UK Games Expo - Demos

 

I had a couple of demos at UK Games Expo. There were a lot more being offered than that, but there were often big queues and there weren't many things I was super keen to try out.

First up, I got a demo game of Shatterpoint. We got to play a turn, with two players on each side, so we didn't get a huge amount of experience of the rules, but the little I played of it seemed to feel really quite Star Wars-y, and the units seemed to act as you'd expect - droid troopers shooting at a Jedi had a Bad Time, for example.

I may have been at a bit of a disadvantage due to the Clone Wars era not being My Star Wars, but I did feel like the choice of having two people a side on the demo tables somewhat hurt the ability to get a full feel of the game. So my impression was broadly favourable, but not really enough to feel like I had an informed opinion on getting into the game or not.

The other game I got to try out was the Modiphius Fallout: Factions. The demo table was very pretty, it was one on one, and the demo agent did a solid job of explaining things.

The whole thing felt very "Necromunda" in terms of the level of detail - lots of individual stat lines (based on the SPECIAL system), lots of weapons to choose and a bit of book-keeping. I could definitely see that it would flow quite smoothly when you got the hang of it.

I would definitely recommend Fallout: Factions, though I won't be getting into it myself. If you enjoy Necromunda but are looking for something different, love Fallout, or are a little bit over Necromunda being spread over quite so many books - definitely pick this up. There's plenty of models from Wasteland Warfare already, and it's not like there's a shortage of folk who adore the Fallout setting.

The reason I won't be getting into it is that I have enough games of this complexity - I'm not after another skirmish campaign game right now. For me, Shatterpoint's "all you need is in the box" and models having set equipment with a few cards swapping in and out is far more the gap I'm looking to fill in my schedule. I think Fallout is doing very well at the market it's aiming at, it's just I'm not currently the target market for it.