Events

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Events

Staffing

Gaelcon wants you!

Staff are an integral part of Gaelcon as without them the convention cannot run.

We’re always looking for responsible and courteous individuals to participate. We have many volunteer positions to fill and responsibilities may vary but for most, you'll have to be willing to deal with crowds, answer attendees' questions and just plain work hard during your shift.

Due to the later hours we will be running a rota to cover the slots and breaks, which means you should be able to have as much fun as any attendee.

If you are interested in volunteering email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with your contact details.

Iron GM

Last year we managed to get one new member to the exclusive and highly insane group known as the Iron GMs. We don't envisage that any of our GMs will be so foolish again this year, so we decided to arrange something else to include these misfits in Gaelcon 2009.

We have arranged a special Iron RPG to be run by the Iron GMs themselves. If you think you're tough enough to take them on that is!

Warhammer 40,000 Tournament

6 Games
2 Days
1750 points
And lots of fun

This year’s Warhammer 40,000 event includes a 2 day tournament and painting competitions. On day three you will have access to a host of specialist and participation games to keep you relaxed and entertained, as well as free play tables for playing that opponent or army you missed during the tournament.

Also the results of this year’s tournament will be registered with Rankings HQ. Note: this will in no way effect your games.

You will find the 40k Rules Pack Here. PDF, DOC, RTF.

Console Games

This year sees the return of console games at Gaelcon and we're ensuring that it will be a sight to see. We will have a console lounge for chilling out and for some tournament play over the course of the weekend as well as pick up and play games in the main hall. This year we will be including a Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament for you Nintendo fans out there ! The format of the tournament will be dependent on the numbers that sign up. Elimination or “League” style.

For some of you retro gamers, we will also have some classic, 1on1 games of the much loved and adored, Command and Conquer. There will so be a SNES for some casual retro play.

LARP Announcement

We are pleased to announce that we have updated our Live Action Roleplaying section with blurbs of all the games we will be running this year.

Rome Wasn't Built in a Night

Camarilla Ireland

Everyone knows that vampires are all bastards, but the vampires of Rome were much much worse.

The Senex is facing opposition from the other wings after their decision to bring back a notorious general from Exile in Tomis on the Black Sea. The Elder propinqui of the senex insist that he is needed once more. While assassinations rife and politics has become cut throat what will become of the Camarilla and who is so determined to destroy the exiled general of the Legio Mortem.

8 – 12 Players

Wonders from the Occident

Jon Butler and Eoin Dornan

The dashing explorer Maximillian Grincheux has returned from across the Sea of a Thousand Souls with a hold full of wonders from the Farthest West. Fortune and the winds have forced him to dock in Five Fingers. Grincheux has fine ideas about his discoveries benefiting the kingdom of Llael, but in the Iron Kingdoms everything takes second place after the interests of war. The haul includes an ancient item of mechanika, which could turn the tide of any one of the countless conflicts raging across Immoren. Your role? To make sure it turns the tide of yours.

10 - 15 Players

Whittenham Forum

Ashley Perryman and Hilary Sklar

Five centuries have passed since the land was unified in peace. From the shadows of war, kingdoms rose, prospered, some even endured. The most powerful, the Saxon Kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex forged into what would become England. Five centuries of peace after the death of Arthur. A peace now shattered.

The Saxon Lords remain in disarray, a war to end all wars threatens to destroy the land. Soon the roads will be clear of winter snow and mud, soon the armies will march. There is one last chance for peace, a gathering, called by the Bishops of Albion. Whittenham Forum.

24 players

JumpTech: Doppelganger

Nick Huggins

It began with four star systems, each with its own version of intelligent life. The only way to travel between the systems was via jump drives, each owned by a family of pirates or traders. Over time the races and the families have learned that they are not alone in the universe, and that realization in itself has caused conflict between them. Now is the time for answers, and at a celebration of the Krayce New Year festival aboard a Trade Commission space station the addition of new allies and new enemies will destabilize some alliances and forge others anew.

Players Unlimited

Warhammer Ancient Battles: Raid on Lindisfarne 793AD

IGA Games Nights

In this year fierce, foreboding omens came over the land of Northumbria. There were excessive whirlwinds, lightning storms, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky. These signs were followed by great famine, and on January 8th the ravaging of heathen men destroyed God's church at Lindisfarne. Never before has such terror appeared in Britain as we have now suffered from a pagan race. The heathens poured out the blood of saints around the altar, and trampled on the bodies of saints in the temple of God, like dung in the streets.

The boys at the IGA Games Nights in the Plough present a themed game of WAB centred on the start of the Viking raids against Britain and Ireland. This game will have much more in common with Mordhiem than the large scale pitched battles we usually do. No PHD’s in history needed to play! (Although it may help, what with proper application of Historical battle tactics and all!) Feel free to bring along your own Dark Age forces, about one character and 15 – 20 Infantry per player. Figures will be available.

Ticket to Ride: Ireland Edition

The incredibly popular boardgame Ticket To Ride has been specially adapted for Gaelcon - and now runs on an Irish map! Winner of the all-important Spiel des Jahres award in 2004, Ticket to Ride is a furiously fast 2 - 5 player game, in which players claim railway routes to connect cities. Don't be fooled by the gentle description: aggression and treachery are the key attributes to victory.

Up until now, the most popular editions of the game have been based on maps of the USA, Germany and Europe - but Gaelcon has created a special edition that runs on a map of Ireland. Even the rubbish bits, like Roscommon.

Warhammer Fantasy Battle Tournament

6 Games
2 Days
8th Edition Rule Book
2500 points
And a whole lot of fun

With the release of the new rule book, Armies are reordered, Tactics are revised, Magic is rehearsed and the scene is set…

This year’s Warhammer Fantasy Battle Tournament offers 6 battles over two days with 2500 point armies with awards for Best Painted Model and Army.

After the tournament you will have a third day to relax with access to a host of specialist and participation games and free play tables to do battle with that opponent or army you missed during the tournament.

The results of this year’s tournament will be registered with Rankings HQ. Note: this will in no way effect your games.

You will find the WFB Rules Pack Here. PDF, DOC, RTF.

Battletech

Yes it's Gaelcon again and for this year's slice of Battletech action we're keeping things simple.

With the upcoming release of the 25th Anniversary Box set we will be holding a series of showcase melee's over the course of the weekend to give new players a chance to get to know the game as well as let some of the old hands relax and just cause mayhem.

We'll be letting you play with each of the different Battlemech classes and different terrains to keep things interesting and because everything will be provided for you it takes the hassle out of the weekend so you can just kick back and enjoy, we'll give you the mech, you give us the crazy.

And if you want something a little bit bigger, we'll be showing off Quickstrike, the fast paced miniatures rules system too.

Hope to see you there.

Timetable for the Games Lounge

Saturday

Morning

Super Street Fighter IV

format: 2/3 Rounds, 2/3 Games, Double Elimination, 99 Seconds, No Handicap Console: PlayStation 3 Rules: If the players do not agree on a stage within 15 seconds, the match will be random stage select. Winner must keep the same character, but can select a new ‘Ultra’ in game 2 or 3, but has to pick the ‘Ultra’ before the opponent picks theirs. This does not apply to blind pick.

Afternoon

Halo: Reach - Tournament format to be decided. More than likely the tournament will be several rounds of “Slayer” style multiplayer.

Sunday

Morning

Super Smash Bros. Brawl - Several rounds of free for all depending of numbers

Afternoon

Command and Conquer: Red Alert knockout tournament.

Monday

Addition tournament events to be played based on interest and any overrun from previous competitions.

Into The Sea, You and Me

Éamon Honan

A Call of Cthulhu LARP of the Cats of Ulthar

It is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may kill a cat. The burgesses of the town have forbidden it and the town has been friend to cats ever since.

Which begs the question, where have all the kittens gone?

Notes: Whiskers provided, ears and tails always welcome.

16 players

The Usual Suspects

Cat Tobin (Winner of the National Game Writer Award)

Former musical wild child (now retired property magnate) Bill Stewart is dead.

As a relatively healthy man celebrating his fiftieth birthday, it could be natural causes; but is more likely not to have been. Everyone now standing in front of the investigating detectives in the lounge of his hillside mansion had opportunity, means and motive. Did the butler actually do it? What about the cook? The thief? His wife? Her lover? With this many hate-filled people in one room, finding the one to arrest will prove to be tricky.

Presuming, of course, there’s someone to arrest…

12 – 15 Players

Scintilla Conorde

Andrew Coffey & Feargal Fanning

Ever since the civil war archiotech has been flooding the blackmarket at an ever increasing rate. Undetermined transmissions have been received from the mountains. Raidershave been spotted using weapons not seen since the dark age of technology. Rumours abound of automatons the greatest of all tech heresies.

Now Ambulon the mobile city is running at peak efficiency, this cannot be due to competent maintenance, something is terribly wrong. All this points to heresy within. An ancient evil has surely risen.

You worthy souls have been gathered to seek the truth. The fate of Ambulon rests in your hands.

10 - 15 players

NiteRider

Anthony O'Reilly, Harry Cullen, and Sandra Duggan (Winner of the National Game Writer Award)

Aching, cold, and tired, you sink into the seat and exhale. Tension begins to fade, and you try and tune out the rising chatter of the voices around you, but fail. Your eyes snap back open in frustration and you look around at your travel companions. Every Damn Time. The NiteRider bus is always filled with the freaks, the drunks, and the incessant loudmouths. It’s going to be a long journey home.

10 – 16 Players

Gamer of Steel

This year Gaelcon has a new perpetual award, "The Gamer of Steel" award Design by This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , Sculpture by Rúairí Creaner. (c) Creaner Bros. 2009

Space Hulk 3D

IGA Games Nights - VinnyC

Ahh... Space Hulk! Like many men of a certain age I was introduced to the wonderful world of wargaming through Milton Bradleys Space Crusade game. After cutting my teeth on that for a while I graduated to playing Space Hulk and advanced Space Crusade. Seems nearly every weekend I was trapped in a life and death struggle to kill all the ‘stealers rescue the C.A.T and get back to the docking claw! (Before the Crystal Maze started on TV that is!)

Of course I never played as the ‘stealers! Always had to convince someone else to do it! I mean who watched Aliens and was rooting for the Gribbly monster over the steadfast Colonial Marines! After all this was the late 80s early 90s Communism had been defeated and even to my young mind there was something defiantly Commie about the Genestealers! I mean they are controlled by an evil hive mind and there are hordes of them! Maybe it was all the BBC coverage I watched who knows!

In honour of those glory days we present a massive 3D Space Hulk game. Players are welcome to bring along their own 5 Marine Terminator Squads as the stealers will be GM controlled.

RPG Announcement

We are pleased to announce that we have updated our RPG's section with blurbs of all the games we will be running this year.

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