I am very much skint after the UK Games Expo that was on a couple of weekends ago and I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry… So instead I thought I would write a blog post about it! π
This was the first time me and Dane went to the UK Games Expo and we loved it so much! Not going to lie, it’s definitely the busiest con we’ve attended to date and definitely one we’ll talk about for a while for various different reasons. I’ll be mentioning them here too of course.
So come and have a nose at what we bought, as well as read about what we thought of the convention. π
Our initial thoughts on the convention was that it wouldn’t be as big as it actually was for a start and as we walked through the entrance and looked around, we were shocked and a think a tad nervous that we wouldn’t get around everywhere. Spoiler, we did! π
Something we noticed quite heavily as we walked around was just how fucking rude people attending were. If they weren’t shoving past to get to stands and stalls, they were not even using, “please” or “thank you” as and when necessary. It pissed me off something rotten and depending how rude people were, depended how rude I was back. This put me off immensely but this isn’t due to the people hosting the convention.
This being said we will definitely be attending again next year, maybe on the Friday as we heard from quite a few people how this day is the best out of the three days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) as well as maybe Saturday so we can get two days in.
We wanted to play some games whilst we were there but due to how much is going on at the convention – we were far too tired for it, which was such a shame as there were loads of games we wanted to have a go at.
As this post shows from the photo, we bought a LOT of stuff, so I thought I would write a haul today so I could show you everything we picked up. I hope you enjoy this haul from us. Prepare for lots of geeky items! π
Also, as some of these (well maybe half actually!) items are Dane’s too, I’ll get him to write here when it comes to anything of his and why he decided to buy it! I’ll pop a “D:” when it comes to his sections so you know he’s talking instead of me. π
The first thing we bought were D&D dice. Hey, you don’t go to a board game convention without buying some dice, am I right?! This was the first stand we really looked at properly as it wasn’t stupidly busy. They had the Chessex dice there and I had a specific pair and style in mind. These weren’t there, but the Borealis style I was after were! They had a couple of pairs (a pink and lighter blue pair) but I fell in love with these light green set and decided to pick them up!
Dane also bought himself a pair of dice too and opted for these blue and red ones. They’re so damn pretty and he doesn’t have anything like this so it’ll be cool for both him and me to try our new dice out at our D&D session on Sunday.
D: When we were walking around the convention the one stand that really caught my attention was the one for Barpig, a card game about pig adventurers in a bar. Even before I spoke to the people running the stand I was pretty much sold on buying the game anyway. They had a pretty good offer that both myself and my friend couldn’t resist after talking to the people running the stand, as well as being given a quick demo. I was sold and couldn’t walk away without buying the game. The day after the convention me and Nat played this game together only to discover it’s between 3-7 players, which is a shame as we were looking forward to an evening of playing it. This being said, we’re now especially excited to play it with friends!
For the convention they had a special price and goody bag for this game. For Β£19 you got everything in the photo including the game itself! This is what I was sold on the most and didn’t hesitate to pick it up.
They currently have the expansion pack BARPIG: After Hours up on Kickstarter until Monday 1st July. I’ll link it here so you can go and check it if you like the sound of the game.
These were some of my favourite items I picked up from the convention, just because they’re Japanese goodies and from some of my favourite things. I stumbled upon this stand about halfway through the day and spotted some Nendoroid figures, so knew I had to go for a nose. When I spotted two official Studio Ghibli puzzles on the table I KNEW Dane had to come and have a look around the stall too! I quickly snapped up the puzzle from the table and shouted for Dane to come over. As soon as he saw the puzzle he told me to get it, but not before I had a nose around the rest of the stall. It was amazing to be honest with you and was by far my favourite at the convention as they just sold so much stuff I love. I saw they had the Pokemon Centre Eeveelutions bell charms for sale too as a decent price so I decided to pick one up. I ideally want this for an ita bag I plan to put together sooner rather than later. It’s so cute, the perfect bag companion.
I honestly cannot wait for me and Dane to work on the My Neighbour Totoro puzzle together and hang up! I’m feeling like it can go up in our bedroom by my side of the bed. π
Just when we thought we weren’t going to actually pick up more than one game, we found a stall where we fell in love with all the games on sale! We decided to pick up half of them and since then have played the one. The games are both by Jason Anarchy, who was a lovely guy to talk to as we looked through the games, asked questions in regards to them and even had a joke as we were paying and such.
I spotted Pretending To Grownup, a card game about doing adult things and scoring points through it. I spotted it through the artwork, which is by Megan McKay (Doodle For Food). She’s currently one of my favourite doodlers on the internet right now and I especially love her Dogs with Jobs sketches that she draws! Me and Dane have since played this game and it’s so much fun! It would definitely be more fun with friends to be honest with you, but considering just me and Dane played it, it was fab and I honestly can’t wait to play it more!
D: I was after a good party game, so as Nat had a look through the game she wanted I asked Jason what Drinking Quest was all about. He told me it was pretty much Dungeons & Dragons but with lots of drinking involved. This sounded like my sort of game so I knew I had to pick it up. I think I would have regretted it if I didn’t. Whilst I was paying for the games (it was Β£20 each or two for Β£35!) Jason wrote a little message and signed the lid of the game. As you can see he wrote, “It’s dangerous to go alone… Drink this” and drew a little drink as well as signed his name. Very cool! π
D: If there is one board game I really love it is definitely Zombies!!! I can’t remember where I bought this from but Nat has a feeling it was a spontaneous buy from Waterstones years ago. Since then I’ve wanted to buy the expansion packs and have added them to birthday, Christmas and anniversary gift ideas for years. It’s taken me going to the UK Games Expo to finally get at least 2 of them and from the actual creator of the game. He was lovely to chat to and even did us a cheap deal for these. Instead of Β£12 each he did them both for Β£20, bargain eh?! I regret not buying more in all fairness. Me and Nat played this game on our first evening together during our week off and we both forgot how hard this game can be, especially now we have more pieces and zombies to play with! We love this game however and cannot wait to play it with more people.
If there was a stand I really did enjoy shopping at during the convention it was at Oathsworn. I feel like this was the stand I spent the most time at as I was overwhelmed by how many miniatures there were, as well as how cute the little animals were. Everyone was looking at miniatures throughout the day, even though me and Dane struggled to find out D&D characters from one of our campaigns (I’m a Dragonborn bard and he’s a half goliath, half half-elf ranger) and had zero luck.
Instead I decided to pick up an animal miniature for any future campaigns me and Dane might go into or do in the future. NOW we’re working on some new characters for another campaign we’re doing with friends and my character for this will be a fennec fox rogue. I’m so excited to create my character for it already!
One of the stands I was rather excited to by from was TeeTurtle, a brand I’ve wanted t-shirts from for years! I actually have one t-shirt from them which is a Pokemon themed one with a Charmander sat in the a pocket on the chest. I picked this up on eBay years ago and still love it to this day.
We decided to take TeeTurtle up on their buy three t-shirts for Β£75 and get the fourth free. If you work this out you technically get all four t-shirts for less than Β£20 each. This may seem really expensive but TeeTurtle are an American brand and to ship to the UK costs a bomb! So we made sure to stock up at the convention whilst we had the chance. TeeTurtle were at the EGX convention in Birmingham September 2018 and I regret not grabbing any t-shirts there.
We decided to get two each and I regret not picking any t-shirts up earlier in the day. We picked these up a couple of hours before the convention was due to shut and the quantity of all sizes was very much small. Most of the sizes that me and Dane wanted had gone, which was such a shame. But this being said, we managed to grab some sizes in designs we wanted. The two on the left are Dane’s t-shirts and the two on the right are mine… Obviously the foxes are mine! π
Dane was actually going to buy me the Foxy Nerd design last year for Christmas but due to the prices for shipping etc he left it in the end.
The two designs on the bottom are both t-shirts we intend to wear during D&D session and we can’t wait to rock them this weekend! Honestly we could have bought so many t-shirts but due to most sizes being out of stock we didn’t get much choice of what we could buy. I hope to see them at another convention in the future so I can get the chance to pick up more designs.
This is a geeky beauty company that I am so happy to have discovered at the convention. Geeky Clean is a beauty company that sell bath bombs, soaps, bubble bars and more! I walked past the stand during the convention but didn’t think much at first. Dane went for a nose at a stand opposite so I decided to go and have a sniff of the goods at Geeky Clean. I fell in love with the bard scent, which is EXACTLY the same scent as Lush Snow Fairy. It’s a gorgeous bubblegum vanilla scent and I knew I had to pick some goods up with the scent. When I showed the soap to Dane he also really liked, so I made sure to pick it up. These weren’t expensive in my opinion (Β£4.00 or the soap and Β£4.50 for the bath bomb) and I’ll definitely be buying from the store again the future! When I’ve given these a go I will DEFINITELY be reviewing them on my blog.
D: We’ve been eyeing up plenty of miniatures and need a way of painting them. These brushes are pretty fancy and excellent quality feeling. I was going to go for the more expensive ones but as it’s going to be our first time painting miniatures I thought best not to just yet. Just need some paint now! I’m actually rather excited to help Nat bring her fennec fox miniature to life with some colour.
D: I want to start being the Dungeon Master with a couple of our friends that are new to Dungeons and Dragons and been looking to try and find a nice easy way to lay out the map for everyone. I have seen plenty of grid paper, laminated maps, DIY solutions and expensive pre-made maps but these seem like a good option. Hopefully, our group will be able to try them out soon! They cost me Β£30 and are by a company called Role 4 Initiative. I didn’t think Β£30 was a bad price considering the brand is American and it would have cost me a hell of a lot more to import from there.
This is the final item I picked up on the Saturday and it was actually from Collectormania which we were allowed free access to after 1pm due to attended UK Games Expo. I thought this was pretty awesome! Looking back I don’t fully know why I bought these lanyards… I used to use one on my house keys last year so it was easier to get them out of my handbag but after I was made a key holder in my old job I used said lanyard on my work key, only to have someone break it a few days later. I was gutted as it was a Deadpool lanyard. Now I’ve kind of replaced it with either a My Neighbour Totoro or Eeveelutions! I’m sure I’ll find a use for these sooner rather than later. π
We actually went back for an hour on the Sunday just to buy a gaming table from Moby Geek! We actually saw this table on the Saturday and enquired about it and was offered it for Β£230 if we took it away that weekend. We decided against it and said we would order it at home. We fast changed our minds Saturday night/Sunday morning and ended up contacting the company to see if we could attend the event late Sunday to just come in to pay for the table and then take it away. They were more than happy with this and come 4pm I went into the event to pay, get Dane in and take away.
Since then we have not only used the table to play games, but to also eat on! The lid comes off of the table so that you can play games inside of the table – which is amazing. We are yet to give it a go without the lid but we are excited to start being able to have proper game nights with people.
So that was our (very expensive!) haul from the UK Games Expo! We really did enjoy ourselves and had a blast! We were shattered that evening however and couldn’t wait to be back at home and tucked up in bed.
I’m especially excited now to rock our D&D t-shirts to our next session, as well as use our new dice.
Did you attend the UK Games Expo? If so what did you pick up? Are you interested in board games, D&D etc? If so let me know which games you love playing, what your D&D character is like etc in the comments. I’d love to hear all about it!
Until next time, take care all and I hope you’re having a lovely week so far. π
There Might Be Coffee 