UKGE 2025!
A Post Mortem For A Great Weekend
I finally went to UKGE! Originally, the plan was to go for Saturday and Sunday, with the Rumbleslam Birmingham Brawl tournament being on the Sunday, but sadly, it was cancelled. That left me free on the Sunday, so when TTCombat were asking the TTAgents if anyone would like to run some demo games, I put my name down for the 9am-1pm slot on Sunday! But we’ll get to that, later! Let’s begin!
Friday, 30th May 2025.
After a day at work, I got cleaned up, had food, then headed to the train station. I was in for about a 4 hour train ride. When I finally arrived in Birmingham, I headed for the hotel. I was staying near the NEC, so as I headed there, I saw the lanyards, passes, people carrying their first day purchases, and my excitement really started to build.
Once I was in my hotel, I lay down, stuck the TV on, lamented being too late for getting food from the restaurant downstairs, and found that AEW Dynamite was playing on ITV4. I watched some wrestling and got ready for my first time at the Expo.
Part of Warlord Games’ amazing display. I absolutely love the smoke trails and explosions, adding massively to the action. And just wait until you see what it’s firing at…
Saturday, 31st May 2025
After a good breakfast, I made my way to the Expo! I picked up my weekend pass, then made my way into Hall 2, where the stands began. Immediately as I entered, I saw Mantic Games. I’m a fan of some of their games, like The Walking Dead and Mars Attacks (RIP). They had demos running for a bunch of games, and I got the chance to try out Halo Flashpoint. I would describe it as a middle point between Deadzone and Mars Attacks, where MA was very much a stripped back ruleset based around Deadzone, focussing on playing at ground level, rather than taking it to 3D and being up on buildings. Halo Flashpoint introduces that 3D element, and all of the information needed being on your character cards. We were playing on a smaller play area, which got you straight into the action. It was a quick paced game, we played a 2v2 deathmatch, and I really enjoyed it. I’m not a Halo computer game player, I'm a Playstation user, and only played Halo while at friends houses. The edition I played was the Recon Edition which contains a game mat, cards, scenery and 8 Spartans, giving you enough for a 4v4 game. There is also a Spartan Edition, which adds 8 more human models - Fireteam Hydra, and an alien team - Banished Elites, along with some premium objective tokens, enabling you to play Capture The Flag with plastic flag tokens, amongst others.
As I explored further, I found a very talented artist, Misty Moon Illustrations, who had a beautiful display of her work. I picked up a few bits. If you love Autumn, Fantasy and Geeky stuff ( I mean, if you’re reading this, you clearly love geeky stuff) check out the link above to their Etsy store.
Believe me when I say, the expo is absolutely overwhelming! The sheer amount of stalls and amazing crafts to see is mind blowing. Chaos Curios was an excellent stop. I saw a table of candles, some of them having dice in them, all of them smelling amazing! My favourite was the Rogue class Cola Bottles one. I picked up a 100ml candle and took a smell - and just… wow. The smell is such a good quality, both when burning and not. I really like the little trinket in this candle, a curved dagger - something no rogue goes without. And the black and red candle, wax dice and glitter gives it that feeling of an assassin subclass, because we all imagine them like that, right? I also got a Blood Hunter candle, which is a Mango Margarita scent. This one is a 250ml candle which contain the metal dice. It has such a sweet, fresh scent, that I love. Another 250ml candle I got, I would have had to buy immediately, was a Vault-Tec Pear Drops candle. This one has a big yellow cog door in the middle, and it smells like bubblegum! The bright blue and yellow are always a good choice to get my attention!
Wandering around a bit more, I stumbled upon one of the places I had written down that I had to find, was Critical Kit. They make a solo RPG that screams out Tippy Club, called Be Like A Cat. It’s a solo/2 player RPG where you, surprise surprise, create a cat and explore the world around them, along with the scenario you’re playing. There is a regular world one where you’re patrolling your territory and getting into scrapes with other cats. There’s an Egyptian setting, cyberpunk, pirate and even one in space, on a ship full of aliens! It sounds like a fun journaling RPG, which I’m looking forward to playing, and even picked up a set of cat D6 for it, too.
Smirk And Dagger was another stand that I had on my list. They make The Night Cage, and I wanted to pick up the expansion, Shrieking Hollow, which adds even more terror into an already creepy game.
Now, I love a nice mead. I brew my own from time to time, and I got to sample a couple at the weekend, and picked some up. First is a nice sparkling “Session Mead”. It’s a 5% mead, so pretty light for mead. This one is Stoneforge Mead and it’s a very refreshing drink. I just had one while writing this, fresh out of the fridge! There was also some delicious flavoured meads from Nidhoggr Mead Co. These are full strength, 15% meads, and come in a range of flavours. The ones I went with were the Mead Horde Set 2, Sour Cherry, Blueberry and Blackcurrant, and Ginger Meads.
Back to gaming, I came across Cryptic Killers. I love an escape room, and I really enjoyed the Exit The Game scenario I played with a few friends, so this was right up my street. You are given an evidence pack with everything you need in it to solve the case. Help is available should you need it on the website, and you submit your answer there and find out if you caught the right guy! I picked up Murder Of A Millionaire and Murder Of A Marine Biologist.
My first look at the Chroma scenery from TTCombat. I was so impressed with it. It’s strong and sturdy, and the finish kind of feels like plastic, so I’m confident that with plenty of play, it’ll still hold up and look excellent.
As I made my way further into the Expo, I found Siege Studios, and their new range of Siege Scenics. Seeing their display unit and the amazing work they do was excellent. It’s clear to see why they are one of the premiere commission painting companies out there. From the painting to the custom Greenstuff work, just incredible! When I was looking at the Siege Scenics stuff, they were really helpful explaining how they’ve got it all set up, using different colour palettes for different seasons, and how they work within the ranges, and they had a really nice tile with examples of how it all goes together. And the alien range they have looked so cool. There is a kind of colour shift effect with some of them, and it just looked so beautiful. I ended up picking up a few packs of tufts and mosses, and a snow effect which I think will look great with what I want to do for my Half Tilt Shield Maidens, so a big thank you to Siege Scenics for all of the help, I really appreciate it!
It was around then I saw the Warlord banner hanging from the ceiling. I knew from Facebook that right next to Warlord, TTCombat were posted. And as you know, these are my guys! Daz was doing demos of Rumbleslam with Ben, and Gaz was introducing people to the glory of Carnevale, while dressed as a Pulcinella. TTCombat’s own Cody was showing off Half Tilt, and Mark was showing the latest game in the Drop-verse, Operation Artemis. It was great to finally meet Daz in person, having been friends with him for quite a while now, and regularly playing D&D with him, his daughter and a couple of his friends, all of whom I got to meet, too! But also, the people I’ve talked to on the various Facebook pages, getting to put faces to the names was great. Meeting the TTCombat team, and learning a bit more about Dropfleet and the associated games from Dave Lewis was amazing. On display there were some of the scenery kits, including the Chroma scenery, which I finally got to see in person. Giving it a good looking over, I was really impressed with the quality of the printing on it, and how it layers up to great effect. I cannot wait to get my Chroma stuff for Striketeam! I had a demo game of Operation Artemis, which is like Pacific Rim meets Dropzone Commander. Cornish Rim was a name we banded about a bit. Big Mechs fighting giant alien animals. What’s not to love?! I also picked up some Rumbleslam superstars for The Mountain who have just been released.
After spending a bit of time at the TTCombat stand, I went to have a look at what Warlord Games had on display. I’m not a historical wargamer, but I love looking at the range of Napoleonic and World War 2 models they have. Then I saw the Konflikt ‘47 diorama they had set up, and it was absolutely INSANE. A giant walking tank with a plasma ball atop it, with a massive battle taking place all around it. Trenches, shell craters and vehicles litter the scene and everywhere you looked had unique details and really cool stories being told. Konflikt ‘47 is set in a world where World War 2 never ended and blends supernatural, sci-fi and brutal World War 2 battles.
After Warlord Games, I was pointed in the direction of Nona Gallery by Daz, due to the meme cat stickers they do. That had me immediately interested! It was in view of the TTCombat stand, so was easy to find. I ended up picking up some meme cat stickers, Mothman stickers and a Mothman lanyard, because Mothman is my boy.
I also paid a visit to Laser Edge Gaming and picked up one of their amazing Mana Themed Sliding Storage Boxes. It looks like a book, but the spine of it pulls out to reveal the drawer/storage box. They also had an advance look at The Mimic Tome, which is on Kickstarter as of writing. It’s an amazing hold all for your D&D 5e character, with chalk marker sections for where you’d be writing, and separate pull outs for inventory and spells.
I also paid a visit to Heartborn Studios and they told me about their new game Escape From Tibbles Tower. I also saw they had some miniature cat models! So I had to pick up a set of them!
Escape From Tibbles Tower sounded like a really fun game. For up to 4 players, they take control of a time-bending cat, Tibbles, as he tries to escape from the tower filled with dark magic corrupted Tibbles’! And the game itself is back pocket sized, you use tiles to build the tower as you explore and look for the escape, but the evil kittens are there to slow you down! They were so nice to talk to, and getting to learn a bit of the lore about Tibbles, and how they’re expanding on the Tibbles lore with future games, like including him in an upcoming game, Elements Of Power.
So this is just a look at what I bought, but I took a slow walk around and checked out all of the stalls I could. There was just so much to see and remember. I saw a few people I recognised from Youtube, Twitch and Instagram, like LeafyDecays, James from Siege Studios, Byron from Artist Opus, and Duncan Rhodes, but they were busy with people, so I didn’t hang around like a creep. The size and scale of the Expo is absolutely massive and walking around and trying to take it all in was physically exhausting. After the show ended, I went for food with the TTCombat team, Daz, Gaz, Ben and Mark before heading back to the hotel and having a lie down, and watching Judge Judy for a bit.
Sunday, 1st June
Daz took a sneaky photo of me doing my first demo!
Sunday was the big day! I was going to do 4 hours on the TTCombat stand, running demos for Half Tilt. I had picked up a trader badge and TTAgent shirt from TTCombat on the Saturday, so I was able to get through the door early, and get the demo stuff ready to go. I found Daz and Gaz looking around the stalls, and I picked up a couple sets of liquid core dice from TrayedAndTested - an Eye of Sauron set of polys and a green variant that looks like a monster eye. And Aby was really nice to talk to while we were at her store.
Once the doors opened to the public, it wasn’t long before we had the demos going! Daz snapped a photo of my first demo, and we had a good game, and they convinced their other half (tilt) to want it, too! So they later came back for a copy, which was really good to see! A good few of the demos resulted in them joining the world of Half Tilt, and some of them joining the Facebook page! While on the stand for TTCombat, I got to talk gaming, painting, and modelling with a lot of people, and it was really fun to talk to everyone. No hard-selling, just letting my passion for the games to shine through. And the Event Exclusive models from Maxmini were also there, so the Olive Knight and the Jester were big pluses for not just me, but a few of the people who I did demos for, or chatted gaming with. Never underestimate the power of quirky characters that can sit around your games of Half Tilt and Rumbleslam!
I was enjoying the demos so much, I was an hour over what I said I would do before I realised, so I said I’d be more than happy to do the rest of the day. I got a bit of food, then had a wander around again before heading back to running demos, and there was only one place I had to get to. I was going back to see Heartborn Studios and getting a copy of Escape From Tibbles Tower. It had been playing on my mind all night and day, and there was only one thing I could do. I couldn’t remember exactly where they were, other than I remember them being near the Zatu stand. As I rounded the corner and saw them, my face lit up, I told them I had been thinking about the game all night, and that I HAD to have it.
Back to the TTCombat stand, and Louis came in. He’s the head man of TTCombat, so it was great to finally meet him and have a bit of chat with him. Genuinely nice bloke.
Three models that were in the display for Half Tilt, and these are new, yet to be announced models!
When the day ended, and we did a bit of breaking down, I was putting the Half Tilt models into a model case, when I saw something that took my breath away. In the display were 3 new models. A new knight with a chalice on his helmet, carrying a very ornate shield. A flat helmed knight with a large backpack, and a knight with a frog on his head, in the same vein as Sir Cluckington, Sir Ducksley and Sir Pigismund.
In the display was also a new Rumbleslam team who have been teased previously, but the Half Tilt guys really surprised me!
After the show, I grabbed some food for back at the hotel. I just wanted to lie down, because I was still shattered from the Saturday, and then a day of demos also added extra mental drain. I tried to minimise it with the demos by switching up the characters, so there was always something to be checking, it wasn’t just memorising one character I’d play as, which kept a bit of sharpness, but at the end of the day, I still needed to switch off and relax with a cup of tea, a sandwich and once again, Judge Judy!
Below is a gallery of more images not used in the rest of the post. Click on them to see larger versions of them! Among them are the haul of stuff I talked about above, and more photos of some of what I saw at the Expo!
Take a look at what Alien stuff I painted during Maylien!