BOYL 2019 - some thoughts

BOYL has been and gone and I've finally found time to catch my breath. Given nearly two weeks have passed there's not much point in a pics and appreciation post so instead to cover that off I'll link to Asslessman's review on his Leadplague blog and an overview of the Saturday on Shadowkings (the only day I was able to attend this year).

I wanted though to set down my main impressions of the day. It also set off some broader thoughts about the games that work well and not so well at BOYL but that's a topic for another post. First to mention Warmaster, which I'm sure most people reading this have heard of, as indeed had I. Seeing it in action on this magnificent table was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me. I'm increasingly becoming convinced that I want to treat WFB as a large skirmish game so I'd be keen to give Warmaster a go at scratching the "ranked up units" itch.

The thing I actually played though was the Realm of Chaos table, which was a good game but not the one I expected. There was lots going on on the table, with warpstone lumps bringing in extra mutations, shrines and other landmarks to interact with and civilians to capture.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves with fun goings on, outrageous dice rolls but mostly just a background for admiring little lead people and generally sharing the hobby with other like-minded gamers. My regretful conclusion though is that Realm of Chaos isn't the game for me... I love the extra detail and background the books bring, and the warband generation and advancement aspect is undoubtedly fun. However the battles are what sink it for me - with the small size of the warbands and the relative power of the champions after even a couple of rewards or mutations it very much fits into the Herohammer mould, which just isn't my thing.

Rather than ending on a negative note I wanted to mention in passing one magical aspect of BOYL which is that of having the creators wandering the venue. Tony Ackland was there with some of his portfolio, John Blanche judged the painting competition, Rick Priestley and Nigel Stillman watched games being played with their rules (sometimes several editions at once!), Kev Adams was sculpting for charity and of course the Ansells host the whole thing. It makes for a slightly surreal but very special day.