The past few years had been a haze of building and painting Games Workshop products with the odd game thrown in for good measure but times were changing. I was at uni and time for playing was limited. I had joined the uni gaming society CRAGS and played lots of different games there. This is when I started to branch out and expand my collection of games. I ordered Catan and Carcasonne, as well as some party games like Cards against Humanity, Hot Seat and The Voting Game which all got played heavily at CRAGS. We were playing Bolt Action on a regular basis and my Soviet army grew especially with the Black Friday deal I got. Frostgrave was getting played too and as I only needed to buy books for it, I ordered them all. The rules for Frostgrave were simple and the game itself played really well. It was open ended so you could write your own scenarios and campaigns for it too which was something I was looking at doing. James had also introduced me to a group of people who regularly played Dungeons and Dragons and was invited to join the group and play. I created a Half-Elf character and played for a few months with them but my time was becoming limited due to placements so had to come out of the game but I had loads of fun and wanted to do it again at some point.
The games collection was growing nicely and I was reintroduced to the dungeon crawler games by Mike as he had got Dungeon Saga. It was a game very much in the same vein as HeroQuest which I had never got but always wanted. I enjoyed the game which made me look at other dungeon crawlers and led me to Descent: Journeys in the Dark from Fantasy Flight Games. It was a huge box packed with tiles, tokens, cards and miniatures. It was what I considered the ideal game for me, it had everything in one box. I found the game at Wales ComicCon and the trader said he’d sell me the game and the expansion at a discount price. I bought it from him. I was amazed at how much I had got for the game. There were so many miniatures for me to paint and I could use them for other games like Frostgrave too. It was also my proper introduction to the games company Fantasy Flight Games (FFG).
I saw more FFG I wanted to try or get as well as more Descent expansions. The next one I got was Star Wars: Rebellion. It was another big box game packed full of tokens, cards and game pieces. I was in heaven. The game pieces were small so I decided not to paint them as they wouldn’t look as good. I had tried X-Wing when James had brought it round one day and thought, another Star Wars game from FFG, let’s get some of that too and what was is it full of? You’ve got it, tokens and cards as wells as the miniatures you got with each ship expansion. I looked at the other Star Wars FFG games Armada and Imperial Assault but didn’t buy them. In between getting the FFG games, I was getting other board games to play such as Plague Inc and Dominion. I was also meeting friends in Liverpool at Sugar and Dice Board Game Cafe for games. We played all sorts of board and card games which allowed me to try games out before I got them.
My games collection was growing. I was seeing games that were coming out that looked interesting but FFG were about to announce their new Star Wars game coming out the following year, Star Wars: Legion. It was essentially at Star Wars miniature battle game in the same vein as Warhammer 40k… I had to have it. I preordered the core box set as soon as I could but had to wait until the following March to get it and when I did I was amazed at the detail on the miniatures. They were bigger than the Descent minis which would make them easier to paint. It was another big box of goodies that I was going to have so much fun with. So it was another miniatures game but it was Star Wars. I started to buy the expansions and would paint them up as soon as I got them. I played a few games with Mike who always played Imperial. It was a great game. Then along came another FFG game that caught my eye…KeyForge. It was a card game but with a difference. It was a unique card game where every deck you purchased was different and there was no deck building involved unlike other cards games. I played in a pre-release tournament and shockingly, I won. I had finally found a card game I could win more often than not. I invested in a few more decks when the game was released and played in more tournaments of which I won a few of them.
After a few months of playing KeyForge, the local scene died down and I didn’t get to play it much but someone from FFG’s Organised Play team posted on the KeyForge Facebook page that they were looking for judges for the vault tour. I applied and got invited to be a judge at the UK Vault Tour at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham, the UK’s biggest gaming convention. I was going to be in heaven for four days, surrounded by games and gamers. It was a busy weekend and quite tiring but I got to meet some great people, play a few games and I also got to buy lots of new games and expansions at discounted prices. I came back with a lot more Legion expansions, three new board games and loads of Keyforge stuff. There was so much at the Expo that I wanted but didn’t have the money or time to get it so decided to start saving straight away for the next one. I was going to go again even if it wasn’t with the FFG team but I got invited to be part of the team again and I jumped at the chance. Then COVID-19 hit. Expo was postponed to the summer and then cancelled until next year. I will return though, I’m already planning the trip.
While I was playing other games, I found I had a bit more again so rejoined the D&D group at the start of a new campaign. My character only lasted a month or so but I made a new one who lasted a lot longer. That campaign carried on for a while until not everyone could play so I offered to run Starfinder, a sci-fi version of D&D as I had got some of the books a while back to read. It was the first time I had run a game of this type so started planning what I needed to do and what I needed to buy so it could run well. We started the campaign when we met on Thursday nights but after a couple of months we went into lockdown so continued it online for about another month or so until technology beat us and wouldn’t work properly. Hopefully, we’ll be able to come back to it at some point but we’ve got a new D&D campaign starting this week and I’m looking forward to that. I’ve also found myself in another group on a Tuesday night playing the Star Wars role playing game from FFG in which I play a Bounty Hunter and I’m really enjoying it.
This year has been a bit of a strange one for games with the various lockdowns and restrictions but we have managed to play a few games. I’ve got a nice Adeptus Titanicus army and books collection going on thanks to James getting us into it. I managed to pick up the Runewars miniature game by FFG really cheap at Liverpool ComicCon and currently painting it up to use in Warhammer Fantasy when we play past editions and Oathmark (another skirmish game). I’ve got a couple of new board and card games to play. I’ve been looking at future games and expansions I might get especially Journeys in Middle Earth (another FFG big box game) which I am currently playing through solo and started with Mike and James. I do have many solo games that I can play which has helped me get my gaming fix as well as a load of painting being done through both lockdowns.
That’s where I’m up to with my gaming hobby/obsession. There’s a lot more that went on over the years with regards to gaming but there’s just too much to mention. Whatever happens over the next few months, I’m sure I’ll be playing games along the way and hope some of you can join me to play those games…
Tabletop Tales 