So in a mad rush I did manage to finish the arena build in time for Shire Con. There is still a lot to do including filling the bleachers and editor's box with spectators and hanging some banners and laurels etc, but it is at a stage where you can comfortably play a match on it. Not bad for a week and a half's work.
The doors arrived with only 2 days to go, cut by a friend on his laser printer, and it took me some time to figure out how I could make them function. In the end I simply glued a kebab stick at the hinge end of the door at then anchored the stick between the floor of the editor's box and the arena sand, without gluing of course.
The rest of the build went really smoothly after the doors. I affixed all the railings and posts in place and after a lick of paint to the arena proper, started planning the portico of the editor's box. The pantile roof construction was done using plastic fridge liner, that I have already detailed here.
Shire Con was pretty small compared to MOAB and appeared
mostly to be a large Warhammer tournament. There were little to no
traders and the Bring & Buy was a bit ordinary. Regardless I had a
very successful day playing Blood on the Sands and had the help of Victor
who has been play testing the rules consistently since I brought them
out of deep freeze.
We played a total of about 8 games and had 4 players, including myself and Victor. Two of the players, Martin and Craig, had never played before but both picked the concepts up very easily and by the end of the day were a couple of pros. Both Craig and Victor won all of their matches. We also had a punter, Andrew, who came along and watched us for twenty minutes or so and was interested in playing a match. Again, it only took him a round or two before he was in full swing, developing tactics and spending dice like Maximus Decimus Meridius.
All in all it was a really great day. I received a lot of positive feedback and some good suggestions about Blood on the Sands. Mostly it has reinforced that the game is simple to learn, albeit with some deep levels of strategy.
Victor demoing to Martin and Andrew.
