AireCon Incoming!

Since I went to the UK Games Expo back in June I've been arguing a lot with myself over whether or not to go to AireCon, an analog gaming festival due to be held at the Harrogate Convention Centre on 9 - 11 March 2018. This month, after much deliberation, I finally caved; looks like I'm heading north next month!

It's a 500+ mile round trip for me, so the cost and the drive are big factors, but the huge list of events going on over the weekend helped to tip me over the edge. I'm definitely heading for the seminars on game design and teaching games, plus I need to try out giant Tsuro and NMBR9! The whole con also sounds super-friendly and relaxed, so I can be a bit braver about joining in with everything.

This year the con is sponsored by publisher Czech Games Edition, comic and games shop Travelling Man and the UK Games Expo, with a guest list featuring the lovely folks from:

• Gaming Rules!
• Watch It Played
• No Pun Included
• Polyhedron Collider
• Toucan Play That Game

With less than three weeks to go, I'm super excited to try out a new convention. Wish me luck, and let me know if you're going too!

AireCon

Friday 9 to Sunday 11 March 2018
Harrogate Convention Centre
Tickets!

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Cardboard - Above and Below board game review

I spend a lot more time than I really should on being jealous of the talents of others, and one of my recent targets of envy is artist and designer Ryan Laukat. Being imaginative enough to design games, artistic enough to illustrate them and organised enough to get them published would be a stretch for most people, but Ryan Laukat somehow manages to do all of them at once. But is it possible to juggle so many elements without dropping something along the way? Time to pick up a lantern, head out for adventure and find out!

Gloomhaven Diary: Session 1 (In which our intrepid heroes learn the rules)

It's been three months since the reprinted version of Gloomhaven hit my doorstep. The doorstep is still recovering from the blow. In all that time, we'd only gotten as far as unpacking, punching and sorting it all out - but now we finally get to play!

Cardboard - Hanamikoji Review

Just an ordinary Saturday night in, waving teapots at geisha and trying to be more charming than everyone else in Hanamikoji, a two-player card game that packs a big punch (mainly to your poor little brain) for such a small game. It's too pretty for a boring box-shot, so everyone pretend this is lovely cherry blossom, okay?

Shh, I was trying to be artsy...

Handmade Fair - September 2017

It looked like a grey start for this year's Handmade Fair as we arrived at The Green at Hampton Court, not helped by the distinct reduction in bunting levels from previous years. Still, it didn't take long to get into the spirit of the day and start looking around for exciting things to do.

Cardboard - Dice Forge board game review

With all the games on display at the UK Games Expo this year, new titles had to work super-hard to get themselves noticed. From the tiny wooden ladders of Catch the Moon to the novelty bed and sleep-mask in When I Dream, fancy components played a big part in the fight for attention, and one game doing a particularly great job in this respect was Dice Forge from Libellud. Upgradeable dice with interchangeable faces, striking box art and a beautiful board packed with a rainbow of colours all help the game to scream novelty - but is there any substance under all that chunky cartoon style? We've done deck building. We've done bag building. Time to try some dice building!

Guild Ball: I finally played some! (Farmer's Guild launch event)

I've been guilty of vanishing slightly over the last month, partly being busy with the usual mix of life, work and games but also having dedicated a big chunk of time to fixing this hideously unpainted situation:

That's an awful lot of grey to cover...

Guild Ball is something I've written about before when we attended Steamforged Games' SteamCon in Leeds late last year. It's a mob football miniatures game where you're attempting to play the most dangerous game of football ever on a kill-or-be-killed pitch filled with dodgy (but beautifully detailed) characters from various power-hungry guilds from across the Empire of the Free Cities.

I came back from the con super-enthused to pick up the game, learn the rules properly and get my models painted up. True to form I did none of these things, and the Hunters returned to their bag, lost and forgotten in the shadow of shiny new board games (as much as it was possible to forget, that is, living with the most Guild Ball obsessed man ever...)

But then earlier this month, during a bit of a resurgence in the game at my local gaming store, Dice & Destiny, I found out about a launch event for the new Farmer's Guild: a few friendly games being played, with some promos and prizes up for grabs. The store is under new management and much improved in terms of decor, outlook and community engagement, so I'm more than happy to support what they're doing and in a fit of enthusiasm I signed up to play, along with my husband. This gave me just over three weeks to get my act together. Nothing like working to a deadline, eh?

Obviously I prioritised painting over learning the actual rules, spending lots of happy evenings pottering about with acrylic paints, green stuff and PVA glue making them a lot less plain and grey:

[If you like the bases, by the way, they're roughly based on the one in this Sorastro painting guide.]

I also got in a rules refresher and some practice introducing friends to the game on a visit, and a couple more panicked 'aaargh, I don't know anything' games with my husband before the big day.

Guild Ball is one of those games where the rules, at their most basic, are pretty fast to pick up, but to get good takes lots of practice, strategic thinking and good knowledge of what everyone's models can do.

It will be little surprise to say, then, that I did not play well! Even so, the day was amazingly well run by our local Pundit (volunteer Steamforged rep) and loads of fun. Everyone was playing in the spirit of the day regardless of experience level and it looked like they were having a great time.

Highlights of my games included conceding two goals to Salt, the sea otter, a hilarious post-match overtime kickabout during which I scored a goal with 'borrowed' momentum and five minutes containing the most horrendous string of dice rolls I have ever put together in a game, ever!

Here's Salt, scoring his second goal...

Everyone received some promotional tokens and an alternative art card for Grange, the Farmer's Captain. There was also a Farmers themed cauliflower ball model to take home for best painted team, which I was very excited to win against some amazing competition:

It might look like just a tiny metal vegetable, but it was very exciting to me!

Nicest of all though was a prize for best opponent, where people voted for their most enjoyable game of the day. I was very proud (and super embarrassed) to win this prize too!

Prizes aside, I think it's so nice that Steamforged have designed an event around having fun rather than the usual winning-focussed tournament formula and I hope they offer lots more like it in the future. And I'm not just saying that because I'm terrible at the game... Hopefully I'll get lots more practice in with Theron and co before heading to SteamCon again later this year.

Big thanks to everyone involved at Dice & Destiny and especially our Pundit, Haydn, for the awesome day!

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