The date has been announced already, so here’s the thread. Back at the NEC as usual.
1 Like
I usually go for a very cheap hotel off the Coventry ring-road (20 minute drive in), but next year I’m planning to try the Arden—across the tracks from the NEC, originally built I think as an airport hotel, but it should be about as quick to get in as the walk in from the east car park and I can drink in the evenings.
2 Likes
A friend who stayed there said that theres a shortcut now which cuts the walk time to 10 mins
3 Likes
I’m in the Ibis New Rooms. Hopefully nicer than the budget rooms, wish it was the styles.
2 Likes
The place I’ve usually stayed is the Ibis Coventry South, which is very basic but also very cheap and it’s a quick drive in.
1 Like
Expo, I am in you. Working for Wotan Games in the mornings.
2 Likes
Hopefully see you! Flying down from civilisation tomorrow morning!
2 Likes
For anyone else thinking about the Arden, there are basically two routes between it and the NEC.
Green: round the back of the hotel (possibly more conveniently via its back door), through a trading estate, and into the railway station, from which there’s a bridge that drops you outside hall 2. Nominally accessible to wheels, but the lifts in the railway station were unavailable two days out of four, at which point you’d be stuck with escalators.
Magenta: out onto the main road, cross the tracks, cut in through the southern parking areas and go past Resorts World. As shown, to the front door of the NEC, but this is obviously better than green if you’re going to the Hilton (circle the lake and cross “The Rough”, soon to be “glamping” site, to get in through the back door).
If you look at the green route, you’ll see another bridge across the tracks, and a tunnel just north of it—but these have gates on the western end at least, and I think they may only get unlocked for concerts in the relevant bits of the NEC.
2 Likes
What game is that?
And what if I want to play Villainous Aesir/Norse/etc.?
1 Like
Well, the demo spiel is still in my head, so…
You have nine troops (five with unique powers, four identical front-liners). On your turn, you have nine actions available: one to move a unit (up to its movement which is typically about 5 hexes), one to attack. It can only do each thing once in a turn.
When you attack, there are three modes: melee (adjacent), ranged (2-4 hexes, line of sight matters, can’t shoot through forests or mountains or other troops), indirect (5-7 hexes, ignore intervening things). You roll a number of d12; each 12 is an auto hit, add up the rest and compare with defence value (might be 16-20ish), each multiple of that is another hit. Both sides have cards that they can play to increase attack or defence value or force a reroll. Run out of wounds (front-liners have just one wound) and that unit is dead, though the leader can Rally a front-liner back onto the board for an action.
However! Each time you deal a wound, you add blood to the Blood Cauldron (that’s the isolated hex tile in the middle). Get that up to 18, and you have pleased the Fates and won the game. (The other way to win is to kill the enemy leader, but that’s much less usual.) This specifically means you can’t turtle: if I hide in the corner while two other players go at each other, they’ll be racking up the blood and I won’t.
When you’re attacked, even if you were killed, you can counterattack. Has to be back at the troop who attacked you, and therefore the same mode (melee, ranged, indirect), but you spend one of the actions left over from your last turn and immediately attack back. (You can’t counterattack a counterattack, that would be silly.) So generally you shouldn’t spend all nine of your actions on your turn, but save some for possible counterattacking on the enemy’s turn.
Oh, and for three actions you can put down a terrain hex (clear, forest, water) in an open space next to one of your figures.
Forests reduce attacks out, boost defences in. Water slows you down. Mountains can’t be entered at all.
The factions are the Norsemen, the Æsir (Odin etc.), the Dark Elves and the Ice Jotnar (Giants). (An expandalone is planned with four more realms, and an addon for the Light Elves, but it’s a small company and I think this is more a labour of love than a big seller like Brexit: The Real Deal.) Normally you’d build the map with about two terrain tiles per faction; we’ve got just one each here to make for a quick demo. 2-4 players.
Well, that’s up to you. But the flip side of each Heroic faction card is the Epic version—which has more weird powers, that you pay for with Valour tokens, which refresh each turn like your Actions. The nifty thing about it is that their actual stats are a bit lower, so you can play Heroic one faction against Epic another and still have a reasonably balanced game. (I’ve mostly played this as a demo game, so I have very little experience with Epic.)
I have blinged out my personal copy with wooden blood-drop tokens from boardgameextras, but this is the company’s demo copy. I have personally played at least 40 games with it, I don’t go to every show Wotan Games goes to, and it’s holding up well. 
World-devouring beetle: model’s own.
1 Like