Heavy Gear - DP9 at CanGames 2010

I'm going to break out my coverage of what went down at CanGames into a variety of posts, because, one: I can't figure out if it's me or the blog software that won't allow me to post more than a couple of picture's per entry, and; two, it makes the whole event easier to read.

For those that don't know, CanGames is one of Canada's oldest gaming convention, which has been occurring in Ottawa for thirty-odd years, bringing together all manner of dice roller, be it board games, role-playing games, or tabletop wargames. DP9 is a regular at the convention, and hosts it's Canadian National Championship tournament at the event.

While I've lived in Ottawa in the past, this was my first time at the convention itself, and a first time for gaming conventions in general. It was a great, relaxed atmosphere, and I've a few thoughts on it below:

1. DP9 Community: The DP9 community has got to be one of the friendliest in gaming. Players in the tournament came from near and far, with the local Ottawa Pod Squad in attendance, while other players came from Trois-Rivieres, Toronto, Rhode Island and Long Island. The DP9 crew, John and Robert, are what every gaming company should strive to be like when it comes to servicing their customers. A specific example came up when I was playing, and realized my movement dice had the secondary movement top speed printed on them twice. John replaced them for me free of charge (I can't say I'd expect similar customer service from GW).
2. Variety of Armies: All sorts of armies were seen, which is great compared to other games that succumb to "codex creep" and is a great indicator of balance in HGB. From what I observed, there were all sorts of factions played, including tank-exclusive Northern armies, Humanist strider-exclusive armies, Black Talons with Edenite allies, and all-Caprician Combat Mount armies. Plenty of players brought the new Naga strider model in all of it's configurations (the command Naga variant I saw is my personal favourite) and DP9 forumite Izzy's Hetairoi-heavy force looked good.
3. Lucky Omens: I'll get into how I did in the tournament in my next few posts, but I think part of my success came down to some lucky omens. First, I had to get back to my car to get some change for parking, to find a bird had shit on my driver's door handle, which is lucky omen one. Second, I got the last two Rickard's Red from the bar, which I stated to the bartender "these better be lucky." I think they turned out to be lucky indeed!

Here's a few general pictures I took of the DP9 area of CanGames:

The playing area set-up before the tournament has started.

DP9 forumites Ghostrider (on the left) battles Attila of Terra for tournament glory!

A Humanist strider-heavy army fights for Badland supremacy versus a Northern tank-exclusive force.


DP9's John Nguyen looks on as the Humanst forces emerge victorius!


Next, I'll go into how I fared in my individual battles.