The Man with No Time

Last weekend, in what is rapidly becoming an annual tradition for me, I travelled to SmogCon. This was my third year in a row attending what is the UK's biggest Warmachine convention, and the only proper USA-style convention in the country (to my knowledge). Fortunately for me, this year the organisers had moved it to Birmingham, so I was able to save both money and time by making the short train ride to Birmingham International instead of driving to London, and by only staying for two nights instead of three. I really enjoyed both of my previous visits to SmogCon, and this year was even better in some ways. The venue, though perhaps less fancy, was in my opinion much better. There were more tables, and all of the miniature gaming space was in a single ballroom, with the boardgames area in a room just off to the side, so everything was easily accessible. Food service was much improved too apparently, though as usual I took my own. In fact the whole event seemed to be bigger a...

It's been a bit longer than I intended, but I'm finally getting around to putting up my SmogCon photodump. I'm not going to put the full album up here, just to save space; as usual I took an awful lot of photos!  I've separated the photos out into a few different categories for ease of viewing. If you're interested, the complete set of photos (in chronological order) can be viewed on my  Flickr account . Painting Competition Spell Draft Iron Arena Board Games & IKRPG General

This past weekend I made my way down to London for SmogCon V, the latest incarnation of Europe's biggest and best Warmachine convention. My first visit was last year, and I had such a great time that I just had to go back. Spoiler alert: I'll be heading back next year too. Rather than giving a blow-by-blow of all of my games, I thought I'd give an overview of what I did, where I spent most of my time, and my results. Then I'll do a separate photodump post of the best snaps that I managed to take. A blow-by-blow might follow at a later date if I can be bothered (and have the time).

Just over a week ago I had an absolutely awesome experience - I spent three days at a hotel just next to Heathrow airport. Which doesn't sound so great, until I say that it was my first experience of a convention. Specifically SmogCon 2015, the UK's biggest Warmachine convention, and the only US-style gaming convention in the UK (and possibly Europe, though I'm not sure that's entirely true).  As I said, I had an awesome time. I'd been hoping to go for the last couple of years, but was either a) in Scotland, or b) forgetful and missed the tickets sale. This year I was actually at orchestra when tickets went on sale, but fortunately there were still about 50 left when I got home and I managed to snag one. I decided pretty early on that I wouldn't bother trying for any of the tournaments; instead I'd spend all my time in the casual play area playing pick-up games of Warmachine/Hordes, or trying out some of the boardgames. I'm quite pleased with that ...