So I spent my Sunday at day three of the UK Games Expo at the NEC in Birmingham. This year the show had a much bigger range of companies involved and has moved significantly from it's original board game emphasis and now covers every aspect of the Wargaming, Miniatures, Board Game and RPG's as well as many associated fields. Tournaments and RPG events were held primarily at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole while the exhibitors and retailers filled Hall 1 of the NEC. Sunday is usually one of the quieter days but was still extremely busy.
Hall 1 has several places to buy food within as well as all the required necessary facilities (such as toilets of course) and had a plentiful supply of helpful staff on hand to help out.
Note - This article weighs in at around the hundred picture mark so may be a tad slow to load on certain devices...
General Pictures
As there were literally hundreds of different companies exhibiting their wares at the show doing a detailed look at them all is impossible so I've only really concentrated on stalls that particularly interested me but I did take a lot of general pictures as I walked around...here are the relatively none blurry ones...
This is somewhat randomly the first sight upon entering the hall...
Here are a few stands that stood out...in alphabetical order (ish)
This supplier of scenery for a variety of game systems also had several impressive display stands. They are also soon to be launching a Kickstarter for their own game system 'The Legends of Fabled Realms'.
Batman the Board Game
An understandably popular stand that I was unfortunately unable to get a demo of the game of. The miniatures however looked very nice indeed and the upcoming Kickstarter is definitely one to look out for.
Another supplier of terrain that had some very nice displays on their stand.
I managed to resist buying anything this time...given how little stock they had left on the Sunday I'm guessing that I may have been in the minority...
DMB Games - Dungeon Tiles
Though it's not the only product they make I was drawn in particular to DMB Games modular 3D tile sets. The fact that they also seemed to be very nice people also helped...
It was nice to see that Games Workshop have decided to start appearing at shows again. Demos of the 8th Edition of Warhammer 40K were obviously the main focus of the stand and the people there were surprisingly open about the issues with previous editions. The demo I had managed to relieve some of my worries about this upcoming edition but I'll discuss that in more detail at another time.
Open Combat
The gentleman from Second Thunder was there with his 'Open Combat' game system and it's recent 'Sword Masters' expansion. He has many more expansions planned so it's definitely worth keeping an eye on his website.
The medieval horror RPG 'Shadows of Esteren' had a stand at the show with their impressive range of excellent RPG books.
Themeborne - Escape the Dark Castle
Escape the Dark Castle is a co-operative card game with artwork and gameplay seemingly quite heavily inspired by the old Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. Their Kickstarter can be found HERE.
Village Attacks
Another new board game bought to life through the medium of Kickstarter. Late pledges are still available HERE.
Wild West Exodus
The Wild West Exodus stand was impressive as always and full of people giving the new rule-set a try.
I had a demo of Warlord Games 'Test of Honour' samurai miniatures game and on the basis of that alone bought the starter set. A detailed unboxing and review of the demo will get their own articles...yes...I enjoyed it that much...
Word Forge Games were there with their Devils Run game (amongst others) and were running demos using an interesting 'demolition derby' board. The devils run game is one of my current favourites and is well worth a look.
Wyrd Games - Malifaux Demos
A Henchman was also on hand to offer Malifaux demos at various points over the weekend...I'm currently trying to persuade the gentlemen on the stand to write me an article on the demoing process...
So there you go...I've missed out a great deal no doubt...but I'm now out of pictures...
Thoughts and comments are (as usual) most welcome.
Should you ever choose to purchase something based on one of my features or reviews then it would be nice if you could let the company know where the inspiration came from...who knows...they might be grateful to the poor unappreciated blogger who sent you their way...if however I've put you off a product...well...you can keep that info to yourself...
Haha, will do. I hope you get at least a coupon code for mentioning them.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for the pictures log.
I figured it was worth a try...
DeleteA great photo review.
ReplyDeleteTony