Booth Babes and Costumes of PAX 2008

I missed my camera the first two days and missed some great shots, it seemed like people came more on the third day to enjoy pax, and some of the convention favorites (Privateer Press) were sadly absent when I went to take pictures.

that said here are the few that I did get:


Here is Violet, I'm not sure what game she was representing... but count me in! it looked Fantastic! ;-P



Here is Pat with Violet... I'm not sure what he did, but it looks like the sentence was death.



Here is Storm Trooper guy:




Here is me, paying proper respect to the Empire... :



Here is a candid shot of 'Darth Vader' letting his hair down.. er.. Helmet off, at least. Even Darth has to take time out to replinish those vital fluids...



Ok, this wasn't really a 'costume' per say, but still - Privateer press really went all out this year. My friend pat is the guy NOT on the pedestal.



Here is some uniformed guy showing off for his Girl Friend, hes next to a statue that was in the Fallout 3 area.




I think I saw this guy in Splinter Cell... correct me if I'm wrong.



Probably the only time that I could say "Hey princess, can I take your picture?" and not get slapped... yes, I really said that.



Here are a couple of Bandaged Babes from 'Alone in the Dark' (I think.)



Here are the same two 'zombie girls' as before... only this time with a new victim.



Here is another Army dude looking Bad-A.



Here is an Alien from Sins of a Solar Empire... you can tell she is an Alien due to her EyE's.



Ok, so when Pat rode to PAX with me, he probably didn't know I was going to make him stand in all the pictures heh. Here is Pat and the 'SotSE' girl.




Here is a random person that I thought looked cool...



There were of course, the 'obligatory' smattering of scantily clad babes at the booths...



Of course, much like pokemon... I had to 'catch them all' Pat obligingly stood next to some for me.



and another...




I know it's hard work, but somebody had to do it! Thanks for taking one for the team Pat.



Magic man!



Here's a creepy big headed alien dude... and some blue alien guy saying hello. (I kid, I kid! heheh)



Here's our blue friend, and as you can see, in this shot the girl is smiling... had I waited just a few seconds, I could have got the shot of her asking for a restraining order... apparently some Aliens are 'Extra Friendly'...




Here is some fan that dressed up like Jerry Holikins, I was shocked by the authenticity of the replication...



hehe ok ok, actualy crept up on Jerry Holkins, one of the founders of PAX and writer extraordinaire of the Penny Arcade, and had Pat take the stealth shot. I would have liked to say a few words to him and thank him for putting the whole show together, but, he was deep in conversation with people already... so I let the opportunity pass.

This Shot is of the PAX Enforcers getting down to a Rock Band Concert:



So this last one I include with a bit of a story to go with it... I had been asking folks that were dressed up if I could take their pictures for some time now, and as I walked up behind this girl, I saw bright red hair and figured she would make a good picture too... well, as I got close to her, I realized that perhaps she wasn't 'dressed up' as anyone at all, I quickly did a rework of my approach and asked instead, motioning with my arms to what looked like a group of her friends, "could I get a picture of you guys, there's a great background I want to get a shot of with people in it." Good cover eh? anyway, here's the picture:




And that's the Booth Babe / Costume Tour of PAX 2008, like I said, I missed a ton of good pictures from the first two days... I'll try to do better next time.

Wade -out.

Review of the WoW miniatures Preview at PAX.

Hey all,

I got the chance to play test the mini's game at PAX. I figured I'd post my thoughts and toss up some pics.



My first impression of the game is that it is AWESOME! I'm really excited about rolling it out for my friends to play. I play Warmachine and Hordes (Circle of Orboros,) but many of my friends in my play circle don't want to get into mini's to the toon of hundreds of dollars spent, and all that time putting models to gether and painting them. After Playing the World of WarCraft Miniatures Game, I'm really stoked about the possibility of getting some of my 'lesser hard core' friends into finally throwing down on some miniature warfare!

I may have had a lucky shake, in that the fellow running the demo game that I played in was Justin Gary lead designer / brand - Product manager for the WoW Miniatures Game. His enthusiasm for the game was contagious, it seemed that he was really enjoying showing us the demo... with four of us standing around rapid firing machine gun like questions about everything we saw; "what are these numbers on the side for?" - "What does that marking around that hex mean? Is it rough Terrain? How do we move into it?" - "What is the VP spot on the map for?" All of which he would have gotten to, if we'd have let him just do his presentation heh, he was a good sport and answered our questions patiently, jumping back into the planned demo whenever possible.


I really liked the approach taken with movement, by simplifying movement, you don't have to break out a measuring tape for each model, and basing 'turns' on a clock mechanic, you alleviate about a billion things that discourage me when playing other mini's games. For one, there's no debate over whether something is 'in range' or not... no 'slips' of the measuring tape that seem to give your opponent an extra half an inch on every move. heh. Perhaps you've never had that experience, but trust me; it's nice not to have to even worry about it! By doing movement based on a grid map, and basing powers and attacks on a clock mechanic, many of the rules are simplified without removing the 'tactical' portions of a miniatures game.



----------------------| A couple of the Miniatures |---------------------




Here is a picture of the play area and you can see the figure scale... as compared to a 288 pound man...

Plastic pre painted: Well, I can tell you, there just isn't anything cooler than an army of metal figures painstakingly painted with tender loving care all spread out on a battle field, and that's just how it is.

That said, there are plenty of draw backs which pre painted plastic fig's fix. I'll just list em here: (ya sure, I'm doing this as sort of a personal exercise attempting to complete my conversion to the medium... but stick with me for a sec.)

Here goes:

Price: Plastics are just less expensive. That's a given.

Time: And this one is HUGE! Seriously, if I can get a fig put together and painted in less than 2.5 hours, I'm doing pretty dang good. That’s allot of time I coulda been playing.

Transportability: sure Metal is stronger - but I'll be honest, I don't feel like I have to be as protective about my plastic figs as I don metal ones. No special army transport case for plastic... unless a cardboard box is special...

ok, those are the best arguments - so, I guess I have to place those against the fact that I really like the feel of Metal figures, and the look of Painted metal Figs. and put that up against the above arguments, as well as consider the fact that these plastic minis look FANTASTIC! I counted 6 individual colors on one model alone while I was at the preview game. That's great! The sculpts were fantastic! So, at least if they can't be metal painted figs, they do still look just about as good as a person could get.
I suppose if someone was real ambitious, they could paint over the pre-paint... call it a sort of a primer coat. But, honestly I don't think that people will need to do that, the figs looked great!

Some other features that I really liked were the universal removable game bases. Very cool. When I have these on a shelf, they can look like a great collectible. When I want to play, snap on a game base, and I have some great info. For use in my games! It’s like they took the thing that wasn't fun with Hero Clicks (that all the models had that clunky base on them,) and the thing that wasn't so cool with DnD minis. (That all the models don't have anything that helps use them in a game on them,) and came up with a solution that works for collectors and players alike. I love that idea! I just hope that the bases or figs don't were out so that it’s difficult to get the figure to stay attached to the base... we shall see.

Well, I'd like to write a bit more about my experience, but I'm all out of time. I had a Blast, and really appreciated Justin taking time to run me through a game!

I'm really looking forward to Bliz Con where I'll be able to play in a turny it sounds like, where I can keep the models that I play with.




oh.. Dang, I didn't mention the 'powers' cards - What a cool concept! By making powers on cards that you can mix and match, it really ups the re-playability of the game! Seriously, using cards that can change to 'enhance' the powers of your min is such a cool idea! I loved it absolutely and can't wait to learn all the 'powers' and put together an unstoppable force!

Thanks again!

zWolf -out.

(Wade Hone.)