Chillcon 2017 - An Overview

Having the day unexpectedly free on Saturday due to a change of work shift I decided to spend it at the Chillcon wargaming show in Sheffield. This is the first year for this particular show so a bit of support on my part seemed like a good idea.

The tickets were £6 and if you were fortunate enough to have advanced booked a ticket and/or were one of the first hundred people in the queue you got a gift bag...I arrived an hour after the opening so got bugger all, lol. There were several reasonably sized tournament events and a wide variety of participation/demo games in the smaller of the two rooms with a larger separate room been given over to the Exhibitors. Just before a corridor separating the two rooms was a cunningly placed refreshments stand that offered tea, coffee, canned drinks, crisps and sandwiches at not unreasonable prices...as some-one who has experienced everything from £7 for a lukewarm coffee after half an hour of queuing to no refreshments whatsoever at other events this was quite welcome...

Participation Games and Demos

As mentioned above there were a number of events in progress but as I arrived late and knew none of the participants I couldn't comment on their organisation...though as an outside observer every-one seemed to be enjoying themselves...

Gav Thorpe was also at the event running demos of his in development 'Big Stompy Robots' game and it was nice to see the board was much improved over the one I saw him using at ROBIN in Nottingham which was a bit sparse in comparison.

Exhibitors and Traders

Many of the usual suspects were there though as usual with these overviews I'm selfishly only going to cover in any detail stands that interested me...There were a small number of demo tables amongst the traders stands in order to show off their own systems but no where near as many as in the first room.

 As well as the traders I'm going to discuss below there were also stands for Warlord Games, Mantic Games and White Dragon Miniatures (amongst others) which I didn't get a chance to have a proper look at due to constraints of time and/or crowds in the way. White Dragon Miniatures were also discussed in some detail during several of my previous show reviews.

I'll try alphabetical order so i don't get accused of playing favourites...

Cosy Dice

I already own one of Cosy Dice's bags...now I own two...they also had some other bits and pieces on their stand including figure cases. Their website can be found here.

 Oathsworn Miniatures

My partner bought a couple of Oathsworn models from the companies 'Burrows and Badgers' range at Salute (Fennec Fox and Frog Fixer) and acquired another three at this event...at this rate we'll have one of everything after another few shows...

Purgatory and Broken Toad

Not sure if Purgatory were sharing Broken Toads stand or vice versa. Purgatory was a game recently funded via Kickstarter that I was too poor at the time to pledge to. Fortunately I was able to acquire a (very) late pledge after a chat with a very nice man at their stand. Broken Toad had some nice display pieces on their display as well.

SLA Industries

I treated myself to one of the models that I saw in the cabinet and then the sheer enthusiasm of the gentlemen at the stand made me curious enough to pick up the core rule-book for the RPG associated with the skirmish game itself. Their webstore is located here.

Warploque Miniatures

Warploque Miniatures had models from various of their ranges on their stand though the main focus was upon their Arcworlde game. I was running low on 'impulse buy' cash at this point so despite the show price I had to pass on the Arcworlde starter set...maybe if the same offer is on at the UK Games Expo in a weeks time...

Word Forge Games

Word Forge Games had several of their new models on display including some from one of their upcoming projects. I also picked up one of their 'Reaper' figures to go along with their 'Reapers Revenge' set that I acquired at Salute...it'll get an article soon...

So that was my day-out in Sheffield...and this was my haul...

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.

Product Review - 'Cosy Dice' Bags

I've recently become the proud owner of a custom dice bag courtesy of Cosy Dice. I left the cover design to them and for some reason they decided that a girl in her underwear nicely summed up the blog...it was hard to argue with that, lol.

Though technically a dice bag I decided to test how well it worked for the transportation of card decks as I play a lot of Malifaux and that doesn't really use dice except occasionally as wound markers though my Mutant Chronicles Warzone Resurrection armies obviously do use dice as do most of my other preferred game systems...

Lets look at storage capacity then...

The first picture has fifty standard size D6's in it (Games Workshop/Chessex sort of sizes) and the second has thirty D20's in it and as you can see there's still plenty of space in there as less than a quarter of the available area has been utilised. Even Warhammer 40K Ork players should be able to carry sufficient quantities of dice, lol.

For my usual gaming purposes though I needed to see how the bag did with card cases so I figured that two Fate Decks, a Scheme Deck and a Arsenal Deck was a fairly common configuration and was happy to find that they fitted just fine and the bag still closed up. I also subsequently added a second Arsenal Deck and the bag still closed fine (I've left the bag slightly open in the 2nd Picture so you can see what's in it but it did close just fine).

The next bit of the review contains sewing related words so It'll be no surprise that I handed the bag to my girlfriend and asked her what she thought about it...not that there's anything wrong with a guy knowing about sewing...I just don't happen to be one of those guys...

The bag is extremely well stitched together, has good quality fabric, no seams showing and is really well put together. The lining is also soft so anything you put in the pouch is well protected. The toggle on the draw-string locks in order to keep the bag reliably closed.

'Cosy Dice' do a wide variety of designs and bag sizes as well as being able to do custom designs should you have something unusual in mind.

Their website can be found here.
Their Facebook page is located here.

Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.