From the category archives:

Event reports

Lautapelaamaan 2011 (Helcon)

November 10, 2011

Traditional Helcon is now Lautapelaamaan (“to play board games”). The event remains the same: a weekend of open gaming in Helsinki couple of weeks after Essen. 2011 saw another change in venue, this time to a bigger hall inside Kaapelitehdas. Not bad, as the hall last year was a bit crowded, but Kaapelitehdas is a [...]

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Ropecon 2011

August 5, 2011

I’ve been avoiding Ropecon for the last ten years or so, but since I missed both JunaCon and JyCon — both more interesting cons for various reasons — I decided to go for Ropecon this year. It’d be a day trip to Espoo, meaning two hours or so of driving both ways and about eight [...]

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Helcon 2010: The Rest

November 18, 2010

The first part covered Eclipse. Now, the rest. This year choosing what to play wasn’t difficult. Oskari had a list of games from my collection he wanted to try, I wanted to play those games as well so that’s what we did. String Railway was the obvious starter. I ended up playing the game twice. [...]

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Helcon 2010: Eclipse

November 15, 2010

Helcon was good. The new location was nice, bigger than before but not too big, all-in-all a well organised con. Thanks to proper planning, I was able to spend my time fairly efficiently. It did take us almost two hours to get the first game running: waiting for players, handling the three boxes of games [...]

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Helcon expectations

November 11, 2010

This weekend it’s Helcon time again, the best con in Finland. This year it’ll be something new, as the con has moved from its previous location to a much bigger venue. Before it has filled the house to capacity (~100) without much advertising, I wonder how it’ll turn out this year. There are some publisher [...]

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JunaCon: 1830, Preußische Ostbahn

February 28, 2010

Yesterday I made a trip to Turku — two hours driving each direction — just to play two games. Crazy? Well, one of the games was a five-hour game of 1830. Still crazy? Well, I like being crazy that way. It was my first go at this most significant game in the 18xx family. We [...]

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Helcon notes, 2009 edition

November 7, 2009

Helcon was last weekend. The event was again great success, with lots of good games available. Running the event just week after Essen proved a bit problematic, as some of the games arrived from Essen on Friday, barely in time. I did a day trip for the first time, driving to Helsinki in the morning [...]

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Helcon 2008 review, part 4

December 4, 2008

Continuing from the part 1, part 2 and part 3. Le Havre. I had already decided to pass Le Havre because I felt it was going to be too long for me anyway. Well, Tommy suggested it for my last game in Helcon and I agreed, because I do want to try it. We got [...]

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Helcon 2008 review, part 3

December 3, 2008

Let’s see what I didn’t cover in part 1 or part 2… see also part 4. GemBlo Pyramid. This dice-pyramid game is apparently good, if played with the expert rules. Well, we couldn’t figure them out, so we tried the basic game. That one isn’t good, since making the pyramids isn’t particularly interesting and the [...]

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Helcon 2008 review, part 2: Preußische Ostbahn

December 3, 2008

Continuing my Helcon review, see part 1 here, there’s also part 3 and part 4. Preußische Ostbahn. Another Historic Railroads System game from Winsome, fairly closely related to Wabash Cannonball. However, this one’s billed as “German family game”. Indeed, the game is a lot more gentle — yet still quite a challenge. This time the [...]

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