Birmingham Games Expo 2012 - post your experiences

Ben2

Mongoose
Hi guys

I went to the Games Expo to help run demos for ACTA: Star Fleet. I thoroughly enjoyed it and talked to a bunch of people about the system. Because the ACTA system is so easy to learn the basics of that generally after the first turn people needed very little help.

We had a few SFB people playing, and as someone who used to play it back in the day we talked about the differences, the most important one being you can turn up to your local club with ACTA:SF and get a game whereas with SFB for a pick up game you really need players who've put the time in, or are willing to put the time into learning a very thick rulebook.

We had five games where almost no one had even glanced at the rules previously and after turn 1 we only needed to answer occasional rules questions or clarify things. Leaving plenty of time to chat and offer people Ribena.

I picked up two Federation reinforcement boxes, a Fed new fast cruiser (meaning I now have 1 of every Federation ship). a FD7 (to give the Klingons two fast cruisers) and a sheet of the Federation transfers. I've been over the ships, very pleased with them so far, and I'm halfway through doing a review of the box, that I'll get finished tomorrow when I have light to take pictures by and a charged camera battery.

Lessons learnt - next time I'm doing demos, laminated ship sheets are a must. Also possibly base the demo forces on squadron boxes 1, 2 or 7, because once the points were evened up in the last battle, the Romulans cloaking for a couple of turns meant the Klingons took a bit of a pasting without equivalent firepower to throw back.

The Demo forces were:

Fed - Prometheus Class Strike Cruiser, 2 x Constitution Class Heavy Cruiser, Ramius Class Battle Frigate

Klingon/Romulan - C7 Battlecruiser, D6 cruiser, Novahawk command cruiser, Battlehawk destroyer

For the final game I added a couple of my ships (Klingon E4 and Federation Burke class Frigate) and changed the Strike Cruiser to a Kirov class BC.

And what report would be complete without pictures?

The last demo game of the weekend

Playingthedemo1.jpg


Previous demo games on Sunday

Playingthedemo2.jpg


Playingthedemo3.jpg


Alan minding the Mongoose stand. From my casual observation a lot of Star Fleet stuff went at the weekend.

AlanonMongooseStall.jpg


Feel free to add your 2p worth on what you enjoyed.
 
lastbesthope said:
nice to see someone using the optimum gaming fuel, Irn-Bru.

LBH

They don't have it on an IV like you do.

I did run across a Bristolian so if you do crumble and get a fleet you may have an opponent locally.
 
Noticed in a few pictures... That they are now starting to do the standard usual practice of caging gamers. Just in case we escape into society after the games are finished. :lol:
 
Not only that but they had Stormtroopers working security as well as the normal guys in hi-vis jackets.

It was like living in an Evil Empire.
 
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