Sunday 12 June 2016

Infinity at the UK Games Expo 2016

Last Sunday I was back at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham to organise an Infinity event for a second time. Once again we ran the event with 24 players and even had the privilege of playing indoors, rather than in the marquee like last year, as the trade section of the Expo had been moved over to the NEC.

We had great help from the Expo staff who had set up tables/cloths ahead of time for us and provided me with all the things that I had left at home (paper. duct tape etc.) as well as three trophies to hand out to the players.

Information on the final rankings, prizes, armies and tables are all below. Be aware that there are quite a lot of images.

Trophies for first place, runner-up and best pained army.

There were a very unusual mix of factions on the day and they were not nearly as balanced as last time. This year we had:
  • No less than seven(!) various Ariadna armies including their sectorials.
  • Six various Yu Jing lists including their sectorials.
  • Only a single Combined Army player fielding the new Onyx sectorial.
  • Not a single PanOceania or vanilla Nomad list.
So if you are planning to come next year, I'd recommend teching against Yu Jing and Ariadna!

The games were hard-fought, but in the end Daniel Barber emerged victorious with his Tohaa after a string of solid victories. 

The lists from the top scoring players are as follows:
  1. Daniel Barber - List One & List Two
  2. Voitek Szafalowicz - List One
  3. Ryan Connor - List One & List Two
  4. Ian Wood - List One & List Two
  5. Andrew Green - List One & List Two
Expo 2016 Results

We had quite a substantial prize pool for this event with our support from Corvus Belli and Simple Miniature Games as well as the prize fund allocated to us by the Expo in addition to the trophies.

The prize were allocated as follows:
  • First Place - Trophy, Winner's Pack (Krakot Renegade, HVT Card).
  • Second Place - Trophy, Ariadna Starter Pack.
  • Third Place - Guija box.
  • Fourth Place - Three blisters.
  • Fifth Place - MAS counter pack and Army Painter laser line.
  • Last place - Antenocitis Workshop silhouette box.
  • Best Army - Trophy and signed Artbook.
In addition, the top five and last place received a silhouette marker and dog-tag from the ITS 2016 tournament packs and every player was allowed to pick a faction patch during registration.


Expo 2016 - Prize Pool

There are also a few things that I wish I had done better at the tournament.

Firstly, we had more space available to us than I had anticipated but I didn't use it well. Tables could have been better spread out in the room, giving players more room for their armies and paperwork, but I mistakenly thought that the other tables that had been set up were for another event! Last year space was at a premium and I just couldn't get my head around the fact that we had excess tables to play with.

Secondly, I think I need to act a policy regarding round times. There were a lot of games that ended on Turn 2 once again and this isn't something that should be happening with 2-hour rounds and pre-placed objectives. I tried calling out round times and regularly checking in on people, but it didn't really seem to help. Suggestions are welcome.

Lastly there are a number of minor logistics issues that I could have been better prepared for. More masking tape would have been useful and I will have to bring my own extension leads in the future. I also need to arrange a better way of contacting players ahead of the event, as currently I can't tell who has signed up to the event until they have contacted me.


So that's the Expo done for another year. Next time Ian and I have bigger plans with the potential for demo games, a bigger main tournament and maybe a smaller second one also (200 pts? Aristeia?). It's early days yet, but I hope to see you there!


Best Painted Army


The existence of a best painted army award came to the surprise of not only the players but to myself as well. I hadn't been planning for this to be part of the competition but when I arrived at the venue there was a trophy prepared for us and it would have been a shame not to give it out.

To make things a little more difficult, after polling the players and passers-by in a sealed vote we had a four-way tie! In order to resolve this the four 'finalists' put their armies out for a second time and I roped in one of the Expo volunteers to act as the tie-breaker.

Best Painted Army - Ryan Connor's Yu Jing

Best Painted Army - Ryan Connor's Yu Jing

Joint runner-up for Best Painted Army - Craig MicNicholas' Aleph

Joint runner-up for Best Painted Army - Daniel Marks' Yu Jing

Joint runner-up for Best Painted Army - Jonny Fenton's Haqqislam

Joint runner-up for Best Painted Army - Jonny Fenton's Haqqislam


The Tables


Once again, the tables we used were mostly bought along by our participants so many thanks to everyone who arranged scenery for the event. It couldn't have been run without you!

I think the tables were all pretty decent with a good mix of more open or more closed layouts and I didn't get any complaints on the day - which I consider a win. If you did play at the event though and have feedback for me then I'd love to hear it.

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

Table 4

Table 5

Table 6

Table 7

Table 8

Table 9

Table 10

Table 11

Table 12

3 comments:

  1. Good write up.. Despite my lowly position really enjoyed the day. The really good tables helped to make a great event. Nice addition to give a link to the top army lists. A group of us were there for the three days, and will definitely try to come along next time.

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    Replies
    1. Glad you had a good time and hope to see you there again next year. :)

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