided to check off one of the games from our shame list - Lords of Waterdeep (Amazon). Cassadi taught Crystal and me how to play, and we both enjoyed it! I can see why it's such a popular gateway game - it's quick to learn, has a lot of variability in the buildings and cards for replayability, and has some flavor/theme in the flavor text (and in the quests, if you pay attention to what type of person each cube represents).

Unfortunately, the library copy of Lords of Waterdeep didn't have any DnDeeples, but it was still fun

Then we got to play a bunch of games with Zee Garcia from The Dice Tower. I had never played a game with Zee before, and I had a lot of fun meeting him and playing new games with him. We played some of the Pack O Game games, an abstract game called Element, and Quadropolis (Amazon). I usually don't play abstract games, but maybe I should start playing the modern ones more, because I've liked the recent ones I've played. Element is interesting because everyone has to capture the person to their right. So in addition to trying not to get captured, you have to make sure that other people don't get captured before the person to your right does!

Even though Element is abstract, it has cute little old man figures

On Saturday night Toby and I went to a Teppanyaki place with our friend. If you don't know what Teppanyaki is (I didn't), it's a style of Japanese food where the chef cooks in front of you on a huge flat grill, basically like entertainment mixed with cooking the food. We had a lot of fun watching the chef, and the food was really good!

I didn't get a great picture, but I'm pretty sure that thing that's on fire turned into a really yummy sauce

Overall, I had a great time at MeepleCon. It was the most relaxing convention I've been to. I was able to go out to eat a couple times and sleep a lot, so I was well-rested throughout. It was also really awesome hanging out with Cassadi and Crystal for the weekend, and we got along really well in person! We weren't able to play all the games we had wanted to, but we still got a lot of gaming in and I had a great time.