Rolling Dice and Taking Names: My CaptainCon 2025 Experience

The problem with game conventions is that there is always too much to see, play, and experience. You never know what you’re going to find. Before the con, looking at the schedule, there’s a lot of guesswork—will this game I’ve never heard of be fun to play? Do I want to roleplay with a bunch of strangers?

I’m not the most social person, but I can pretend to be when needed. So I put myself out there and played a bunch of games I’d never played before with a bunch of strangers and… guess what? I had a great time.

There’s some Malifaux content coming up, but if you’re not interested in my warm-up tournament experience, feel free to scroll past it to read about the other games I played.

Malifaux

We mostly attended to play Malifaux. There was a three-game warm-up tournament on Friday and a two-day, five-game team tournament on Saturday and Sunday. I only participated in Friday’s tournament, but we hung out with the other Connecticut crews after the games. Kasul played in both tournaments, but I left my weekend open to play other games.

Next year, I’ll probably play the team tournament as well. I kinda felt like I was missing out.

First round, I played my Rasputina (Keyword: DECEMBER) against Brewmaster (Keyword: TRI-CHI). Brewmaster’s models are all immune to poison, and their strategy is getting as drunk (poisoned) as possible. They can then spend that poison to gain certain advantages, one of which is that any negative becomes a positive, and every positive becomes a negative. December excels at keeping the enemy at a distance, so they couldn’t really poison me much, but they wore me down by saddling me with negative conditions.

Second round, I switched to Mei Feng, Foreman (Keyword: FOUNDRY) against the Viktorias (Keyword: MERCENARY). The Viktorias are twin masters who can double-team units, though individually they are weaker than most masters. The title version lets them work as a single unit. I thought the corner deployment would be advantageous for Mei Feng, so I switched to her and ended up barely winning. I could have scored more points, but I chose schemes that weren’t realistic. I need to work on scheme selection. My Metal Golem punished the Viks and their crew, forcing them to spend a lot of action points trying to kill it. My opponent didn’t realize I had two healers—Sparks and Spritzer. I probably should have mentioned that. Most opponents target Sparks immediately, but this shows how important it is to know your opponent’s crew.

With a win ensuring I wouldn’t be shut out of the tournament, I switched back to Raspy to play against Tiri, the Nomad (Keyword: BYGONE). This crew likes staying together. I had Bashe on one side of the board, where he forced them to pass duels just to attack and discard more to attack anyone but him. Instead, they all walked right into the pillars Raspy and her crew placed. My December Acolyte stripped their armor and shielding—a big deal for a crew that relies on shielding. However, they managed to break through and take out my models while successfully blocking me from completing my schemes. I really have to work on my scheming. I did manage to achieve my strategies for each turn, though.

Mission to Planet Hexx

This game was being demoed by its designer. It’s a local game from a Rhode Island/Massachusetts-based company and isn’t widely available outside the area. I guess it’s being sold directly to local game shops, and none of the LGS in Connecticut have picked it up yet.

The publishers, Move Rate 20 Games, are based in the Providence/Fall River area, and since I was coming from distant Connecticut, I was treated like an exotic traveler from a distant land. Weird.

Mission to Planet Hexx is played on a hex board, where you place hex-shaped cards to build a map, then travel around collecting data to upload into your Mission File. The Mission File is a randomly dealt card listing the numbers and types of cards (Alien, Planet, Space, Dilemma, Object) needed to win.

Map cards (Planets and Space) each have unique effects when played that break the game’s rules in different ways. Dilemmas, Aliens, and Objects offer various hilarious interactions. In my last game, I played the Planet Hexx, which normally can’t be landed on. But I had a teleportation card, plus another card that let me escape—by trapping someone else there instead.

Later, someone trapped me in there along with my victim. Eventually, I played a card to rearrange the map hexes, freeing us both.

The Mission File includes a fill-in-the-blanks story using the uploaded cards, so the winner has to read a Mad Libs-style victory tale aloud. It’s a lot of fun. I’ll probably pick it up at PAX East.

Fae: An RPG Where You Are The Monster

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I wanted to play a TTRPG. Almost all my formal gaming these days is Malifaux, though I would join a local TTRPG group if I weren’t prioritizing tournaments.

In Fae, each player is a fairy, cryptid, or other supernatural creature who refused the summons back to Avalon and chose to remain in the human world. If any human ever found proof of magical creatures, the whole jig would be up, so the first rule of Fae is: don’t let humans know you exist. The second rule: never reveal your true name, as knowing it gives others power over you.

We played a one-shot called “Fae Spectacular.” Six of us were performers in a magical circus led by the ringmaster, Nicholi. Except for me—I played Flea, a four-inch-tall boggart nearly killed by an evil Fae named Poiside, who attacked me in my ferret form. Nicholi took me in, and I spent most of my time finding lost wallets, car keys, and other valuables humans foolishly leave unwarded.

After a show, we heard humans saying words that sounded like True Names—Avalon was trying to force us back! Worse, Poiside was there and wanted to finish me off. He attacked in owl form, but I was under the stands looking for wallets and only took partial damage. I’m good at sleep spells, so I put him in a deep slumber, tied him up, cursed him with a rash, and had a fire spirit drop a crate on him. Meanwhile, the others dealt with the escaped magical creatures and the humans so we could use our full abilities.

As for me? I poked Poiside with silver needles and recited discarded True Names to him. The GM warned me that if he got free, he’d want to kill me. Oh, I hope so.

Dead Reckoning

I found this pirate-themed game while looking for something to play after lunch. It’s about customizing your ship and crew while exploring, battling, and controlling islands. The game involves a unique card-crafting mechanic where you upgrade crew members by adding transparent overlays to their cards. I played for a couple of hours but barely scratched the surface. Here’s what the publisher says about the game:

Dead Reckoning is a game of exploration, piracy, and influence based in a Caribbean-esque setting. Each player commands a ship and crew and seeks to amass the greatest fortune. They do this through pirating, trading, treasure hunting, and (importantly) capturing and maintaining control over the uninhabited but resource-rich islands of the region. During the game, you can:

• Customize your ship: Your ship is represented by a token on the board. The board starts mostly unexplored and will be revealed as you venture into uncharted waters. You also have a ship board where you load cargo and treasure, and you can customize the guns, speed, or holding space of your ship.

• Card-craft your crew: You have a small deck of cards that will drive your actions in the game, with each card representing one of your crew members. This deck functions like one in a deck-building game, but the cards in the deck are sleeved, and rather than add new crew cards to your deck, you improve the skill and abilities of your crew cards by placing transparent “advancement” cards in those sleeves. Aside from the transparent advancements, your crew will also “level up” naturally during the game using a new card-leveling mechanism not seen in other card-crafting games such as Mystic Vale.

• Control the region: The region is filled with many deserted islands. These islands are a major source of treasure, and players will battle for control of these islands.

• Battle via a dynamic cube-tower: You can battle other players’ ships or NPC merchant ships, and these battles are resolved via a new take on what a cube tower can be, with crew cards and ship powers increasing your chances of victory.

• Uncover secrets of the sea: Expansions for Dead Reckoning use a “saga” system in which certain content remains hidden and is discovered and added to the game organically only via playing. Rather than add everything at once, you gradually add it by playing and discovering. Depending on luck and player choice, less or more new content may get added each game.

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It was a busy weekend, and I only saw a fraction of it. The miniatures tournaments went beyond Malifaux, with Warhammer, Age of Sigmar, Game of Thrones, and others on display. The painting talent alone was phenomenal. I’d love to try more of these games in the future.

It was great to have a weekend away from real-world stress.

Well, the Canadians were handing out free healthcare as consolation prizes, so…