Northeast Wars X

Heroes everywhere beware! The mastermind himself, Steve Kenson, returns to Northeast Wars as special guest, GM and all around neat guy. Steve’s credits include designing Mutants & Masterminds and working as line developer for Green Ronin Publishing.

This year, Steve offers a delightful repast of roleplaying and related activities:

• Two, count ‘em, two sessions of Mutants & Masterminds, as GMed by the man himself.
• A super secret playtest, the contents of which not even we, your friendly neighborhood con staff, know anything about.
• A friendly and open discussion-style panel to discuss what’s going on Green Ronin, Steve’s own Talon Publishing and gaming in general.

Find out more about Steve’s games on the Roleplaying Games page — RPGs 517, 518 and 519, respectively — then hie yourself over to the Registration page to save yourself a seat!

Troops from the New England garrison of the steadfast 501st Legion, maintainers of the Empire’s peace on Earth, will deploy the weekend of April 3rd through the 5th to oversee the execution of Northeast Wars, a recreational activity sanctioned by local representatives of the Empire.

When not pursuing their duties of tracking down traitorous rebels and contraband droids, members of the 501st will be available for photo opportunities with loyal citizenry.

Last year, TK-3220 performed admirably in keeping the peace at Northeast Wars VIII. We look forward to welcoming him and his comrades in arms back this April. His mission report can be read here, with accompanying photographic records.

We’re very pleased to welcome back Doug Duprey, host of Design & Conquer on Online Gaming Radio, to Northeast Wars. Last year, Doug provided live coverage of the convention from the ground as it happened. You can check out the pictures Doug took of the Resurrection here.

This year, Doug will provide the same level of live coverage, talking to guests and conventioneers as they catch a break between gaming slots. When you see him around the hotel this April, say hi!

With just over a month to go before Northeast Wars IX kicks off, it seems like an opportune moment for a news roundup.

• Steve Kenson, creator of Mutants & Masterminds and staff designer for Green Ronin Publishing, returns as our guest of honor to run some games and hold a panel on the state of RPG publishing. We will have more details on this in coming weeks.
• Groups of five or more can preregister at a discount!
• Attendees staying at the Inn can use their room receipt to get a discount on merchandise at Quarterstaff Games. The Inn at Essex’s convention rate expires March 15th, so make your reservations now.
• Events have been rolling in since we put the call out. Thanks to everyone who’s volunteered! There are too many games to name, so just check out the online schedule.
• The Society for Creative Anachronism will be in attendance, showing off their crafts, mock combat techniques and garb.

All this and more — including participating in our new forums and sending in your Northeast Wars photos — is all here on the site, so mosey around if you haven’t visited in a while.

The Saturday of the convention, representatives from the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism will descend upon the Inn at Essex. The SCA, as it’s called for short, is an organization of people interested in the medieval and renaissance periods of history; their activities include period crafts, costuming and mock combats.

Activities the SCA will offer to convention-goers include examples of the crafts they practice, demonstrations of their mock combat exercises and the opportunity for conventioneers to try on some garb themselves.

You can learn more about the Vermont chapter of the SCA at their website, http://www.mountainfreehold.org/.

Get the raiding party together. Northeast Wars is offering a discount for adventuring parties at this year’s convention.

From now until preregistration closes on March 30th, groups of five or more that preregister together for weekend badges pay only $30 per person. To take advantage of this offer, just write an email giving your party’s contact details and event sign-up preferences to northeastwars@gmail.com with the subject line “Group Registration.” A friendly staffer will help get your group all set for the convention.

To find out more about preregistering, including payment options — now with 100% more Paypal! — visit the Register page.

In the name of making preregistration for Northeast Wars as painless as possible, we’ve added another payment method to the arsenal: Paypal. After you fill out and submit the preregistration form, the confirmation page now includes buttons for adding your badge and T-shirt to a Paypal cart.

One of the benefits of preregistering, aside from reserving your spot at those gotta play games, will be a snazzy printed badge. When your opponent across the table cringes at the thunderous clatter of your dice, they won’t have to wonder about the name of the person schooling them. It’ll be staring back at them in forty-eight point font.

It’s good to be a gamer.

With the region being held tight in the grip of a seriously PO’ed Old Man Winter (and according to the source of all knowledge, Wikipedia, he is known in Russian folklore as Morozko, which now brings thoughts of MST3K’s take on Jack Frost, my favorite Russo/Finnish movie ever!) I thought I would toss out some thoughts as to how gaming can help one survive (even when it is -17F, as it is now this morning) until NE Wars which will bring Spring to the land and joy to the hearts of the people!

1. Play a very authentic version of Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries. You may need extra large pieces so that you can move them about even while wearing mittens.

2. Take out all your eurogames with their wonderful and charming wooden pieces out of storage. . .

   . . . and burn them for warmth.

3. Take out all your Avalon Hill games with several pounds of flammable cardboard tokens . . .

   . . . and burn them for warmth.

4. Take out all your boxes of CCG cards that you have spent many happy hours (days, weeks..) at a time playing . . .

   . . . and not burn them for warmth, instead pulp them to make warm cellulose insulation for your house.

5. Play an exciting new variant of A Game of Thrones where whenever the ‘Winter is Coming’ card is drawn everybody has to go outside and run around the house once. Anyone who doesn’t contribute to fending off the Wildings will have to do three laps.

6. Break out all those games that are set in the siege of Stalingrad or Napoleon’s campaign in Russia to make a few days of sub zero weather seem like nothing.

7. Knit meeple cozies for all your meeples.

8. Why stop with meeples? Knit fetching little jackets for all of your Space Marines, Dark Eldar, Orcs, Skaven, Daemons, Zulu, Union and Confederate Regiments, Jacks, Pirates, and of course Trolls.
   

Please add your own comments!

A few weekends ago the NE Wars ‘Gang of Four’ (as in there were 4 of us and we have so much street cred that we must count as a gang) walked through the rooms that in a few months time will echo with the mighty battle cries of boardgamers, roleplayers, and wargamers.

This room, the Atrium, is the proposed site of the miniature war games and any overflow from other rooms. It’s a very big room that has the potential to be a knock out site for the mighty struggles Good vs Evil, Order vs Chaos, North vs South, and Unladen African Swallows vs Unladen European Swallows. Continue reading

For our out of town guests, we’ve worked up a set of driving directions to the Inn at Essex that cover the most popular approaches to the greater Burlington area. You’ll find them on the Location page.

For those coming from farther fields, we have also included a Google Maps widget on the page. Just type in your point of departure, click the button and you’ll have a detailed set of directions to get you right to the Inn at Essex’s front door.