Last night my son and I arrived back from the 7th annual Renegade Open up in Minneapolis, MN. Unfortunately the weekend did not go as planned for me, but at least it was 1/2 planned.
Renegade Open was this past Friday-Sunday and our plans were to use Thursday and Sunday as travel days, and play Batman Miniature Game on Friday and Saturday.
Thursday
I knew this was going to be an interesting weekend when I woke up to find out we have no hot water in the house and the electronic pilot light was out and I could not restart it. We managed to hit the road around 8 AM Eastern Time and at least the drive was uneventful. We had a couple planned stops along our way. Along the way to our first stop, I managed to get a hold of a local Plumber and scheduled for them to come out later in the day to take a look at the hot water tank.
Our first was stop was in Madison, WI at Noble Knight Games, I came across this gaming store on the internet and thought it would be cool to check out and pick up any items we needed on our way.
It is a really nice, clean, and large gaming store. I ended up picking up some Citadel paint, and a couple more Citadel paint handles so I can have at least 5 and work on 5 Space Marines at a time.
The plan now was to head an hour North to Wisconsin Dells and grab some lunch at 1 of 2 our favorite pizza locations in the Dells, the stop on the way up was Mossejaw Pizza & Dells Brewing Co.
Once lunch was completed it was time to hit the road once again with about 4 hours left in our drive, of course we had to hit some of the St. Paul/Minneapolis rush hour traffic, but we made it to our hotel around 6:30 PM Central time and checked right in.
We got settled into our room and then looked for a place for dinner that was close by, found a nice Pub/Grill that was not far and enjoyed some street tacos, beer and NHL on the TV.
Friday
Today was Day 1 for BMG for us and it was the 250 Rep event and I was playing my Joker Crew, and my son was playing Brave and the Bold.
My Joker Crew
Brave and the Bold
The event was not scheduled to start till 12:00 PM and was to be 4 rounds and 90 minutes a round, it was going to be a pretty long day. I started off really good against the Watchman and pulled a Win to start the event. My second match was against BatB led by Gordon and had Grifter and the game ended in a Draw (my opponent in this game ended up coming in 1st for the event), and my third match was against Donovan (one of the Boy Wonders podcast crew) and it was Joker vs Joker. Donovan got the Win in the match. Just before this game started I got a call from the wife saying the pilot light was out again....great more headaches. We decided to drop after 3 matches (I was 1-1-1 and my son was 0-3) and grab some dinner and then head back for the awards.
We actually got some really good stuff in the awards ceremony, new 3rd edition Red Hood Joker, DCU Aquaman, some Muse on Minis tokens, a Vallejo paint set, and my son received a plaque for coming in last place. Plus the two of us each received a BMG Renegade Open crew tray when checked in for being 2 of the first 10 players to sign up for the event.
After the awards ceremony we decided to drive out to the Fantasy Flight Gaming Center and check out the HQ's for FFG.
Another really cool looking store with plenty of gaming space along with a separate events room where they hold all the Worlds events. We picked up some folding dice trays since we left ours at home to use for Saturday (there were no table clothes on the tables and the dice were bouncing everywhere).
After the FFG Gaming Center, we headed out to another local gaming store that some of the Minneapolis players mentioned to us, Source One Comics & Games.
This place was big and had just about every game inside. We took some time walking up and down all the isles. My son found a copy of new DCU Rulebook on the shelf, so we finally got a copy of that. We are going to be trying out DCU while we wait for Third Edition of BMG to come out.
Saturday
Today was a much earlier start and it was the main event, 350 Rep / 4 Rounds. I woke up early and took care of my morning duties and then checked in with the wife when she arrived home for work. The water heater is out again. It was time now to head downstairs, but I decided to cancel (and my son went down) and spent the next 2.5 hours in my room pricing out water heaters and getting a hold of a company so we can have a new heater installed. I was able to get a hold of Lowe's and pay for an "assessment" over the phone (since it is usually done at the store) and they will be calling me back today (Monday) for them to come out and give me a full quote to replace it.
With being in the room for the entire first round, obviously I did not make the event. I did decide to head on out and visit the local Games Workshop store that was only 10 miles away, I wanted to pick up the new Faith & Fury book for my Black Templars that just came out that day.
I arrived back at the hotel in time for my sons lunch and had McDonald's waiting for him. Once we finished lunch and he head back down to the BMG room, I decided to check out some of the other events that were going on....Warhammer 40K, Bolt Action, Kings of War and the Vendor Hall.
My son wrapped up the awards ceremony around 7:15 PM (no last place today), but he did pick up a Gaslight Batman, the rest of the items were not as good as what we received on Friday (we already had most of the models available). We then proceeded for some all you can eat Sushi and I retired back in the room while my son went back to the BMG room for some Batman trivia.
Sunday
Our travel day home, and we had another planned stop back in Wisconsin Dells at our second pizza stop, the Pizza Pub where we ordered the Big Kahuna, a 20" pizza (the plan was to bring the rest home for dinner).
We made it back at a decent time, and arrived home around 6:45 PM Eastern time (we had another stop in Northern Illinois at my fathers grave).
On our way home we realized it was hunting season and we came across seeing at least 7 of these deer behind trucks/cars.
Well that wraps up Renegade Open 2019. As of now I have no plans on returning next year (as I only have 1 vacation day allowed for events and it will be AdeptiCon) so we shall see what happens in 2021.
