On Friday the 2nd of June, 2023, UK Games Expo returned to the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, England.
I got myself a ticket for all three days of the event (Friday the 2nd until Sunday the 4th), and travelled there with my friends, Richard and Chris. Richard and I were also to play in The Birmingham Brawl (a competition of the fantasy miniatures wrestling game, Rumbleslam from TTCombat), on the 3rd, and three three of us, along with three other friends, were to crew a virtual star ship, in the UK Star Ship Simulator, on the last day of the Expo.
My friend Ben, had done a sterling job, organising accommodation for 16 of us. The main draws were that it was affordable, available (both things which are difficult to come by in Birmingham during Expo) and had a large room in which we could play games!
By the time that Chris, Richard and myself arrived on the Thursday afternoon, the gaming was already in full swing. A Game of Saint Petersburg swiftly followed.
After a while, we decamped to the NEC to pick up our tickets, and for those who had items to drop off at the bring-and-buy, to do so.
Those assembled, split into two groups. One of which opted to go and get dinner, while the rest of us found a bar!
After this, we reassembled in the cinema for a preview of Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse. I hate spoilers, so won't give anything away about the movie.
When the film had ended, we returned to our accommodation where, among other things, borrowing extra dice from another game, we had an epic, and very fun, nine-player game of Tumblin' Dice.
Friday saw the first day of the Expo itself.
There were three halls this year, two of which were full of traders and demonstration games, whilst the third was set aside for tournaments and the ever popular bring-and-buy.
After having a wander around Hall 2, Richard and I decided to check out the bring-and-buy, as the previously huge queue had somewhat subsided. The bring-and-buy itself was a little overwhelming, a great deal bigger than the last time I attended Expo in 2017.
After over an hour of searching, I managed to find myself a couple of bargains.
After the bring-and-buy (and some lunch), the two of us finished having a look around Hall 2 and moved onto Hall 1.
One of the great things about UK Games Expo, is the many demo games that are being hosted.
Pre-empting our forthcoming Rumbleslam tournament, Richard spotted a wrestling themed card game, All Time Wrestling, that he was keen to try out. So we gave it a go. The guy demoing the game explained the rules and gave us some useful gameplay tips. Sitting next to us, was a fella named Mohamed, who as it turned out, was none other than the game's designer!
I had also seen a game I wanted to try as I had toyed with the idea of helping to fund the Kickstarter campaign for it, and had watched a game-play video of it. It's called NEXUS: Arena Combat System. The premise of the game is that you're a fight promoter on a star ship, pitting your combatant (known as a helot) against those of the other players. The components are high quality, with all the helots, crates, pillars, and flaming braziers, pre-painted.
The demo game was fun enough (despite the fact that we didn't get to finish it as the halls closed for the day before any of us (Richard, myself, or the demo guy) had achieved victory), but I in no way thought it was worth the hefty £121 price tag they were asking for it.
On the way out, I got Richard to take my photo in front of a huge model of an Ultramarine, Space Marine, Terminator (from Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 setting).
Friday night saw more gaming back at the accommodation, and Richard, trying to finish painting the models that he was going to use the next day, all the while being distracted by...well, games.
Saturday saw Myself and Richard heading straight to Hall 3 to try and find the location of the Birmingham Brawl (the Rumbleslam tournament that we were to play in).
Fortunately, this was on the table to attract our attention!
There were sixteen spots in the knockout tournament. However, one person couldn't make it, so the way that the competition was structured, meant that one person would have a bye in their first round and get through to round 2 without having to play in the opening stage.
It just so happened that Richard got the bye. I, on the other hand, got knocked out in the first round! I did play a second game though, just for fun, against a guy who had also been knocked out in round 1. (I lost that game too!)
Here's a picture of my team (albeit a bit blurry).
(From left to right: Amazonian Grappler, Treeman, Gravedigger, and Amazonian Brawler.)
Richard got through to the final, in which some questions about a rule pertaining to his team arose. I won't go into the minutiae of it, I'll just say that Richard was playing the rule exactly as it was written, but that might not have been how the designer of the rule intended it to be used. (We reckoned that an official errata entry would be forthcoming about it.) Richard and his opponent, along with the tournament referee, all came to a mutual agreement about how to proceed however, and in the end, Richard came out victorious.
The excuse that I came up with for not winning was that, being a vegan, I couldn't accept a prize that was made, mostly, of leather...and that, being a vegan, I probably wouldn't have been strong enough to lift it anyway!
After the tournament, we returned to Hall 1, where, among other things, we went to see wrestling fan , and aforementioned designer of All Time Wrestling, Mohammed. He asked us if we'd like to try out the prototype of the second edition of a board game he had designed called Conqueror: Final Conquest. We did, and agreed to meet him in the Playtest area the next morning.
Richard and I wandered around the rest of Hall 1, and, among other things, came across the area of games company Gale Force Nine. A few things caught our eye, including the soon to be released, Star Trek: Away Missions.
I initially didn't like the look of the miniatures in the game, as they had a kind of, what I'd describe as an animation ascetic, with exaggerated features. However, that look worked with the look of the board pieces and the game-play feel.
The core set, themed after The Battle Of Wolf359 (which any Trekkie will know was when a Borg Cube destroyed a Federation fleet on it's way to attack Earth), sees (in one of the game's scenarios) Federation officers, aboard the Enterprise-D, attempting to repel a Borg incursion. One of the players, plays as Commander Riker, Lieutenant Commander Data, Lieutenant Worf (my favourite Star Trek character) and the annoying Commander Shelby. (According to the guy showing us how to play, I wasn't the first person playing a demo that day, that had commented that Shelby was annoying! (Also, while we were playing, a couple wandered over and one of them also, commented the same!)) The other player plays as the dreaded Borg.
The game is played over three rounds and has players scoring points by achieving objectives that they have on a hand of cards. In addition to these cards, each player also holds cards that may give them an advantage in achieving those objectives.
It was fun but (despite there also being a scenario, that has the Enterprise Crew exploring the Borg Cube) I wonder how much replay-ability it might have.
Sunday saw Richard and myself heading to the Playtest area as soon as we got to the NEC as, at 11, we had an appointment to crew a star ship in the UK Star Ship Simulator!
We met up with Mohammed, who took us through the rules of the second edition of his game, Conqueror: Final Conquest.
The three of us, Richard, Mohammed, and myself played as ancient empires attempting to assert ourselves across Southern Europe and North Africa.
We each started with a hidden objective card. Unfortunately, mine encouraged me to attack Rome. (Richard was playing as the Romans!) My empire, the Carthaginians crossed the sea from North Africa in attack. Unfortunately, by the time I did so (having spent a few turns improving my unit numbers and empire's abilities), Richard had expanded into the south of Italy and South-West into Sicily, and was able to out-flank my advance.
After my unsuccessful foray into Europe, I decided to swap my objective card for another, mystery one. This one, it turned out, would reward me for expanding across North Africa. Something that I had already started to do!
We didn't get to finish the game however, as Richard and I had to rush to The Hilton to, along with four other friends, to crew the Star ship Artemis.
I was looking forward to the UK Star Ship Simulator as it was something that had piqued my interest since I first saw it at the UKGE in 2016.
Due to some technical issues, our "ship" was running half an hour late. This, though, allowed us a lengthy discussion as to who would perform which role on the crew. I ended up as captain!
When we "boarded" The Artemis, we found that there were still some technical issues going on. Only one of the four large screens that, in Star Trek would have made up the main viewer, was working. And Chris, our communications officer had to use a lap top rather that the bespoke console that the other bridge officers had access to.
I won't give any spoilers as to the content of the scenario, but I will say that we failed our mission!
After this, our crew dispersed, and Richard and myself returned to Hall 1.
We though we'd try out a comic book themed dice manipulation game called Kapow!, from Wise Wizard Games, the company that released the excellent deck-building card games, Star Realms and Hero Realms. We played two games with the "Volume 2" set. Despite the game featuring things that I love (comic book characters and dice (which can be customised and manipulated through gameplay), I was underwhelmed by the game itself.
One of the Kapow! player boards and screens (with the life counter to the left). It looks more complicated than it actually is.
After a bit more shopping and wandering around, we met back up with Chris and headed back to London.
The whole event and "extra-curricular gaming" were great fun. I'm looking forward to going back next year!
