First CMON Expo Top Games

**philcplaysgames** · 07-16-2018, 03:20 PM

All,

I attended CMON Expo for the first time this year and can't speak highly enough about it. I had a blast, played a ton of games, and met some amazing people. I just wanted to take a second to highlight a few games in particular.

1. Dragon Castle: on the first day I played in the beginners Dragon Castle tournament, spoiler I didn't come close to winning. I had only barely heard rumblings about the game before joining the tournament, boy was it fun. Even when getting crushed I was having a blast. This was my first purchase of the con!

2. Council of 4: I played the demo of Council of 4, which was a game I was hoping to check out while there. I love the route-building, hand-management, engine building mash-up found in this game. It is simple in mechanics but has interesting depths to explore. I would classify this as a gateway-plus game. This is a category I've been trying to build out in my collection for those friends I have already played a number of gateway games with, to migrate them to the next level, or to start friends out with if I feel they have the right personality to skip the gateway game. This game was a con hit and it was actually sold out before I could pick up a copy; I preordered it on Amazon while at the con.

3. Song of Ice & Fire: this was the surprise hit for me. I have never played a tactical miniature game before, and honestly had no intention of trying this one. However, a group of people I met at the con was really interested to try it so I sat down for a game. WOW! This game was fun. Just simple enough to be approachable as a player who has never played a miniature wargame, but with a lot of both tactical and strategic depth. I feel the game balances tactics and strategy well. We played it team vs. team with each player controlling a set of units. It was so much fun to discuss tactics and strategy with a group. I'm waiting to see if I could convince enough of my friends back home to play a game like this, but would love to add it to my collection.

Where you at the 2018 CMON Expo? What games were your instant-buys? Were any games surprise hits for you? Let me know in the comments!

**45thdiv** · 07-17-2018, 10:31 AM

My first time going as well. It was a lot of fun. I brought the large zombicide black plague stone city. Everyone said they had a great time. I am hoping to go again next year with a few 3D set ups for green horde. I'll bring the city back as well.

Matthew

**philcplaysgames** · 07-17-2018, 10:54 AM

That's awesome Matthew! I remember seeing your stone city, fantastic! What did you use to build it? What ideas do you have for a 3D green horde setup?

**45thdiv** · 07-17-2018, 06:58 PM

I’m glad you liked the city. Lots of stuff went into making the city, but the core building were purchased from Tabletop world. Their buildings are unpainted resin, but there is detail inside the buildings as well and the fit of the buildings is very snug. They were a lot of fun to paint, but after a while I was getting tired of painting all that split timber around the houses. The barricades were made up of lots or doll house, model railroad, and other game terrain furniture and crates and barrels. The low walls were old items I have for historical miniature gaming as were the hedges.

now, those hedges would be perfect for the green horde boards, but they are really expensive, so I am looking at custom making them. For the green horde games I want to run, I am actually going to keep close to the tiles from the game. I designed each tile to be about an inch and a half tall so that I could do some fun stuff with clear resin for the flooded zones. The buildings will be made from scratch and have more of a mud wall/split timber look like county cottages in Europe. The goal in the design is to allow the buildings and hedges to support the weight of a few other tiles stacked on top for transporting and storage. I am thinking that the buildings and hedges will be 2 inches tall. I am thinking of thatched rooftops for the buildings as well and they will be removable. This will also help with storage and transport.

I'm going to have two green horde games running and the Black Plague city running at the same time to allow more people a chance to play. I really had a great time running the one game at the last expo. Looking forward to next year. Hopefully more folks will be able to play one of games.

**alexwhite** · 10-22-2020, 12:18 PM

Originally Posted by 45thdiv

My first time going as well. It was a lot of fun. I brought the large zombicide black plague stone city. Everyone said they had a great time. I am hoping to go again next year with a few 3D set ups for green horde. I'll bring the city back as well.

Matthew

https://i0.wp.com/zombicide.eren-his...xpo_3D_BP2.jpg
This one?

**45thdiv** · 10-22-2020, 06:01 PM

Originally Posted by alexwhite

https://i0.wp.com/zombicide.eren-his...xpo_3D_BP2.jpg
This one?

that was the one. 2018. Last year, 2019 I had 3 games running. The big city, Green horde with lots of hedges, and the another green horde/Black Plague set up. The two new set ups were made to look like the green horde tiles, just 1.5 times bigger.

for next year I am working on a new, 4th set up of a village with a river. I’m testing out the river rules and they are looking Name: 4960EF8E-3EC0-47E8-89AB-3FE23D7D8858.jpg
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