This was my first time at the Games Expo. Various factors prevented my from attending in previous years, even before the plague got in the way of things.
The Friday was an early start where Dave, Steve and myself drove up from London to the NEC. An easy journey since the NEC is very easy to get to. The only drawback is that we were informed on the way up that the Metropole hotel parking was full and we had to park in East 1. Even so, there wasn't much of a queue.
The first job was to get registered and Dave had a truck load, of stuff for the Bring & Buy. So after queue for about 30 mins in the registration queue, during which Tom turned up, we left Dave in the B&B queue and the three of us went for a quick explore.
The place was reasonable empty at this stage. So it was quite easy to make our way around the stands. Since we started in Hall 3 (Registration and B&B) we first started on Hall 2. It had the usual stuff of people trying to interest you in their games, and people eager to sell you things. And even some who were just sitting there on their phones not caring if you bought anything.
As we descended into Hall 1, Steve immediately spotted a game of Heat at Travelling Man, so that was the first purchase of the day. Its a shame that scalpers seem to have targeted the game and are selling it for silly money on eBay and the like. I did spot a stand that had a load of rather life-like furry ears. But I neglected to make a note of it's location (or indeed which shop it was) which would later cause problems on Saturday.
We spent a couple of hours in the queue before returning to find Dave hadn't moved very far in the B&B queue, so we joined him to keep him company and wait.
Finally the goods were delivered and we decided to go to the open Gaming area for a little bit of gaming before we could check in.
After that we returned to the Expo for shopping and wandering before heading off for food. Since the Expo halls had closed, we went to the gaming halls in the Hotel. This was probably the easiest way for a hotel to run a convention. Simply setup the tables and let the geeks and nerds do their thing.
We gamed on into the night with things like Solar Storm, which we once again failed at, and Lords of Waterdeep.
Saturday was when things started to go wrong. Last night I had spoken to my Wife about the ears and she wanted a pair of furry fox coloured ears. So that was my immediate focus. However due to a bit of miscommunication, I didn't manage to get to the Halls until after 10am, and by then I was in panic mode as I couldn't remember where exactly the stand was. I had an inkling that it was in Hall 1 (it was) but I spent a couple of hours running around at a rather high speed and agitated state trying to find the stand again.
Turns out, that many other people had also thought that these ears were cool and had bought them, so they were no longer laid out on the tables and hence I completely missed them. I did eventually track down which seller was responsible... Genki Gear.
With much sadness, I retreated to the gaming tables for a "quick" game of War of the Ring.
It was during this game that things went even further downhill. I hadn't played this game for 5 years and was very rusty on the rules. Playing it in 4 player mode is also not a good idea, so I had to rely on my partner to carry the game. Unfortunately Steve was also not as experienced and we ended up in a bad position... and this is where we had a very bad experience.
Now War of the Ring has an impressive table presence. All the more so in that Dave has done a superb job of painting some of the miniatures. The photo above just doesn't do them justice. But we had a number of people stopping at the table as they walked past to offer a word or two or to take a photo. But one of the Expo Staff kept popping by and started insulting us for not playing properly. This was very unprofessional and very upsetting.
We packed up and went to a local Japanese restaurant. Which was probably one of the worst meals I've had in a long time. Missing out on the ears. A poor game. The insulting staff member. The whole day left a bit of a bad taste. Or it may just have been the food.
Sunday was better. It was shopping day. The day started by queuing for Hall 2.
I bought a few games and things to add to my collection. Before checking out and spending the rest of the day gaming before finally heading for home in the evening.
Highlights: Dune Imperium. A very enjoyable game.
Lowlights: A very frustrating Saturday.
Most surprising game: Scout. A simple card game that has a surprisingly interesting mechanism.