I’m behind in my blog posts considering Con of the North happened close to a month ago. I wanted to write about this gaming convention because I had such a great time. Con of the North is located in the Northwest suburbs of the Twin Cities. It had been on my radar for years, but I couldn’t afford the gas to drive home when I was in college. This year, I invited a friend to come with me, so I didn’t have to attend alone.

Con of the North was extremely well organized. When I registered for the event, I could sign up for games, role-playing sessions and other events I found intriguing. When I signed up for an event, it showed my gaming schedule on the website, so I could see what blocks of time I had left. It also showed if an event was full, you could be put on their waiting list in case someone had to drop out of the event.

Joker Faction for Batman Miniatures 

I drove to the hotel Friday after I got off of work to pick up my badge. Along with a badge, I got a Con of the North die, all of my tickets to the events I pre-signed up for and a packet for the convention including a map of the hotel. On Friday, I signed up to play the Batman Miniatures game published by Knight Models. Miniatures is a type of table top game that always fascinates me, but I’m terrible at. I find it’s challenging to predict what an opponent will do next and then try and place my miniatures in a compromising position to the opponent’s objective. I ended up losing to my opponent, but the game itself was easier to learn than I thought.

If I only had one more turn.. 

Saturday, me and a friend had signed up to play several games of Magic the Gathering EDH/Commander style. A while ago, I wrote about my love / hate relationship with Magic due to the community. However, me and my friend met up with two friendly, non-judgmental players. It made the event enjoyable even though if I had one extra turn, I could have won.

RunePunk

Sunday, me and my friend split up because she wanted to play a massive game of Settlers of Catan while I went to try RunePunk, a steampunk themed adventure using the Savage Worlds rules. Imagine Steampunk mixed with references from children’s stories.. that’s how I would best describe this. Steampunk has become a recent obsession of mine which is why I enjoyed this campaign a lot.

Con of the North is a convention I would for sure attend next year if I’m free. The organization, the convenient location and the welcoming community made this experience a positive one. It was a great way to spend a dull weekend in February.