Con of the North 2026: Post-CotN Gaming Enthusiasm

After all those days of board gaming at Con of the North 2026, I wasn’t quite ready to stop. So I pulled out a game I’d been meaning to learn for a while, Undaunted 2200: Callisto. I own the WW2 original Undaunted series, which I love, even if I never find someone to play it with consistently. And I’m well aware not everyone likes Nazis in their game, even imaginary ones. So 2200 goes with a scifi theme instead and changes it up a bit. Rather than using tiles to set up the game, it has four heavy two-sided boards to avoid the painful initialization. And instead of just troops (that changes in further expansions of Undaunted), it has troops and mechs, which have multiple pilots, gunners, etc. The abilities each unit has reflect the capability of attacking other troops or mechs or both. If you’re not familiar with the game, it’s card driven. So you need to draft your units/cards, return them to the pool when they’re not useful at different stages or you want to optimize drawing other cards, and keep enough of them in your deck that when your opponent gets a kill, there’s a card to remove from the game as “damage”. When there are no more cards to remove from your hand, discard, or deck, that unit is no more.

It took me a while to refamiliarize myself with the basic Undaunted rules. And then some additional time with the slight rule differences. I agree with Shut Up and Sit Down (vlog on youtube) that the manual is NOT an easy bit of documentation to parse, even if the rules are fairly minimal. And there were some bits and pieces that were a little more difficult to sus out without playing through it a few times and then looking up online commentary. For example, how bridges and elevated platforms don’t block line of sight. Think of them as “on stilts”. The only real line of sight that exists is between under a bridge and on a bridge (and it’s not a hop up and down, you need to go at it from the ends of the bridge in that case). That’s a good reminder for myself: scenario 2 has bridges and I should verify I’m using them correctly when it comes to moving non-mech troops into the underside of the facility.

Suppression is another tricky rule. I thought per the rulebook it applied to mechs and troops, but the suppression skill has to have the mech icon in the suppression ability for that to work. Otherwise, mechs can be fairly un-suppressionable which is a significant perk if you’re going up against a bunch of chain guns that roll four dice and just keep pinning you down every turn unless you draw a card combo to get out of suppression and do a follow up action.

That said….because I’m playing with myself, I’m slowly figuring out my blind spots. After about 5 rounds of the first scenario, I’ve moved on to scenario number two which introduces pulses (push a unit) and basically mortar-type weapons (all enemy units in a zone) for the miners, and a new mech for the corporate security forces. Did I mention it’s a bit of capitalism vs. labor theme? I have to tell my brain not to be biased toward labor while playing myself. However, I know strategically I’m still not using the mechs quite right as they tend not to move much, and just lay down suppression fire. Part of me always thinks they’re more fragile than they are because I’m so used to troop suppression grinding an advance to a halt. There is a solo mode, but I find it more interesting to basically have half my brain pretend it doesn’t know what the other half is doing and play as two players. That way if I want to teach it or host it somewhere that allows two person games, I’m more prepped. Something to check on for next year’s Con. Or maybe one of the local brewery gaming nights if I give some advance warning. Fortunately, I’m always happy to teach something to a new group and arbitrate. I learn as much seeing it through fresh eyes.

Con of the North 2026: Sunday - Day 3

 Yeah. This is a lot of board gaming. But I’m down to the last two. My first Sunday game was Salvage: Deep Space, a 2023 Kickstarter. Although there are an awful lot of games you can apply the Kickstarter label to now. I have a suspicion I own more Kickstarter-backed games and extensions than I do non-socially funded ones, taking a cursory glance at my shelf. I really enjoyed this one. You’re part of a group of collaborative mechs, big mechs you pilot, but not kaiju-fighting sized mechs, trying to salvage post-peak Earth gear and equipment and resources while worrying about alien bugs. e.g. you’re in old labs and mining facilities doing a bit of Stalker/Roadside Picnic.

An interesting aspect of the game is that to avoid the collaborative player dictator that so often happens in that time of game, Salvage has you play your two proposed actions with no discussion at the beginning of the turn to mimic a sort of soft telepathy between players as a plot point. To force individuals to make their own decisions but telegraph the likely play as a collaborative mechanic. If you do your proposed actions, or they’re completed as a side effect of someone else doing the same action, like a bug kill, then those successes play into players being able to recharge their systems faster and act together better with some perks. At any time you can just go off script, although it affects the overall perks you work to accumulate. Different mechs have different specialties, focusing on resource accumulation, tank, speed, and balanced play.

I played Al (not A.I., AL) the balanced mech pilot, but channeled a healthy dose of Leroy Jenkins. While everyone was in an area doing cleanup, even before the fighting was complete, I’d just charge ahead to the next area. My plan wasn’t specifically about staying in character, but rather was with the hope it might allow us to finish within our 4 hour block. It did! Barely. I think the team was surprised when I charged ahead, looking like I was setting myself up for disaster, and then my character was able to power sword two of the last bugs at the same time for a double kill and step back and let the last one charge me resulting in a stun. My other goal was to try all my perks and the sword and stun were last on my list. Mission accomplished. It’s not a cheap game. About $159-199 depending on the version: minis or no minis (and you’ll want the minis). But if you had a scifi-centric group of consistent players, it’d be a good one to play through the series and you’d get better value than going to movies or maybe even one of the standard streaming subs.

A big thanks to Ben, a different Ben than the zombies Ben and yet, afterwards I find out, both apparently software managers. He did an excellent job walking us through the basics and giving us some course correction when we were confused. Pretty seamless and included lots of detail about the mechs, the story line, and the interactions.

And my last game. Ahoy Expansions and Demo. It’s just Ahoy, but per that link we played with the Fang and Fortune expansion and Rivals and Renegades expansion. I’m not sure what the “demo” part of the session title was all about. We definitely played a full game. The second day we were at Con of the North, Aeryn and I turned a corner and ran into my friend Chris (and former fellow high school graduate, and fellow Eagle Scout from the same troop, and fellow high school D&D three-person party, and covid era D&D GM, and fellow end of covid era sky pirate raccoon). Chris had come to town to play with his brother who lives in the cities (who we also played D&D with over covid and once in person). They were doing a mix of RPGs and boardgames, so we didn’t see much of them during the Con because Aeryn and I have stayed away from RPGs at Cons since a weird experience playing a one shot at Gameholecon many many years ago. But for our very last game we ended up at the same room and although we were initially at different tables, we jockeyed a bit to play the same board. I own Ahoy, but I had never played it prior to CoTN. Asymmetricals sometimes aren’t my jam even if I understand the appeal. Although they’re definitely more to my liking than push-your-luck mechanics. I played the snails – they had a different name, but I thought of them as just the snails – whose core tactic is to leave snail dudes everywhere on the islands. Chris played the Beast, who’s not a pirate at all, but an expansion sea monster, spawning heads and humps and trying to eat my motie (try that reference on for size) snails. Chris’ brother played the shark pirates who are a bit UK rule the sea sorts. Our table coordinator played the smugglers. It was a tight game overall, although Chris had some trouble getting the mechanics of the beast right and I don’t blame him. That one really seemed like it might need a few plays to nail down the logistics. I can see why people like this and Root, which is by the same company (Leder). You can just switch factions the next time for a new experience if something doesn’t suit you. However, some of the faction interactions can seem a bit unbalanced until you pick up what your particular edge might be, or how to hide your tactics in the noise of the other players. Congrats to Chris’ brother for a solid win playing the points game at the end.

One final observation. I love the new location in Bloomington. It’s within walking distance of a bar, Wood Hill Brewing, that not only serves beer but has a good menu of sandwiches, wings, and even some unique desserts. Walking distance in Minnesota in February usually means a block or two, although at half a mile one way I think this would have been doable even if it hadn’t been unseasonably warm as long as you brought the right clothes. Additionally there was a coffee shop across the lot (two actually), a DQ across the lot, a buffet nearby, what looked like a great breakfast buffet on site, a pretty comprehensive bar on site, and some other restaurants a short drive away. That it cut the distance to home in half was a bargain as well. Overall, an excellent three days.

Con of the North 2026: Saturday - Day 2

 I’ll be a little more to the point today. Enough masticating my words like an old man. But believe it when you read it. Consider my habit of writing more than necessary, but without oodles of adjectives piled on adjectives, as an anti-AI writing habit. Although if LLMs scrape training data from my blog and you ask for a paragraph in NodToNothing’s style, I suspect I have more words on the internet to interrogate than anyone short of an author or a reporter.

Aeryn and I started around 10 a.m. on Saturday. I think that’s become our habit. Versus 8 a.m. I worried in Plymouth about finding a parking spot that late, although the space way down the street against the deep snowbank in the sub-zero weather was generally open. But Bloomington parking in the hotel lot was particularly easy this year, even at 10. Although I did see a lot of cars in the afternoon doing spins around the lot to find an opening.

My a.m. game was Car Wars 6^th Edition. It’s a mini-driven (driven, ha, punny) rulers and custom dice weaponized car game. There’s a board, but primarily as a way to establish barriers to the track/space. You could just as effectively play on any flat surface without a board. Set up was messy as the coordinator forgot some pieces and there were cases to dig through. In the end – e.g. forty minutes later - we all used a variety of the same setup for car bodies/armor, but not for the weapons or auxiliary systems (like my targeting computer) which we randomized via some cards. Overall, the game is a lot like my nephew’s Star Wars game I gave him many birthdays ago, with some curves/rulers for determining where you’re going, how far, and how much damage you take trying to make a turn/move of varying mechanical stress. My car ended up with two one-use missiles, one to a side, and a front-mounted flamethrower. One of the other players questioned my willingness to drive at high speed through my own flamethrower, but there was no wind mechanic and I pictured it much more like a movie than real physics. 

My load out wasn’t optimal as my only long range weapons required I commit to their one use per side. Other players had some much more effective pulse-cannon style attacks. But I did enough general damage with the flamethrower and maneuvering to where others were more likely to engage with higher-danger targets. Until someone realized I’d been the one ablating their armor and they decided to ram me. My patience with my weapons paid off and I buried a missile in the side of their car, burning out their engine. My guidance computer helped, but I was amused that I was using it despite being close enough to probably throw the missile. As they coasted away to a stop, another car came up on an intercept that I set on fire – c’mon, picture me at top speed letting loose with the flamethrower as it blows into the side of another car and back over my hood until I emerge like a phoenix...glorious! And then I proceeded to run away while he tried to do a super tight curve to avoid the wall as a result of his intercept attempt. Why...why run away!? Well, cars had drivers and passengers equipped with weapons and grenades as well, so that effectively put me at a better range to avoid them and it meant with only a few minutes left in the session I could finish the game alive, although not necessarily the winner. My wife and I played a lot of Vigilante 8 on the PS2 back in the pre-2000s so this experience brought back some fond memories.

Game 2 was Street Fighter the Miniatures Game with TCAT. I played this with them once before. I remember being very confused about how the combos worked last time as well as some of the interactions with the cards to determine a block or a miss. e.g. you basically “guess” what kind of attack the other person is throwing and try to rock-paper-scissors (well, rock-rock, paper-paper, scissors-scissors) their choice. Some variations bypass the typical trio to mix it up even more. I was much more on top of it this time, although that countering language at the bottom of the card in Times New Roman 4 point strains my old eyes. My primary goal was to try all my abilities as Balrog the boxer, although he didn’t lend himself to combos in general like some of the other characters. I positioned a bit to take out the character I thought had the most combo interaction first because I had a sneaky suspicion that would be a problem when he really got going. He showed me his cards after he took his fatal hit and yeah….he could have dropped most anyone with one more turn. Here’s my character, twice. One with his card focused in the foreground, and another with the scenery more in focus so you can see the trees we kept throwing each other into as well as the board.

The only bad part about the game was we had a player with decision lock. He had to re-read his cards each time and you could tell he wasn’t sure what to do sometimes after a thorough review even with some help/hints. And then sometimes after a few hints he’d start all over reviewing the cards one-by-one once again. The first couple hours we were really concerned we wouldn’t get to finish the game. I noted above I had issues with the rules previously, but what little proactive deal-with-the-outcome-just-make-a-decision manager threads there are in me are very good about applying that to board games. I enjoy the mechanics and the players and seeing how things interact, so sometimes a bad decision is as good as a good decision if it moves the game along.

We had a teen at the table who was really enjoying the game. About mid-way I decided I could contribute to their overall enjoyment (see above, I enjoy the mechanics and the players, not necessarily winning), so I focused on surreptitiously spreading my damage and maneuvering to bring people near each other in a way to drag health levels down to close to zero. Then at the end I closed on the other remaining player despite knowing it would take me close to dead so the kid could finish us off. They did. Super excited.

Game three was Manatee Sanctuary and just me and Aeryn. I brought it with me in case there was some down time. It is the epitome of a “cozy” board game. We played two games over a beer Aeryn brought me from Wooden Hill Brewing as our lunches were somewhat staggered.

This time we used the “goals” for each round (three rounds) to see if it got rid of some of the randomness when it comes to the push-your-luck yellow manatees attract more manatees mechanic. I know...I hate push your luck games, but this one is a bit more constrained when it comes to how you manage pushing your luck. You still have to feed everyone if you don’t want to feel like a manatee murderer. The goals didn’t completely change the strategy, but they do add an extra layer of thinking to how you coordinate your manatee collection and your mating/feeding spring. We still split our cards 2/3 instead of 1 and 4 almost exclusively and we haven’t used the green manatee expansion yet, so I suspect there’s quite a bit of strategy to explore still. Speaking of...here’s me with a manatee at Blue Springs in Florida in 2011.

Finally, my last and late night game. I played until 10 p.m. Saturday Night at the Mall. You can’t find this one on Board Game Geek. It’s a custom mash up of Last Night on Earth and Mall Madness to create a sort of Dawn of the Dead style board game.

This might have been my favorite game of the Con. We played against a game master – shout out to Ben who was an absolute riot – who ran the mall and affiliated shops full of zombies. The players can exchange die numbers (1-6) which affects their movement and ability to attack and search, so there’s a lot (a LOT) of discussion about who can use what die and what benefits they get for which numbers. Better and more productive interaction than I get in many engineering / product meetings.

If you die during the game, you get a new character. But your old character is likely to become a more powerful zombie which is a real p.i.t.a. because it’s not like you’re every really winnowing down the total load of zombies in the first place. The GM gets bonus zombies and bonus moves based on some dice rolls, as well as cards to bump zombies and play actions. For their part players get loot/gear and various special abilities that have a lot of interaction. We played right up until the last minute trying to get the items we needed into the truck, throw gas at the zombies, throw dynamite at the zombies, and sometimes simply stare at the zombies while we tried to figure out a way down the elevator without ending up in the middle of a hungry mob.

We didn’t make it. The zombies ate us and our truck without enough supplies was left idling in the parking lot. There was a lot of fun asking Ben the GM how many items we needed in the truck to win. Nine (9). How many do we have? Two (2). So how many are we short? And then the next person would ask the exact same set of questions. It was accidental at first because so many conversations were happening around a big table to optimize strategy, but then it became a bit. It really felt like a spirited drinking board game experience just without the beer. A good example of where losing was still a fun journey even if my poor farm girl was so much brain sashimi before the end. 

Con of the North 2026: a Random Interlude of Games I Did Not Play

I thought I'd share two photos of games at Con of the North that I didn't play but were fun to see in action.  This is some dedication to Diplomacy.  I've never played it before, although I know Sean loves - or at least loved - the game.  I think both Kyle and I own copies we haven't played.  That 360 minute estimated time frame is a bit of an impediment.  Presumably this sort of giant setup makes the time pass a little faster.

I've noticed that Gameholecon in Madison tends to have quite a few more "big" games, often with racks of miniatures, than CotN.  The TCAT folks host a lot of larger games in their space, but the overall minis vibe seems more muted.  Although maybe that's my experience.  I wondered about it and looked it up and GHC is 4x the size of CotN.  Roughly 6000 attendees to 1500 attendees.  That surprised me.  My boardgaming at GHC the year before last was pretty restricted as far as choices.  They have a two tier pass system so tier one gets first pick of newer (and more popular) games.  It can be slim picking if you're not careful.  But that 4x scope doesn't mentally align with the number of board game options even then in my estimation.  I suspect the RPG and minis areas must pull in a lot of people.  I know the RPG spaces are packed for days (they can get a little....stale) and take up whole convention floors.  Giving it some thought, there are an amazing number of sort-of-off-site games going on as well at GHC and you'll walk past hotel rooms and areas constantly where there are other games being played.  I think at CotN I only saw one instance of that and the hotel wasn't packed because there was space for a bunch of egging-each-other-on-to-be-annoying 8-11 year old hockey players as well.  If you're comparing Cons, the lack of a table fee at CotN is nice.  Those $4 per play fees can add up quickly. And the space at CotN this year seemed way more relaxed than the rooms at GHC.  But I do miss hanging at a rental for a weekend with friends and family to game and then come back to cook at the shared shelter and game some more into the late night.

I thought this was Circus Maximus at first.  My friends and I played a lot of that as teens.  Wow...$194 on eBay?  Too bad mine has been shown so much love.  That's a fun game, slamming chariots into each other until someone flips and is dragged behind their horse team.  We did the betting and upgrading a few times, but to be honest that didn't really add much beyond making games longer.  You were better off handing out a few points people could spend on horses, chariots, driver as they pleased and play a one-shot race.  I do fondly remember running down a charioteer who'd flipped his chariot and was running for the safety of the wall.

Anyway...this one had fantasy themed animal teams instead of horses.  Mayyybe Chivalry is Dead: Race for the Crown.  Although that seems to have a giant board already with a different configuration.  And it's only been in Kickstarter since last year I think, so I'm not sure if it's even out.  Might be a mini-driven game specifically.  Those are a bit harder to sus out because they can have small groups of diehard fans and you have to know where to find the assets/rules.  Regardless, as a Circus Maximus fan, this looks fun.

Con of the North 2026: Friday - Day 1

We usually start a little later on the first day so we can do some breakfast. I was worried OPH (the Original Pancake House) in Edina might be too crowded now that we’ve moved from Plymouth to Bloomington for the Con. The OPH on the way to the Crowne Plaza was always pretty hit or miss and Aeryn and I ended up at the counter most years and even congratulated Ming on missing breakfast last year because it would have been tight. But once we got there it was obvious we were post morning rush on a workday. Or people don’t have as much money. Regardless, I was glad I filled up on a big breakfast as my next real meal wasn’t until dinner. That happens at the Con more than you’d suspect. Although the longer games I had tended to get out early in a few cases creating a break where I hadn’t planned one for eating.

Our games hadn’t started yet by the time we got there, so we spent some time reading and hanging out. One of the attendees, Randy, stopped to ask me about my book (reading Joe Hill’s King Sorrow. I didn’t realize it’s his first since 2016’s The Fireman. I really enjoyed that book) and turned out to be an expert in Hive. As in he wrote and published a strategy book for Hive. I’ve been playing Hive with Sank at North 20 Brewing in Rosemount lately, so it was amusing to bump into someone trying to sell me on it as a great game. Given he was alone at his table a few times, I’m one of the few people who doesn’t need convincing. I was full up on my dance card, so even though Hive is short I didn’t get a chance to play with him during the Con. Sank will probably appreciate my inability to add some new master-level tricks to my repertoire.

My first game was Puerto Rico, an oldie in the history of board games. And number 54 on the overall Boardgamearena list. You can tell it’s from an earlier era of gaming because it has some questionable nomenclature. e.g. that’s almost always slaves, master, etc, and not in the fantasy sense. Our coordinator chose to call them citizens instead. I play it so infrequently that it’s almost like learning it all over again each time, but I remembered enough this time to have a strategy. It helps that it runs a little long (1.5-2 hours) for what it is, in my opinion, so there’s some built in time to think through what you intend to do without delaying the overall play. I focused on generating money from everyone else’s trade events via a variety of trading products rather than a commodity focus, which meant by the end of the game I was swimming in enough cash to pick up the larger point-scoring buildings and a healthy win. I noticed at home that I haven’t pulled San Juan off the shelf in forever. That used to be a favorite around our house and is Puerto Rico but with cards where the cards can be swapped as resources and money, so there’s a bit of use it for multiple purposes at the expense of another purpose tactic. I opened the San Juan box and saw the scorecards included playing with Kyle and Adam in Wisconsin when we were drinking and failing to bike because of a tornado, with Aeryn at various Cons including our first Gameholecon in Madison, and quite a few other surprising historical plays. I can see why people track their games on Board Game Geek. It’s nice to see that history and remember the context. Although I never look at my old BGG history given my anti-onemoreplacetorecord old man vibe, and I do look at the score cards I keep with the physical games because they’re right there the next time you play one, as long as you don’t trade it away.

Next up was Marrying Mr. Darcy with the Emma and Undead expansions. Erika Svanoe, the designer, used to show up at Gameholecon. She’s a local composer/conductor, so if you go to some woodwind events locally, you might see her doing her “real” job. She’s actually a bit of a polymath if you read her bio, and her husband has done the art for her game and for Distilled which I played with some UK friends on Board Game Arena. Marrying Mr. Darcy is another game I personally own (kickstarted...a Jane Austen theme is likely to catch my attention) and have played before. It’s fairly straight forward. You’re collecting and playing cards that boost your Pride and Prejudice character’s stats so that they eventually attract the best suitor/husband. Each character has a different suitor/husband priority list vaguely in line with the book. The Emma expansion adds some more book-centric thematic cards. And the undead expansion (keyed off the book/movie Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) throws a wrench in it by turning some characters into zombies, some suitors into zombies, and adding some ways to unzombify victims. My understanding is yes, you can marry a zombie or marry as a zombie. I don’t play that expansion much. I won, although it wasn’t because of some suitor/marriage. I became Harriet Smith, a very reputable governess, which let me double certain stats for scoring purposes. I won’t let some man determine my innate worth. If I remember right, last time I played I won as an “old maid”, so I definitely have a theme when I play the game.

Finally...Friday finally, not overall con finally, I played Age of Civilization the card game. This was one of the few sub 3-4 hours games I played at only an hour. It was also my least favorite. Klund had me play something similar at his house once that I much preferred...ah, Innovation. I definitely liked the mechanics of that one better. Age of Civilization has a good mechanic for deciding how to play your three civilizations as conquered or conquerors of your own prior civs to balance your perks as the timeline advances and changes what you can take advantage of. It would be a particularly good bar/coffee shop/travel game given the size and quick play, something I’m often watching for in a game (example, Arboretum, Love Letter, The Crew, San Juan). However, I think it lends itself to a little bit of civ / card memorization potential given the limited card set that would affect replayability, particularly if it’s an experienced player against a n00b.

Whew. Friday was the short day.