UK Games Expo 2017

On Sunday I took my youngest daughter (who's 10) to the UK Games Expo (UKGE for short). She'd never been to any sort of large event like this, so it was a complete surprise for her, and I've never been to this event before, thus it was a new experience for both of us. 

The UKGE is the largest event of its kind in the UK, and the Birmingham NEC is a pretty big venue to hold it in. I think at 10 I'd have been more dazed and awed than Esther was - she took it in her stride, though she did comment on the size of the building both inside and outside a few times. Even before we went inside, we got a taste for some of the cosplay that was going on...

Inside, the very pleasant and helpful staff gave us lanyards to keep our tickets in, plus programmes and maps, and we were off...not far inside the door, and we were confronted with the large Runewars display area, which included a nice diorama piece.

Fantasy FLight obviously invest a lot in the Expo, here is the extensive Star Wars area, Rebellion at the front and centre!

We wandered through the hall, and spotted the GW area which was 100% devoted to 40k and Dark Imperium demos (more on this later). Esther got to pose with a cardboard Primeris Space Marine.

We took a brief look here, but the area was busy so we moved on - too much to see!

We spotted this Uruk-hai...

...but unfortunately it spotted Esther too...

After escaping that, more peril came in the form of a Dalek

but we slipped by and looked at a selection of props

including this cute BB-8

Back towards the entrance, we stopped by the Hawk Wargames stand - they had their full display, including 10mm scale frigate, demo tables, displays, retail stand and some tables where they'd run a competition of "build your own space station". 

We were too late to enter this, but you could still build something, so we spent a while whilst Esther created quite a cool little space station. I think this was a really cool idea by Hawk, and there were dozens of entries, indicating that this had been very popular.

They also had an area with Dropfleet ships being painted, again they'd thought about how to reach out and engage a demographic which included a lot of non-miniatures gamers. Bravo!

We then decided to try "Ticket to Ride", and in the interests of time we chose the children's version, which has all the elements of the main game but with shorter routes. I did well to start with, but then floundered, and Esther won by getting an "East to West" achievement that got her to the needed 6 points. It was fun, and definitely now on the list for Christmas!

We then had a wander about shopping - I bought a large solid metal D20 for "super important rolls" in our 5th ed campaign, I found a Nuka-Cola bottle-opener keyring for Oscar, Esther got a soft Pikachu toy, I found a 5x5 "Professor's Cube" for Clara (she can do a standard Rubiks cube in a couple of minutes) and a True or False game for Lotte. We also got the pictures version of Codenames, since everyone in the family enjoys the standard version.  

I wanted to swing by the 40k booth again to get some close-ups of the minis in the Dark Imperium 2-player set that is coming out (and I've pre-ordered), so here they are. The paint-jobs on these are pretty basic "base plus wash", yet the minis still look very impressive. I'm quietly excited to get my set soon and have a proper look. We also got a load of badges for the children here, always nice to get freebies!

Of particular interest to me were the nurgle chaos models, especially the poxwalkers which I wasn't that sold on from the main GW site pictures. I have to say that with more subdued painting, they look fantastic - I think some of the "cartooniness" I had feared before was just from the studio paintjobs.

We had another circle around, poking at dice, looking at interesting things, but our time was almost up and it didn't seem like we'd been there for 4 hours with no break - Esther didn't complain once. The show was quite an eye-opener, and Oscar was sad that he hadn't come along too - next year I think we'll go for at least 2 days and really try a lot of what's on offer, because there's sooo much! You can go to the games library and rent games out to try, try every sort of game you can think of, from cards to board to miniatures, dress up, go to seminars - to say nothing of the tournaments that are held in a completely different hall for 3 days, and the events at the Hilton nearby too. I definitely had a sense of touching the tip of the iceberg with the UKGE, and if you're in two minds whether to go, definately do! It's family-friendly, easy to get to and Birmingham has plenty to do if the rest of the family tire of games (what's wrong with them??!).

I thus leave you with Pirat, because, why not? It also shows the breadth of what's on offer at the show, plus a pirate rat, what's not to love??

Dark Souls The Board Game - Unboxing

Yesterday I heard that people were receiving their Dark Souls TBG Kickstarter pledges, and wondered what had happened to mine. Checking out the Backerkit link and getting the tracking number, I went to Parcel Force's website to see they had apparently tried to deliver it on the 5th May, and had "informed the resident" that the parcel was held in the default PO Hub. Slightly frustrated by the fact I had received no such notification, and even more so because I am generally in my home office all day on a Friday on team calls...and my office is right next to the front door.

Anyway, I set off trying to find my parcel, to eventually track it down to my local Post Office, which is in the local shop about 100 feet away! So for 10 days the game had sat patiently a short distance away, with me unaware of its existence...a sorry state of affairs indeed! Nevertheless, I now had it in my possession, and went on to examine its contents....

The game itself is in a substantial, shrink-wrapped package which is pretty deep, and feels like a good quality, solid box. On opening this, you are greeted with...

This is pretty funny, and a really nice tie-in with the video game. Going beyond that, you start to see the contents underneath....

I'm pretty certain mine is a UK edition? Time to get this to the dining room table and have a closer look....

The main components of the game here are the cards (all contained in a plastic tray in a plastic bag, which stops them finding their way to all corners of the box - a nice logistic touch), two boxes of minis and dice, the thick card boards and components, and the rulebook.

First in the thick card pieces are the boards for the characters, complete with their specific token sets.

Next are the enemy health dials and more general token components.

The final items in this set are the thick cardboard game tiles, which are all double-sided (as are the tokens). All of these items are sturdy, with high-quality printed graphics - it doesn't feel like Steamforged have scrimped on production here at all.

The first set of minis is a stacked vacuum-formed plastic insert, also containing two bags of custom-made dice. Removing these and separating the mini trays, we can see the majority of the figures in the set:

These comprise the heroes (in brown - a nice touch to differentiate them from enemies for those who don't want to paint the minis), the "hollows" (the basic baddies), some larger figures and one of the bosses. Speaking of bosses....

The other box contains the six large boss figures, plus the dial assembly hubs and the markers for tracking health, character progression etc. The figures are protected by a clamshell vacuum-formed plastic outer inside the box, so you really feel Steamforged are serious about these figures. Taking the top plastic cover off, we can have a better look.

OK, so let's take a closer examination of the figures then, before we get too excited by these large plastic lumps! Going back to the heroes, here is the Herald:

You can see this is a nicely made mini, especially for a game component, though it's not quite as crisp as a miniature gaming figure - limitations of the material and casting process most likely (as the shield is very thick - yet the spear is appropriately thin). Anyway, here is the Assassin:

This is a pretty impressive mini, especially considering the medium - the sword is pretty good for this sort of PVC! I also really like the sense of movement in the hero figures, they're very cinematically posed. Next up is the Warrior:

The Warrior is probably my least favourite figure from the heroes, but that doesn't mean he's bad by any stretch of the imagination. His chain shirt I really like, it seems to have a sense of weight about it.

The final hero is the Knight, which I love - it's such a great pose!

Now, onto baddies! Here are the standard Hollows:

Plus the large Hollow;

Silver Knights (with swords and Greatbows firing javelin-sized bolts!);

And then these dudes...which are HUGE! They remind me of Alice through the Looking Glass and the playing-card soldiers:

Now most of my figures were well cast with little, if any, "droop" - the polearms above being excellent examples. Sadly, not all my figures were immune...

We'll have to see if this scimitar-like sword can be coaxed back into straightness or not with a hot water/cold water cycle, but it's not a huge deal.

Next up we have the bosses, starting with the chap who stays with the minions in this first box - Dragonslayer Ornstein:

Then we go through the big guys...this is the Winged Knight

The Gargoyle:

The Boreal Outrider Knight

Executioner Smough - also know as "The big hammer dude"!

The Dancer of the Boreal Valley

and my personal favourite, the Titanite Demon

So first impressions are good - very good. The components are nicely finished and have an air of quality about them, everything is carefully put together and the miniatures are extremely high quality for a board game, and good for a minis game. Looking forward to playing properly after our demo game at Salute, and also to getting some paint on those big beauties!