Western New York’s own tabletop gaming convention, Queen City Conquest, was the place to be last weekend for lovers of board games, card games, and role-playing games. The convention, held by Lake Effect Gaming, took place at a brand new location this year. Gamers gathered at Daemen College July 12th to July 14th to roll dice, shuffle cards, and complete quests.
The setting is far from the only major change at the convention. On both Friday and Saturday night, attendees were able to stay until 2:00 a.m. for some late night gaming. If you’re someone who would enjoy staying up late to explore dungeons or beat that pesky boss battle but are concerned about the late drive home, lodging was offered on campus for the first time in Queen City Conquest’s history. Delicious meals were also offered, so there was really no need to leave the convention at all. We don’t want anything interrupting the gaming, after all.
Queen City Conquest, which was sponsored by Iron Buffalo Comics Gaming and Coffee this year, offered fun for all ages. Casual Dragon Games supplied an enormous board game library for attendees to play. This featured a wide variety of games including anything from goofy party games to thought-provoking strategy games. There were also “play-to-win” games supplied by Double Exposure Games for those looking to take home some gaming goodies.
Per usual at Queen City Conquest, there was a video game area available for those wanting to take a break from dice and cards. Countless games were playable from every generation of gaming between the Atari and the Nintendo Switch. A Mario Kart tournament took place for the more competitive gamers.
That being said, Queen City Conquest is definitely more of a tabletop gaming event. An exciting tournament for the deck-building card game Hero Realms was held, throwing contestants into a fantasy realm to compete head to head. Many members of the tabletop community can’t get enough miniatures. Thankfully, this convention offered a paint-and-take miniature table, perfect for bringing your RPG characters to life. Several industry guests were in attendance including game designer and author Jennifer Adcock, Misha Bushyager (who writes and edits tabletop RPGs and is one of the founders of New Agenda Publishing), game designer Rach Shelky, and more.
Queen City Conquest is a convention after all, which means you will be able to buy some fun convention swag from vendors. Some of the vendors seen this year included Metaterrain & Minis, Heart of the Game, Collector’s Inn, Iron Buffalo.
Throughout the three-day weekend, there were more than 150 organized gaming events held. One of the biggest and most exciting was the Dungeons & Dragons e pic held on Saturday. Seventy players took part in one single intersecting game of D&D featuring live-action NPCs walking around in full-costumed character and a life-sized dragon. Adventurers were sat at separate tables with their parties going about the same adventure in the same world as the other parties. If you’re a D&D fan, this was the ultimate experience for you.
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Queen City Conquest is the best experience imaginable for fans of board games, card games, and role-playing games in Western New York. If you had the misfortune of missing out this year, or have not gone in past years, I highly suggest making a point of going in the future. You can keep up with when the next Queen City Conquest is and what events will be held during it on their website or on their Facebook page.