There is nothing quite like the sound of a toddler giggling in the morning. My two year old is playing with my wife and her little squeals and giggles fill me with joy and happiness the likes of which are difficult to explain.

ICON finished last night and it was two days of tons of board games and a lot of warmachine for me. My wife got the opportunity to play a lot more games then I did, she won one of the raffles for a board game (it was one we already had so we traded it for Micro-Mutants, which is a blast by the way) and she won the Nexus-ops tournament! The prize for the nexus ops tournament was Conquest of Pangea which I personally really liked although I have only played it once.

The warmachine tournament was still a bit disappointing in the end. I really wanted a better turnout and I held out for people to show up that I desperately wanted to show. In the end no one showed that didn't explicitly say they would. However I cannot be too disappointed with nine players and some very intense games. One game came down to a d3 roll for the number of attacks Vilmon would get on Caine. The roll came up a 1 and then Vilmon needing a 6 on two dice to hit (and with the charge attack roll four dice damage) and most likely kill, the already injured, Caine. However he rolled a 4 and failed to hit ending the game in the most exciting tie I have ever seen. If Vilmon had rolled more then one attack or hit with his attack the game would have most likely gone to the Menoth player.

We used chess timers for these games and overall I really thought they were a great addition to the tournament format we used. I was very happy with how they worked out. I think in time as the players get used to using them it will be a much better solution to the time issues and victory point issues we have had in previous tournaments. It certainly didn't solve all the problems but I think it was a much needed improvement.