UK games Expo 2016

For the second year I went to UK games expo in Birmingham, this time without the family. Last year I only attended the event on Saturday and played in the Bushido grand masters most of the time, so I din´t get check out all the stuff at the trade show.
This time around I dedicated the entire weekend to the expo, arriving late on Thursday with most oft the other Swedish Bushido players. The expo is situated at the NEC which is must be one of UKs biggest venue for trade shows and conserts and its within walking distance from the airport, so we never ventured into Birmingham.

Friday

On Friday we spent the all day walking around in the trade show hall. Hailing from Sweden I am really not used to big gaming events, the biggest being Gothcon. So this was really great fun!

Not being a player of any Hawk wargames, I was first greeted by a large ship from the Dropzone universe on display. My experience so far with the models from Dropzone commander is that I didn't really like them. But they had on display models for their new game Dropfleet commander they looked amazing. I really got hooked, but it hasn't been released jet. It got funded earlier this year from a Kickstarter. More pictures later in the post.

During the day me and Peder tried Guild ball at Steamforged games demo booth. The models on displayed looked great (they use the same painter as GCT does for Bushido, Dark Iron Studio) and its easy to get started with a game were you only play with seven models on the tabletop. So we got us a starter deal, I got the Union as they supposedly don't have to interact that much between each other. Peder bought Brewers, well because they seemed to drink a lot of beer I guess, we even hooked Magnus up with some Fishermen. More on Guild ball in a future post.

I had a quick chat with the guys from Rubicon models and  a look at their very nice plastic WW2
models. They are working on some nice german motorcycles  with crew, really looking forward to these. I told them I wanted some french motorcycles too!

Another game that had really good looking models was Battle for Troll Bridge from Warplouge miniatures. A lot of character in the miniatures, both the humans and the goblin/orcs/trolls.


Fantasy flight games had a big area in the hall where you could try many of their games and on display was the new ships from wave nine, which has just been previewed on their website. On Saturday and Sunday they arranged one of the biggest X-wing tournaments; Open series - Yavin. Would have been great to attend it but the Bushido Grand Masters was held at Saturday and in the next weekend I would attend the next tournament in the Open series in Copenhagen.

Another miniature company I was really impressed by was Otherworld. A friend of mine has gotten deep into this, investing a lot of time and money in it, but the miniatures he has shown me didn't impress me. But seeing their entire range painted was really impressive. They have a lot of really nice fantasy models!

After the trade hall closed we sat down with the other swedes and played board games.

Next day, Saturday, we totally dedicated to the Grand Masters in Bushido arranged på GCT studios. I played Silvermoon Trade Syndicate as I did last year, but a completely different list. This was my list:

• Jade rose Gumi
• Kyoaku-Han x 2
• Kyoaku-Han crossbowman
• Rakki
• Saki
• Sukoshi Kani
• Sukuratchi
• Tsubaki
• Wasupu
• Bought loyalty
• Dark secrets
• Inside information

I got to play against two Tengu, where I won one and lost one which I am satisfierad with as I haven't played against Tengu before. I only got to play against one Righteous warriors Temple list and I won against it. Righteous warrior is a really good temple list and I thought more would be playing it at the GM, but I was wrong. I also played a Yurei list. In the end I ended up in third place, and Peder got second place!

For some strange reason they hurried the tournament on and we hardly had any breaks, so after the tournament we were quite hungry and tired. After leaving our stuff at the hotel room we went around the area to find some much needed food, this turned out to be a lot harder than we first imagined, all restaurants was full. I guess because it was Saturday, we finally ended up in restaurant at the hotel where gaming part of Expo was held.

At Sunday we relaxed and just went for an hour or two in the trade show doing the last small purchases before going to the airport.

UK games expo is a real nice well run event, and it growing a lot each year. In its tenth year its one of biggest gaming events in the world, well run, more miniature games and big trade show.

My biggest grief about the event is that almost everything closes down after 17:00. The only thing that is open after then is the gaming library where you can borrow board games and try to find a free table and play that.

And now some more pictures:

Golden Kami II - a Bushido tournament

During this years Gothcon we held the second Golden kami. This was the second time Peder and I organized a Bushido tournament at Gothcon, last year we had ten participants. This time around we had 14 players (me included) and many new faces!

We decided to play four games, with these scenarios: 'the Messenger', 'the Idols', 'Botoku' and 'Omaju'. The theme cards had really made an impact this years as only one or two players didn't use any and Temples 'Righteous warriors' being very popular, all four temple was based on that theme. I also played with a theme, a less successful though, Yurei´s 'Death and decay'.

After four games we had a winner, Magnus! Thanks to all that attended and especially those that helped and brought along terrain.

The Results

1. Magnus "Wendel" Wendel - Temple

   

   Erik - Magnus - Martin 

2. Martin "MartyOne" Holmgren - Tengu
3. Erik "ErikS" Sundberg - Temple
4. Rickard Andersson - Temple
5. Peder "Bobo" Harty - Savage wave
6. Andreas "Isak" Isaksson - Ito
7. Samuel "samuelmichaelsson" Michaëlsson - Yurei
8. Erik "McGordon" Sjöberg - Silvermoon
9. Jonas "Ecksen" Rådemar - Savage wave
10. Max "Nakuni" Christiansson
11. Mark Lagerlöf
12. Johan "Ret_johanem" Malmström - Yurei
13. Victor Holmqvist
14. Klas "Klasseman" Edlund - Temple 

Magnus was playing with this:

• Master Po - 12 
• Oki Shisa - 11
• Yumi - 9
• Yukki - 8
• Hotaru - 6
• Aiko - 4
• Righteous warriors
• Kami of Eternal earth - (4)

The rising sun - Bushido tournament

Last weekend Peder and I went to Gothenburg to participate in a Bushido tournament held by Ulf.

We were going to be eight players, but by Saturday morning we were six players. I think Bushido is a quite fun game, but it can easily go stagnant in how you build your list, so with that in mind I tried something different this time.  I took Silvermoons trade syndicate and this was my build:

• Honoka 5
• Hakushi 7
• Dakufaia 10
• 2x Kyoaku-Han 8
• Sukuratchi 5
• Wakasu Akuma 1
• Okkete San 2
• Wasupu 6
• Wakasu Gorilla 6

Ito - The second coming

In preparation for our Bushido tournament Golden Kami a couple of weeks ago I did a second big push to finish some more models for my Ito clan. Iwas using the new Theme card that came in Itos upgrade pack. In it your only allowed to use models with the 'Blood of Orochi' trait and animals.


In my list was:

• Kenzo 
• Kaihime
• Yuui
• The Jade witch (Ayako)
• Satsuki
• Saburo

Golden Kami 2015 - Bushido tournament

This last Saturday we had a Bushido tournament in Malmö, the Golden Kami. We were seven  players including myself and Peder, so we alternated playing so that we would be even.

There was a good spread of fractions the only double being when I played as I used Ito, we even had a hastly painted Shadowwind clan. We played four games, the scenarios being these once; the Messenger, Botoku, Ninki and the Idols.

After four games we had a top three with equal points (24), but Ulf had beaten both Jonas and Mattias so he was once again the winner of a Bushido tournament (he won our Bushido tournament earlier this year at Gothcon). I think the former Swedish Bushido master (Andreas I) must come back from his retirement, we want a face off between these two giants!

UK games Expo 2015 (Part two) - Bushido Grand Masters

In this second part of UK games expo I'll focus on the Bushido tournament I participated in. It was run by GCT studios (the producers of the game) in one of the big gaming halls at the Expo.

UK games Expo 2015 (Part one) - The trip and the Expo

So know I have returned from Birmingham, UK, and I am ready to conclude my experiences from the Expo. In part one I will conclude my experiences from the Expo. In part two I will go through the Bushido tournament.

The trip started as much that I do in gaming with a spur of the moment idea, in this case it was me and Peder one day saying; "Maybe we should go to the Grand Master of Bushido in Birmingham." We had talked for some time that it would be fun to go and visit some bigger gaming event outside Sweden. When we saw that it was a limit of 24 players in the tournament, we thought that we never would have a chance at getting a ticket.

UK games expo 2015

So its time for UK games Expo in Birmingham, and the Bushido Grand masters! Just finished painting and basing om my Silvermoon trade Syndicate. Really looking forward to get to play Bushido, sadly I haven't had the time to play as much as I wanted to. I played three times with Silvermoons, one of them with the list I am bringing to the Expo.

The figures are nice individually, but lack in consistency throughout  the range. For example so are Fitiaumua and Manu similar in look, but scale wise they are totally different, Manu being much bigger. Tautola seems to be a complete different race than the other two. If you compare to Ryu´s Mikio, who fits much better into his range as a whole.

For the Grand masters I´ll use Tautola, Fitiaumua, Manu, Wasapu, Oda and two Kyoaku-Han. The two left over points I'll use for the card 'Dark secrets'. Seems like easy to play list that can work, though in my last game we noticed a weakness in that I have no really good 'VIM'. I think I'll have to paint up one of the Rose models, which could work real well as a 'VIM'.

Vecka arton

Den gångna veckan har innehållit en del spel, men även en stor omorganisering av hobbyrummet och lite snickeri.

Jag var i Falkenberg och spelade med Conny, han köpte Bushido figurer för ett par år sedan efter att test spelat det, men kom aldrig riktigt igång. Jag var i närheten och tog med mig spelbordet och 35 Silvermoon lista, Conny hade precis målat klart en grundbox till Cult of Yurei. Vi körde scenariot 'Reikan', ett bra nybörjaruppdrag där man väljer en av sina modeller till VIM (Very Important Model), vars uppgift är att ta sig över till motståndarens område.

Det blev ett bra spel där Conny bland annat gjorde 'Tautola' till en zombie med hjälp av 'Kato, the Puppet master'. Sakta sakta bröt alla 'kairaier' ner mina figurer, men Manu som var min VIM var vid liv och sprang ner till Connys område och där med blev det en 1-0 till mig.

Part 2: Gothcon 2015 - Wild West and Bushido

Second day of Gothcon (or third if you count Thursday). As we got a lot of questions about doing demo games of Bushido during the tournament on Friday, we decided to run a Bushido board next to the Dead mans hand scenario.