They meet on Monday and Wednesday nights which is excellent for me being up here all week, as I'm usually back south on the weekends.
They are into their X-Wing, Fantasy, board games, Magic the gathering, and RPGs.
I've been going for a few weeks now and have found they are open to give any new games a bash, which is really interesting for someone who collects games at a tremendous rate but rarely gets to play them.
DreadBall!
Recently I've been hosting some intro games to see if the club is interested in playing a league. It turns out they are, as long as I run it. Which I'll gladly do.
I've been honing my teaching skills along with my team tactics so hopefully I can spur on the other players to some skillful games in no time. (I even managed to get my parents and girlfriend involved in a game, though the parents (not gamers) both agreed they preferred Zombicide for it's fewer rules and setting (my girlfriend is also not a gamer and was mainly involved in dice rolling, but there was an unusual amount of 6's being rolled, so it worked out well!)
My parents played Orx and Goblins well, beating our poor corporation team to pulp.
I've been putting together sheets and references for the league and will be looking to start it in the new year after a pre-league warm up session.
A Grand Nerdy Day Out
I got to the show fairly early, it's a humble affair with an honest "no frills" feel, they've recently bought an old health centre which they are clearly in the very early planning stage of renovation, but it has plenty of room for expansion which I think says a lot about Mantic's plans, they are big.
Upon entering I get a vague bearing of the place, there's queues out of the main hall towards the game specific rooms, so I figured I'd wander to the back of the main hall and keep my eyes peeled for the other N.A.G.A guys.
Instead I find a group of people waiting to play a demo game of LOKA. They need an extra person, so I decide to join in. Also I may have heard the accented voice of Allessio Cavatore and leapt at the opportunity to have a little chat with him.
LOKA is a great little game, it's essentially chess, with the basic chess movement mechanics at it's core, but with wargame elements thrown in, dice rolls for attacks, support synergy from orchestrated attacks, terrain, and army list building. Very neat and almost a leveller for chess players, knowing how to play chess may help, but good dice rolling will still be key.
I found my way to the Hawk Wargames room where they were demoing dropzone commander, coincidentally on some lovely gaming boards from a Kickstarter campaign which I had already pledged for earlier in the week.
There was lots of chatter about warpath, it's got a way to go yet but I think this is going to be Mantic's BIG THING when they get to the next version of it.
Display cabinets showing off the studio painted models, was cool to see the Mars Attacks stuff in the flesh. I love the truck, hoping I can squeeze a few of them out of my pledge.
Mars Attacks
DeadZone
DreadBall
Warpath?
Here was a cabinet showing off some sneak peeks for next year.
DreadBall/DeadZone Brokkrs (like ForgeFathers but more classically styled as Sci Fi dwarves. Bald heads and beards etc.
DreadBall Convicts (for the dirty underworld of the upcoming Dreadball Extreme expansion)
Kings of War demos.
Ronnie and Jake Thornton give us a very frank, honest discussion about the future of Mantic, how they got here and the things they've learnt and their plans for the future. They have big plans, and even though I'm not anything to do with the Mantic team, I was inspired by the genius of their plans. I hope it all goes well because this is a passionate company.
Of course, being in Nottingham I couldn't resist dropping by GW HQ.
I actually went in to pick up a copy of Forgeworld's "Imperial Armour: Aeronautica" to allow me to use my Vulture gunships in some upcoming games ;)
A couple of shots of some tables at Warhammer World
And of course, the Rhino.
On my Workbench.
Dreadball - building MVPs & season 2&3 teams. And planning to run a league.
Meridian Miniatures - I got these guys recently from a Kickstarter. I'm currently building 4 factions of steampunk minis. Here is my first one, theme: "they came from the seas!" Bases from Bases4war. They are so nicely detailed and great value! Check them out! (£2.50 for 10 25mm bases!)
I'll detail more when I've got them together.
Vonsmallhousen - an upcoming 40k competition.
I need to decide between learning my Tyranid psychic power rules and putting together a 1250 point list (:/)
Or
Getting together 1250 points of guard and finishing the painting of a few units.
Both are a bit of a pain, I don't really want to be learning the old codex rules just before the new codex drops, and I don't like taking a small nid force if I can help it, I iust love the toys too much in that force to cut out units.
So it's looking more likely to be guard, I just have to get my nose against the grinder with regards to painting.
Off the too of my head I can think of several projects I would need to undertake to get a fully painted force:
- build and paint up the remaining hazmat veterans required in my command squad.
- paint up any tanks/flyers used (none are at a finished standard yet)
On a positive note the infantry are all done :)
Thoughts
So that's a long rambling post into the aether.
I'm aware I'm quite a solitary hobbyist, I'm a bit of a lurker in the community, I tend to wander around the internet, dropping comments randomly. But I guess I'm an occasional gamer, private hobbyist, I have a social life outside of nerdy activities, but I'm 100% miniature enthusiast! Kickstarter addict and plastic crack addict. It's great to see comments and views on this blog, and I will do my utmost to increase my outgoing presence online. Maybe that will be my New Years resolution... Hmm
Cheers for reading!
TSINI
