CabinCon Planning Season has arrived! No doubt some folks would follow that with a resounding raspberry sound effect, but I love it. Any CabinCon is good CabinCon. And so I seek a location and dates. I do think we'll return to Raystown this year, as last years Wildwood Cottage was awesome. We might benefit from some more space, so we're looking at a sister property.

Next step after a reservation is to chat about guests I think. We'll have a little more space in the new place so we should be able to add a few, but I'd like to get some feedback before we make any big changes.

Booked!

So the final booking has been made for CabinCon 2013. I'll send out G+ invite shortly.

We are at Lake Raystown this year, and staying at the Wildwood Cottage. It should be pretty epic.

You can find some photos to view on the page as well.

One interesting issue this year will be the TVs and internet. We haven't had them in the past and we may wish to discuss our plans for them.

Playlist

I was really pumped on the drive down to CabinCon this year. The trip there the past two years has really added to the fun for me. Misha and I have carpooled together the past two years, and Etienne joined us this year. Both times it has been great. In 2011 we had an epic lunch at Elk Creek Cafe and this year we hit El Campesino hard. It has just been a great way to kick off CabinCon.

While we were driving, we were discussing the various machetes and other bladed implements that feature in the festivities, and talk turned to War Pig. That led to Misha queuing up a little Sabbath for some driving music.

This brings us to the question de jour: what should be on the official CabinCon playlist? War Pigs is a pretty epic start, so where do we go from there?

2012 in Pictures

Etienne. What can I say? He giveth and he taketh away. While there is nothing that can wipe the foul stain of his Disease from CabinCon, he did a masterful job capturing CabinCon 2012 in pictures. Take a look!

Misha has them here. Don't miss it!

Nerf is amazing

I suppose it is time to gush a little bit more about Bill. He had the brilliant idea to bring Nerf guns to CabinCon this year. Specifically, it was two huge bags of Nerf Vortex disk launchers and an additional purchase of ammo and another gun during the Wal-mart run.

We will discuss the Rob's shameful trip to Wal-mart soon.

It was a tremendous hit. There were numerous spontaneous battles and handful of staged events culminating in an outstanding Last Man Standing with two members succumbing to open wounds. Frankly, you just cannot put a price tag on memories like that.

I found myself most enjoying the five-shot Vigilon. I love the name. Love it. Clearly though, the single-shot Proton was the better gun. It shot straighter and harder and it was also a snap to reload. mI had such a good time that the day after I got back, I took Isaac to Target and bought some Nerf dart guns. We ended up getting a Long Strike sniper rifle and a Nite Strike which features a light sight. They are a tremendous amount of fun, but in all honesty, the disk guns are much better. They shoot faster and straighter. And sting more. Like a boss.

Risk Legacy

I wanted to spill for just a little bit about Risk Legacy. This was brought to CabinCon for the first time, a kind offering from Bill, and was cracked open for the first time Thursday night. Pretty sure it was Thursday night. Over the course of CabinCon 2012, we played a total of three games. If I remember right, each game was five players.

A brief aside - I'm pretty sure Bill picked this up at Phantom of the Attic in Oakland. Bill and I have both dropped a bunch of cash over the years at POTA. They, along with the Comic Swap in State College deserve some credit as "unofficial sponsors" of CabinCon.

I was very impressed with Risk Legacy. The "legacy" features of the game were very rich. Even over the course of three games, it evolved tremendously. It is still very much Risk from the first through third playings, but the game definitely added more depth to the rules changes and scars placed throughout the world. And let me be clear - these changes are not purely cosmetic. There is a feel of increasing depth to the game as rules are added and changed. I don't know if the game is purely balanced - for example, as we left it, two races had two powers (they got their second power from being knocked out) and the other three only had one power. I am fine with this level of imbalance. In fact, it seems that the metagame can do a nice job of informally "balancing" these types of discrepancies.

I am a little disappointed that we did not get a fourth game in. A the end of the third game, we opened a new pack that offered some substantial rules changes to the game - mostly for the set-up/starting phase of the game. I am very interested to see how these impact gameplay. Honestly, I think game four will be a much better game than games 2 and 3 were. (And I really have no substantive complaints about how 2 and 3 played out)

One final note is that the game is rather tight - games typically lasted about 90 minutes, give or take a little. I think this is perfect for a game of this type. I honestly approach a game like this a little more casual - I like to have fun with it. Mayhem, combat, dice rolling, petty vengeances, you know, all that good stuff. I think it lends itself very well to fast, fun, and loose play.

A big thank you again to Bill. This was a great addition to CabinCon and I am sorry it will sit in wait for 11 and a half months.

CabinPlan 2013

So the deal is this - cabins are available for reservation 11 months ahead of time. Not bad. I'd rather 13 months, but what can you do?

RB Winter is out, which is a damn shame, but the park manager has elected to live in the lodge.

So next on the list is the Ski Lodge at Black Mo. This looks like it could be pretty sweet, but a visit is probably in order. The Lakeside Lodge at Shawnee ended up being much better than I expected, but it wasn't ideal. It worked better for Nerf battles than for gaming. Can I get a hell yeah? Note to Bill - one of these would also be acceptable. I promise Ben won't break your bed. There are a few open dates at the Ski Lodge over the next couple weeks, and I definitely want to take a trip up there to give it a look. Even so, I think from some of the pictures online, it looks like it should work really well. My guess is we might need to bring some tables, but with the huge parking area, carpooling won't be a big deal at all for this location. I also want to make sure there is an outdoor fire pit. Good gravy, I hope there will be snow. Epic sledding. Epic.