Pssssht Pssssht...

I'm at a tournament admiring a display board, it's been made by a prominent player and it's gorgeous. No real surprise, his boards are always excellent. He's made a booklet, full colour that has his army background in it. Quite nice to see actually, backgrounds seem to have gone out of fashion. It's very detailed, I skim through it.

The player walks over, he has a big grin on his face, and an aerosol can of compressed air in his hand, he squeezes it. Pssssht Pssssht... Wind effects I puzzle? He starts talking me through his army, it's all very impressive. He tells me all about the mini's he's used. Pssssht Pssssht. Painting style. Pssssht Pssssht. Their background. Pssssht Pssssht... This goes on for a while.

I start to look closer at his board, it's actually not as good as I thought. He's scattered dungeon tiles from Advanced Heroquest all over it. Unusual. Also there's no miniatures on it currently, perhaps they are still at the table from his last game?

The player regains my attention, our eyes meet, his grin grows impossibly wider. His hand gently caressing and squeezing the can. Pssssht Pssssht...

And then I wake. It's 4am and my wife is snoring in the bed next to me. Pssssht Pssssht. I nudge her and her snoring increases in volume... I gently pull her arm suggesting she sleeps in a different position. "STOP WAKING ME UP!" She exclaims, the decibels rising. I decide it's probably better to let sleeping lions be, and spend the next hour thinking about writing a blog the next day...

Pssssht Pssssht...

 Northern Kings GT22 Review

This weekend gone I pottered over to the NK GT, it was their first event in a while and it was at a completely new venue. 

Location

First up, for me the location was pretty ideal. I loved the drive there and back again with my hobbits, beautiful countryside. I went from Cheshire to Derbyshire to Lancashire. All lovely. 

The hotels aren’t right on the doorstep of the venue, but it didn’t matter. I enjoyed the walk back to the hotel each night with Matt Hobday. The venue was in the town centre with some excellent food options nearby and some terrible karaoke! We needed to get Matt James singing! (no, not Diggy diggy hole... Which was on repeat Sunday morning.)

Venue

The venue itself was spacious, plenty of room to move around. Toilets were good. (you cannot assume this) The bar could have been open earlier, but it wasn’t a big deal, and it was very cheap! It was cash only, but as we knew in advance, I brought enough. 

Terrain

The terrain was beautiful, Nick went above and beyond here. I loved every piece and each battlefield was both gorgeous and very practical. I especially loved the walls, which could be picked up from their base, all walls should be like this. The hills were good, my favourite being one with stone bricks built into it.

Catering

The guys deserve absolute praise for this, they used a shoestring budget and went above and beyond. The fish and chips on the Sunday was my favourite of the lot. I actually missed that tea and coffee was available unfortunately, I really could have done with a cup of tea Saturday morning!

For any TO’s reading this, please, please, please charge an appropriate amount for your costs. Add £5 on top of what you think it will be even! If this event had been £70 I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid and still been more than happy.

Extras

They went the extra mile in almost every way, we got mimosa cocktails on arrival, cakes to nibble mid game, goodie bags with sweets, a sprue from Mantic, all sorts! There were numerous prizes for randomly everyone to win too! Honestly every TO does not need to go this level, but hey if you want to, feel free!

Website

The new website Nick had built for this was fantastic. There were some technical issues. From a player perspective these were a non issues as they were resolved via a workaround very quickly. I love how the site had the scenarios with full descriptions, and it even had all the terrain heights! (I liked the height 1 ponds)

Evening Entertainment

Fun stuff, Friday was very messy! On the Sat it was nice to keep the majority of us together, I enjoyed the quiz, and called the Yorkshire answer for nearly every question of the last round!

Hobby

I was really pleased to see a UK event that actually encouraged us to make an effort with hobby. The wide selection of awards was lovely. For the rest of the UK’s TO’s, more of this sort of thing please! 

Conclusion

It was really nice to see everyone and hang out, I had some great games. I enjoyed every single one despite a horrible hangover on the Saturday… Maybe I’ll drink less on the Friday next time?