UK Games Expo 2015

The ninth UK Games Expo, held at the Hilton Metropole in Birmingham over the weekend 29-30 May, was a bustling affair. This is the sixth consecutive Games Expo I’ve attended, and over the years I’ve seen it grow from its humble beginnings, bursting the banks of its previous venue (an intriguing if somewhat cramped former masonic lodge in central Birmingham), into something for gamers in this country to be truly proud of. Now it’s poised to get even bigger, with plans next year to move the trade halls and demo areas into Hall 1 of the NEC itself, whilst maintaining the Hilton for more laid back open gaming and tournament play.

With increased attendance comes growing attention. As Fantasy Flight’s CEO Christian T. Petersen told me in a forthcoming interview conducted at the event, breaching the ten thousand mark is the point of critical mass that can really break gaming into the wider consciousness. The successful year on year growth of the UK Games Expo is perhaps the strongest marker that board gaming is riding the wave of an incredible international resurgence; with this event poised to become something like the British equivalent of America’s Gen Con or Germany’s Essen Spiel. If further evidence were needed that the Expo is garnering attention just consider the guests it is drawing: The aforementioned Christian Petersen was joined by esteemed designer Eric Lang, Bob Carty (VP of Mayfair Games, sponsors of the event), Andy Looney of Looney Labs and lovely Quintin Smith of Shut Up & Sit Down, who played in the Netrunner tournament and did very well indeed (and who I swear I wasn’t following around like a fan boy all weekend).

As exciting as this all is, the unfortunate downside to this rapid growth is overcrowding. 2015 was that awkward year in which the expo had far outgrown its current home, but not quite ready to expand into its new one. It was clear the organisers had squeezed every last ounce of space out of the Hilton, and once more Daleks traversed its marbled floors and its upmarket corridors and halls were packed with hundreds of games and thousands of gamers wanting to get at them. This meant that it was harder than ever to get a seat at a demo game on the busy Saturday, not to mention secure table space at one of the many cavernous open gaming areas (which were going well into the early hours). It’s perhaps testament to the quality of the show, and its attendees, that this increased population didn’t get in the way of an incredibly relaxed atmosphere. The expo has a real cross section of society from families, to hard core gamers, or people just wanting to get drunk and play Dobble (you know who you are!), only going to show that board games have far outgrown that classic nerdy stereotype.

You can’t fault how the expo responded to this crush of humanity. The staff and organisers, now quite experienced with putting on the show, were braced for impact and made it an incredibly well managed event. To provide more options for refuelling (because sometimes even gamers have to eat), for instance, part of the hotel carpark had been turned into a music festival style food court with a range of tasty and quick world food outlets (including some amazing burgers) and a double decker bus that cleverly had its lower deck turned into a bar. Extra space was also reclaimed from the urban sprawl as a huge 600 person marquee was set up to accommodate the boggling amount of tournaments that were on the go, including Living Card Games like Warhammer 40,000: Conquest and Netrunner, not to mention classic board games like Settlers of Catan or Carcassonne. Many of these tournaments were high profile British nationals, where the best players in the country competed for tickets to America to play in the world finals (congratulations to my friend Varun for winning the Conquest tournament and Richard for winning Settlers of Catan!). Meanwhile, Ready Up’s very own Hazel entered the Netrunner tournament and reports on it below.

The hotel responded in kind to the excess of punters, setting up mini themed bars and food stands in every available nook, my favourite being a stand made of packing crates serving lovely craft beers like Blue Moon and Brooklyn Lager. Meanwhile the board game library grew to an unprecedented size as it was taken over by Thirsty Meeple board game café from Oxford, who are in possession of the country’s largest travelling board game collection (should you have a party big enough to book it). Next year they promise to be back, providing not only access to hundreds of games, but a pop up version of the café! Even the massive and insanely popular board game bring and buy sale had adjusted to the numbers well, introducing an organised computer checking in system.

It was clear the organisers had squeezed every last ounce of space out of the Hilton, and once more Daleks traversed its marbled floors and its upmarket corridors and halls were packed with hundreds of games and thousands of gamers wanting to get at them.

People may have been looking to pick up a second hand bargain, but there was much that was new to be excited about. Fantasy Flight had a large presence this year and were showing off their forthcoming Sci-fi 4X game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Forbidden Stars, which sees players battling over planets using an intriguing order queuing system. This allows player to lay their orders on top of an opponents to delay their actions or prepare for that looming invasion. Fantasy Flight are best known for their accessible and narrative driven ‘Ameritrash’ games, but are demonstrating their growing interest in the strategic Euro Game market. To this end a copy of their reprint of Reiner Knizia’s classic abstract tile laying game Tigris and Euphrates was also on hand along with a few other classic titles.

The other big publisher that was showing off an impressive line-up was Queen Games, who had two acclaimed kids games and two meaty Euro Games to show that were yet to hit the shelves. The latter two were Parfum, a light strategy game of dice and card collection which sees players trying to make perfumes to match the demands of clients (imagine a slightly more complex Splendor); and Queen’s Architect, an intriguing game that sees the players roaming a medieval kingdom, assembling crews of craftsmen and trying to earn the Queen’s favour by building stuff (although I must admit I rethemed it in my head to painters and decorators roaming around in white vans). The twist is that, as with the game Village, your workforce age and retire, their aptitude changing up and down throughout their life. If you pay for them cheaply you get fewer uses out of them then when you pay a premium, but you can always ‘refresh’ them by sending them to the tavern, of course! Being a fan of a nice filthy Euro game, I immediately picked up a copy.

Also on show was Gale Force Nine’s excellent adaptation of Sons of Anarchy, which captures theme of the TV show perfectly in its backstabbing game of drug running and gang violence. Ride your motorcycle gang into a location and take the action, or fight another gang for the privilege. It’s worker placement with extreme violence! The biggest gang normally wins, but each player can boost their strength with a hidden bid of guns that attract police attention (limiting how many bags of drugs you can sell on the black market) as well as potentially sending your opponents dudes to the hospital.

But there was more to do than just game this year. Not only was cosplaying even bigger than normal (I lost count of the number of Laras wandering around) but a cinema, by Film Scene UK, provided entertainment away from the rabble with screenings of geek favourites Flash Gordon and Blade Runner, as well as the documentary The Next Big American Game, which follows the exploits of designer Randall Hoyt (who was also in attendance) attempting to get his game printed. There was even stand up in the form of James Cooks’ show Always Be Rolling and a live performance of John Robertson’s hilarious YouTube show The Dark Room, which mimics the format of the classic text adventure (just click the link and go with it). On top of that there was a raft of talks and seminars including one on representation in board games and a Ask Me Anything with Eric Lang, esteemed designer of many a game including Warhammer 40,000: Conquest and XCOM the board game (keep your eyes peeled for our forthcoming interview, incidentally).

The UK Games Expo also holds an award ceremony, voted on by attendees as well as a jury of experts. This year’s winners included:

Best Board Game – Black Fleet
Best Family Game – Waggle Dance
Best Strategic Card or Dice Game – Elysium
Best Party Game – Cash ‘N Guns [2nd Edition]
Best Expansion – Firefly: Blue Sun Rim Expansion
Best Miniatures Game – Star Wars Armada
Best Board Game with Miniatures – Star Wars Imperial Assault

Netrunner Nationals: Losing Control by Hazel Compton

“You look so serious,” my brother said to me as he watched me obsessively count card limits, “you could be at work right now.” It was the night before Android: Netrunner Nationals, and I was tweaking my decks.

Netrunner is a card game set in a dystopian cyberpunk future involving two players; one is a corporation (‘corp’), and the other is an internet hacker (‘runner’).  It’s really two games, of control and power over the other player, played at the same time, both sides constantly trying to be the one who has the advantage. You play out your turns in actions – ‘clicks’- gaining money, laying down cards, building power, until it’s the other person’s turn, wherein they steal the power (or agenda) from the table, scoop up all your money and ‘trash’ your cards, so you have to build up again. You win by ‘scoring’ (for the ‘corp’) or ‘stealing’ (for the ‘runner’) 7 agenda points, or killing the opposition.

Netrunner is not my job – I wish it was – but Nationals was the biggest tournament I had been to this year. I was excited, determined, and very nervous. I had driven across the country multiple times in the past six months to attend different Netrunner ‘metas’, going to different Store Championships or Regionals, and meeting many people whose playing I respected, and sometimes even feared. I had obsessively talked for hours about the benefits of one card over another, of one ruling against another with anyone who would listen (Ed: and many others who had no choice), looked up trending decks on the internet, found apps on my phone, and played the game digitally again and again. In short, I had given a lot of time and emotion to this game, and Nationals was a BIG DEAL.

Nationals was the chance for me to meet up with people I knew, as well as at least a hundred more, to vie for, if not prizes and an invitation to ‘Worlds’ in America, at least a respectable place in the listings. I knew most of them would be exactly like I was at that moment; sitting on the floor surrounded by cards, holding two up in their hands and reading, re-reading, re-re-reading the text on both, trying to validate one card over the other. We were all serious; we were all working hard.

So when I turned up to Nationals the following day, I was ready for a tough time; I was ready. I happily sat down to the first of what would have been eight rounds of Swiss (one hour matches where you had to play as Corp and Runner), but 45 minutes later, I lost as the runner, and fifteen minutes later, I lost as the corp. Two hours later, I had lost another three times, and won once.

There is something in the game community called tilting. It originated from Pinball, and came into the card game scene through Poker. It means when you lose and your emotional investment is so high, you can’t move on. The only analogy I can think of is when you learn to drive and you make your first mistake. You could then spend the rest of the lesson unable to get over your mistake, even making more, but the instructor tells you snap back and carry on driving. You are, after all, in charge of a very dangerous machine. You don’t have an instructor in Netrunner.

Tilting is unfair and hard to justify, and it hit me, hard. I knew I had good decks, I knew I was a good player, and yet I was losing. After Round 3, I broke out of the tent, unable to stop myself from crying so hard I couldn’t speak, and sat rocking on the grass. Through a set of gulps and whines, I agreed with my partner to drop out of the tournament, and went and played Patchistory with Dean instead, and I am glad I did (Dean: although not so much, as you kicked my butt!).

In that moment, I HATED Netrunner, and I never, ever wanted to play it again. I hated how after everything I had put in, I was still losing; I felt like I deserved to win. I left the tournament broken, but throughout the day I realised how ridiculous and selfish the thought that I deserved to win was. As if I deserved anything more than anyone else in the wonderful Netrunner community, as if I deserved to win however badly I played, and as if in hating Netrunner I would feel vindicated.

As I said, I dropped out, but the tournament itself went on, and when I came back later, I was surprised to find many people I would have put money on, had not made it as far up the list as I thought they would. The decks I suspected to be floating around the top – Corp Jinteki: Replicating Perfection and NBN: Near-Earth Hub, and Runner Kate ‘Mac’ McCaffrey – as well as a few other surprises, like Quintin (Shut Up and Sit Down) Smith’s Corp Weyland: Gargarin Deep Space were also in the top 16. As the game progressed, with the winner being crowned near 1am (after around fifteen hours of playing), I retreated home, and found out the results via social media, where I learnt Alex White was crowned victorious. If you are interested, here is a link to coverage of the top 16 games – the first two being Quinns and Dave ‘Cerberus’ Holland (the previous UK No.1) and Alex White.

As for me, the next day I played another Netrunner tournament, the Uroborus Cup, and although I didn’t place highly, I had fun, and did fall in love with the card game again, which is the biggest win of all to me.