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?
