Tucson’s RinCon 2019: Trains, skulls and a giant rhino

Two weekends ago, I went down to Tucson for their annual board game convention RinCon! I particularly love how a bunch of us from the Phoenix area all trek down south to Tucson to game nonstop for a few days. I also love all the unique perks that RinCon offers its convention-goers — from nightly midnight snacks to the wonderfully curated Women’s Space. 

It’s the third year in a row I’ve gone, and the second year in a row I’ve been a special guest. About 600 people attended this year’s convention, which was held again at the Sheraton Tucson Hotel and Suites.

Friday

My buddy Mark and I arrived Friday afternoon, and we dove immediately into a game of Mexica. I love, love this game, and it never fails to disappoint! Everyone always falls in love with the game’s components, and, for me personally, I enjoyed easing into a hectic convention with a game I’m quite familiar with. 

I then taught a 4-player game of Irish Gauge, a stock-based cube-rail train game. It’s the first title in the Iron Rail series by Capstone Games, first published by Winsome games back in 2007.

It’s a 3-5 player game that plays in about 60 minutes. Learning the game is easy; there are 4 actions to choose from after the initial stock bidding around. Players are building track to expand their train company, auctioning of stocks, upgrading towns to cities, or calling dividends. When dividends are called, cubes are randomly pulled from a bag, and that determines which routes will pay out. It’s a very stripped down stock game — complete with adorable candy-like train pieces. Irish Gauge was the first of many train games I played during the weekend.

I then taught a 3-player game Dead Man’s Cabal, a clever puzzly strategy game where players are trying to raise the dead. It has skulls, spells and zombie cards!  Players have a private action, and then everyone does a public action, based on the skulls in play, and each skull represents a board that has actions associated with it. If you don’t have a particular color of that skull in your supply, then you can’t take the action. I really enjoyed this midweight euro! 

Next up was Tokyo Metro, an economic stock game from Jordan Draper games. This is probably the heaviest of his games — and a little busier and fiddly, too — where players are investing in stocks and working to increase the values of stocks, as trains pass through rail stations along a giant cloth map of the Japanese metro. Trains only move a certain number of spots, so you’ll have to calculate payout based on that train schedule, and only certain actions will come out each round, based on the action cards that are phased in. I’d love to try this again, as my train was totally melting down by this time of night.  

Then at 11 p.m., I hosted a Mega Game of Welcome To. About 20 people came out, and we used the Halloween expansion pack for our game. Welcome To is a roll-and-write game that doesn’t involve dice but instead cards containing numbers and special abilities that players use to fill out a map of their city. Everyone selects a number simultaneously so it’s a game that can be played out on the big screen in a large group.

And even though I was nervous running my first mega game ever, I had a great time, and I think everyone did, too. The winner was GloryHoundd, and she received the game, as well as a couple expansion packs, and the second- and third-place winners received some Halloween candy. 

At midnight, RinCon served its first midnight snack of the convention: Eegee’s. For those unfamiliar, Eegee’s are Tucson-based frozen fruit drinks, and people lined up to get a cup of this sweet treat. All attendees get tickets with their badge, which they trade in for the midnight snacks on Friday and Saturday night. 

Saturday

I then started early on Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. by teaching a 2P game of Abomination. I love this game so much, and I believe it’ll be more widely available now for more folks to check out! But I like to preface that this is not a short game by any means. Even with our 2P game, it took well over 2 hours. 

I then was invited to do a noon panel called “How to Teach a Game in 5 Mins.” Five us from the board game industry talked with a group of folks about methods that worked for us for teaching games, whether light or heavy. The discussion included how to teach teenagers how to win graciously as well as empowering new gamers to teach other gamers. Also, we had a legit space scientist Dante Lauretta among us panelists who is a board-game designer and does educational outreach at the Boys and Girls Club in Tucson.

GloryHoundd and I then hung out at the bar after our panel and caught up for a bit while drinking our respective signature drinks. Our drinks were super yummy and provided a midday breather to an already busy day.  

My next game was The Soo Line, where I learned that it’s pronounced like the name Sue and not so. That’s the Valley girl in me coming out!

Anywho, The Soo Line is a 45-minute pick-up-and-deliver stock train game. I made some poor choices for bidding in the beginning and never quite caught up again! How does the Soo Line actually made any money when it has to come all the way across the board? Tell me your secrets, folks!

I then joined a group of a dozen people to play Blood on the Clocktower, a giant social-deduction game described to me as similar toWerewolf but gamier. Benjamin led many, many games of this during the entire convention, and it was SUCH. A. BLAST.

Unlike Werewolf, when you die in Clocktower, you can still have one vote for the rest of the game so that you can help your side win the game. It’s humans vs. demons, and there’s even a character sheet so you can deduce who is which character, and strategically reveal information about yourself or others. 

After a quick dinner break, I taught a 4P game of Tiny Towns. I was so involved in teaching this game that I completely forgot to take a photo, but friends, let me tell you that I crushed the game. I played a second game of Irish Gauge with 4 different players and immediately after a few games of Strike.

Strike is such a bar game, in which you’re tossing dice into the box stadium, and if there are any pairs, you take back dice into your hand. Players get eliminated when they run out of dice, and the last person standing wins the game. 

I then got to hang out with David Short and taught him and my buddy Rob Watergate. I always get kind of nervous getting games I love to game designers, because they know game mechanisms so well and I’m afraid they’ll find something really off or broken about said game. Luckily, everyone ended enjoying the game! 

The rest of the night was a series of shorter games. We played NMBR 9 (always a good time) and Illusion (I can’t for the life of me figure out these color percentages) before getting pizza for our midnight snack. 

And then some late-night shenanigans 1 a.m. happened with my buddies Mark, Greg and Brian.

We then played Giant Rhino Hero, Point Salad and Skulls. This was my first time playing Giant Rhino Hero and it was a riot! Players are basically stacking cards to build a giant tower for the Rhino Hero to move up in.

The tower eventually got much taller than me, and its ultimate demise was captured on video. (Notice that I am in fact standing on a chair!)

Forgot to send this on Twitter last night, in case everyone was wondering how it ended. Tragically, I'm afraid. 🦏🦏 pic.twitter.com/F19ZnAzcwB

— Meeple Lady💃🏽🌵🇵🇭 (@MeepleLady) October 6, 2019

Point Salad is a quick card drafting game in which you’re collecting fruits and veggies to score objective cards. And Skulls is a fun bidding, bluffing game that has gorgeous artwork. 

Sunday

I began my day teaching Watergate at the Women’s Space. Folks, I cannot tell you how amazing this space is. I love that RinCon sets aside a suite for women to relax, get away from the crowd, and learn scheduled board games from female GMs. Mari runs the space, which is fully stocked with meeple cookies, snacks and drinks.

Two ladies signed to learn Watergate, and they enjoyed the game so much that they switched sides and played again. The same player won both times!

I ended the convention playing another game of Mexica and Coimbra, which was the top game I played in 2018. And in case you were wondering, I crushed my two opponents in Coimbra. 

And just like that, another awesome time in Tucson was had at RinCon. This convention never disappoints, and I love how friendly everyone is here. Karen Arnold Ewing is the chair of the convention, and she succeeds in making this con inclusive and inviting, especially with the incredible women’s space. There are gamers of all ages, and there is definitely something for everyone! 

And just like that, three days of gaming came and went. I had a lot of fun hanging out with friends and meeting new ones, and hosting/teaching games. Thank you so much for having me, RinCon, and I can’t wait to be back next year!