Prologue
MOAB - Mother of All Battles - is an Annual Wargaming Convention held in Southern Sydney. A few months ago, I decided that I would re-paint my existing MERCS models, as well as new MERCS models, in order to run demos at MOAB - which lead to weeks of non-stop painting:
Well, I was very disappointed (that's what I get for leaving my painting table to exercise!) that I couldn't achieve my goals, but am still proud of what I did manage to accomplish in a few weeks.
Prior to the convention, my two younger brothers were kind enough to sit through a few practice demos, and critique my overall presentation, and help me fine tune it. I found this to be a tremendous help - as someone who has never run any kind of demo before, this was a great way to refine explanations, demo techniques and provide a bit of a confidence boost.
I also had a lot of help from the MERCS Black Ops team - big shout out to all the MERCS across the world for your input on forums and Facebook!
MOAB
After driving a little over an hour to get to the convention, I arrived and set up while the convention was just getting started for day 2 (MOAB is a 3 day event, spanning over a long-weekend). I had been assigned a table from 9:30am-1:30pm, with two half an hour breaks included.
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My table on the main floor - on the top level there were about 20+ tables
for Warmachine/Hordes/Infinity/WH40K. There was a stage behind me,
(not pictured) with about 12 tables for WHFB, as well as Historical games. |
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Close-up of my MERCS table. On the left-side, you can see all my painted
MERCS Megacons on display, as well as some of the starter boxes.
On the right-side, I had the 2D game mats, Rulebook, and Quick-start Rules
for people to peruse at their leisure. |
After a slow start, with people just starting to arrive and vendors putting out their wares, I had my first demo at about 10am... and they didn't stop until 1:30pm! I didn't even get a chance to use my allocated break periods!
I ran four demo games throughout the four hours, and between each game I had plenty of interest and questions coming from players in-between their tournament games. The painted miniatures I had on display were a great attraction, and I did manage to get a LOT of compliments about my painting - all those late nights were worth it! People were also drawn to the 2D game mats, and thumbed through the Rulebook and Quick-Start Rules I had on the table.
The demos themselves went well, and I think everyone involved had good fun and enjoyed their games :) One thing that did stand out was how easy it was to pick up the MERCS game mechanics - after a few example turns, most of the players had a good understanding of the mechanics.
In the final demo before I had to pack-up, one of the players even corrected
me on something - "Doesn't my Assassin have that Active Camouflage thing? He shouldn't have been able to kill me!" In my defence, I did have a long 1 hour drive, followed by 3 hours of demoing on an empty stomach...
The KemVar did suffer a casualty though - a friendly follow, named Steve I think, (with arms as thick as my legs) did manage to snap the Assassin's arm off. Normally, if I had done that to my own model, I'd be furious with myself - but we were all having such a great time, it didn't seem to matter. I probably should have sealed my models before the demo - I'll make sure to do that for next time.
I was a little caught up in the excitement of it all - being my first wargaming convention, as well as my first demoing experience, so I didn't take too many photos. I'll make sure that I take more photos next time.
Epilogue
Well, I had a great time, and I think everyone who had a demo had a great time too. Hopefully I answered everyone's questions well, and let everyone know that MERCS is more than just awesome looking miniatures!
Oh, I'd also like to give a final shout-out to
DEFIANT GAMING - thanks for stocking MERCS Miniatures since they started up two years ago, and always providing excellent service!
Sync out.
