A short picture report from the Spiel 2003

The Spiel 2003 took place from Oct. 23rd to Oct 26th at the fairground in Essen. Four days of Tabletop, RPG, Trading Cards, collectable Miniatures, Comics and traditional Boardgames. I-Kore used this major event to do a little promotion for their product range.
This year, 7 people manned (and in one case womanned) the I-Kore stand.
From left to right:
Christian aka Stronghold - Knut aka Celtoslegion - Oliver: i-Kore Sales Manager for Germany - Jano from Battlefield Berlin
John: Managing Director of i-Kore - Thorsten aka Voidlegion and John's wife Sammy

Setting up the Stand

The first thing we had to do, when we arrived at the fairground, was to set up the stand, which proved to be not a very big problem. Desaster struck, when we started setting up the demotables. The plan was, to replay the big "High Ground" scenario from the new Voidbox. The first problem was, that most of the Junker Buggy/Quad force stayed in Scotland, so we had to improvise with VASA troops, which proved to be fine as well. The big desaster was, that one of the minicases dropped from the table, turning the 500 point army in it into a 500 pieces army. Our minidoctors managed to put everything together again with an emerency injection of superglue.


Demogames

We had two demotables, the big one 1500 points Viridians with 3 Behemoth and two units of Terrasaurs vs. 1500 points VASA with Black Legion, Shuriken Guards, Suppressors, Archangels, a Ronin, Viper wings and two Void Knights.

The small table was set for participation demo rounds of either Formorians vs. Gael or Syntha vs. viridian Marines.

The big table really proved to be an eyecatcher with lots of people watching the game, we did twice a day. The forces proved to be quite balanced despite one side consisting of vehicles and to other mostly of jumptroops.
The most exciting game was, when Thorsten and I played. To win the game, you had to have to have more points on top of the hill than your opponent at the end of turn 6. I managed to get a Behemoth on top in round 5, who was killed by a Knight of Balance at the end of turn 6. The only chance to win the game for me, was to rally a lone Terrasaur and kill the knight with my last activation. The most desperate moves are often the best and it really worked. I never won a game of Void, that close before.


The other games were mostly quite clear victories for one side. The viridians would win, if they managed to hit with their template weapons and VASA, if they could jump into close combat.

News and Rumours about I-Kore

John was so kind to tell us a little bit about the future plans of i-Kore. For Void, the big issue is the new Koralon army. The armybook will be published in November together with lots of new and redesigned models. After that, there will be the new colonial army, where a few of the "old" generic vehicles will reappear.
Celtos will see a lot of new models over the next few month. The King of the Wild, Cavalry, Sword- and Shieldmaiden for the Gael, Dragons for the Sidhe and in addition to the concept of the small Bloodreaver with one Goblin, there will also be a very big Bloodreaver with lots of Goblins riding it for the Formorians.
The Xyston range will expand from the classical Greek theme to the time of the punic wars. So expect Romans, Carthagians and Hanibal with his warelephants.

None I-Kore games

When strolling down Hall 6 of the Spiel, there were two non-i-Kore games, that caught my attention.
The first one ist called "Monstern" from Assassin.Miniatures. Up to six players walk through a forest with different cartoonlike Monsters, trying to beat each other up. All the monsters have different abilities, for example the sorceress Tric can throw Fireballs or Tauro the Minotaur will make berserk-charges. The game costs EUR 39,90 and for the future there should be additional rules for new monsters. For more information, see www.assassin.de.


The second one is a card game called "History of War".
The game is set in the WWII timeline and the goal is to conquer 4 countries to win the game. There is one starter deck for each side (Germans and British), with expansion decks for Russians or Italians. The next expansions will cover the pacific theatre with americans and lots of japanese aircraft carriers. The rules are similar to the Magic game, and quite easy to learn. The good news is: It's not a trading card game. Every deck has the same cards, so you just need to buy one deck to be able to play properly. The designers wanted to create a game, that's a little bit like the Quartett card games they played when they were kids. They look for historic accuracy, so that players, who know a little bit about WWII hardware will instantly feel at home with the cards. The price per 55 card deck is about EUR 8,-.
See www.historyofwar.de for more Details.