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??

2017 - What will it bring for us gamers? Part 2: Hawk Wargames

Whatever your opinion of 2016 in other ways, it was a pretty good year in gaming. The hobby as a whole is growing at around 30% where most industries can hope for about 10% of that. We saw the arrival of some major new franchises like Dropfleet Commander and GW seem to be organising themselves in a slightly better way in many areas, despite still carrying on with Age of Sigmar (!). The rise of the board game strengthened more than ever, and there were a lot of great Kickstarter projects that were announced/launched and sometimes fulfilled. Not a bad time at all to be a gamer.

After looking over the Man Battlestations Blog, I thought it might be fun to do a similar predictive series of posts here over the coming days. So, what do I think is on the horizon for 2017?

Hawk Wargames

Hawk had a tremendously successful Kickstarter with Dropfleet Commander. It had a lower target than SGs recent DW campaign (£40k vs £50k), yet found almost 4,000 backers to fund it by a massive 1570%. Hawk struggled to fulfil in time, and is still sending pledges out now. It has also come under criticism for supplying retail outlets before fulfilling Kickstarter backers, though personally I completely understand why it did this - because it will have commercial agreements which are largely independent of any KS-funded project, and these relationships are more important collectively than any individual backer - no matter how unpalatable that might seem, it's a cold hard business fact. The alternative would have been to delay commercial release and piss off its distribution channels....

Anyway, Dropfleet happened and DZC continues, born along by Hawk's team and understanding of how to grow and support its community. That reputation will have taken a blow through the Kickstarter experience of many, but I don't think this will affect Hawk in the long run. Why? Especially as I've been so harsh on Spartan for similar delays in supply over the past year. 

Well, admittedly I don't have the "behind the scenes" view on Hawk that I did on SG, but just look at how Dave created Hawk and DZC in the first instance. The game was planned meticulously, beautifully produced and developed with the community and tournaments in mind. They stick to production schedules and give customers advance release notices - in short they set expectations within their grasp and fulfil them. They have released 2 games in their existence, both of which were produced in the same sort of polished manner. I get the delays piss people off, but let's be realistic, how many Kickstarters that have funded over 1000% delivered on time? Anyone ever been involved in a project which had 15 times the demand originally expected? Given that' they've performed ok I think.

Hawk are involved with and communicate to their supporters about 1500% more than SG do too, at least. They're still a small company too, but I think Dave fundamentally grasps what makes gamers tick and tries to scratch that itch - it's more about nice models and mechanics that were innovative in 2009. Look at their background development - there's more fluff in DFC from the start than exists in FA in 7 years of development!

So what do I think Hawk will do in 2017? They'll sort out their fulfilment issues and fill out their factions for DFC - battlecruisers and corvettes, shiny space stations and more. they'll work on shows and developing their community, and also making conjoined campaigns - I think that DZC will also benefit from the adoption of DFC. I'm seriously considering going back and looking at it since buying DFC, despite my lacklustre feeling about the 2-player set for DZC that Hawk brought out a few years back. I also think that they'll toy with developing a deep-space combat version of DFC, though I don't think that will happen this year - they might wait until BFG and FA show their hands first, and decide if they should or shouldn't thereafter. You get the feeling that decisions like this are thought about long and hard at Hawk, and then planned properly before implementation.

So I think Hawk will do well because they are growing from an established core base in a methodical and pre-planned way. Yes, DFC was more popular than they expected, but what a problem to have! Given that there have been a ton of people jump on board AFTER the KS, like Oscar and me, by going directly to retail I think they have a very rosy future ahead, and I think they'll do that with a steady and throughly planned release schedule in 2017. I must say I'm looking forward to it...

Planetfall & DZC side-by-side

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

So 2015 is with us, and I want to increase the amount I'm posting on the blog to give shorter, more frequent posts, so keep a close eye out!

First up, Oscar and I got some Planetfall stuff before Christmas, so I'll be putting a load of that up soon, but first I wanted to give a quick side-by-side of Planetfall & DZC for all of you 10mm fans out there!

So, here it is, based on the two 2-player starter sets for the rival systems - Spartan's Battle for Proteus Prime and DZCs set. Both come boxed with scenery, rules, dice etc, but at the end of the day it's all about rules & models, right? As the rules are subject for another post and require some delving, lets have a look at models.

Now both these sets are "10mm" and set in a far future SF universe where humans battle each other and aliens. Planetfall already has a space-based game, whereas DZC is going the other way, having started in 10mm and going to space - we're expecting to see that in 2015 sometime.

So after opening the boxes, there is one major difference between the two - Spartan have crammed their box with resin, whereas Hawk have gone to injection moulded plastic (presumably to keep their costs down). This means a bit more assembly for the Hawk models than Spartan's, but not too much more. We've done all of that, so we can do the comparisons more easily.

So here we have the contents of the two sets (not including scenario objective pieces);

So the immediate impact is that you seem to get more stuff in the Spartan set, but then it is a little more expensive than the Hawk set (£80 vs £60). So, let's do some comparisons;

This is a Directorate Cyberwarfare tank compared to a UCM Rapier AA Tank. Now, the fluff in DZC explains that the tanks only carry a single person, but the size difference is marked nonetheless. Here is a Sabre compared to a Directorate Medium tank and light buggy;

So you can see that the Hawk main tank is much more comparable to the light unit of the Spartan set.

Now DZC uses dropships whereas Planetfall doesn't (at least not so far), so the comparison here really is between the aerial units and the Heavy units in the PF set.

Once again, although comparable length wise, the Spartan heavy unit dwarfs the Condor in terms of bulk. Now you do get three of these in their set, so there is kind of equivalence here.

Now, onto APCs. You get 3 in the DZC set, and just one for the Directorate in the PF set. That, however, doesn't really tell the story;

If we also show the infantry they're supposed to carry, we get another view;

Even with DZCs fluff, I'm not sure all those guys are getting into that APC! The PF unit is big, but I can believe those dudes getting into the unit with all their gear. That, of course, brings us to the comparison of the infantry, which is where the PF set really steps up;

To me, the DZC infantry are wooden and simplistic - they have no features and unrealistic poses - my son remarked that they look like the symbol for a guy on a toilet door...Just to highlight this, let's show you a comparison with the Pewter individual infantryman that SG give you for the inserts on the bases;

now the resin infantry have the same detail, but you can see it much more clearly here in the metal. Now, it's not just the detail which I find compelling about the PF infantry, but their poses - they're dynamic...they look like guys fighting, not a bunch of drones lining up to be shot. This changes how they "feel" to play - I care more about them if they look like they're fighting for their lives, rather than sticks to be lined up and shot down. Now, there IS a size difference - the SG infantry are supposed to be in power armour, which adds to their bulk, but they do stand about 12mm tall to Hawks 10mm high guys, SG do quote 10mm as foot-to-eye, whereas Hawks seem to be 10mm head-to-toe. So, there's about a 10-15% difference in scale, I'd say.

To me, however, this difference does not differentiate the level of detail and quality between the two sets. I was substantially disappointed in the size of the models in the DZC set, and the other items in the box and a £20 lower price point don't fill the void between it and  the SG Planetfall set. The resin items in the box are beautifully cast, substantial and extremely good value compared to the small, flimsy-feeling and simplistic Hawk offerings. Given the material differences between the PF set and Hawk set, I'd have expected a much lower price point for the Hawk 2-player set or there to be substantially more in there. If I put it side by side other 2-player sets, for example Mantic's Deadzone, or GWs Shield of Baal, it feels light and expensive. When put side-by-side with the more expensive PF set, I'd shell out the extra £20 every time.

Of course, there are many Hawk fans out there, and I know I'm a traditional Spartan convert, but I got DZC long before Planetfall, and I approached it with an open mind. Now, however, I think it will be a case of sticking it of ebay, as I just can't see a good reason to carry on with it in the light of Spartan's entry to this relatively new market.