With our third edition in Nottingham now well and truly done and dusted, its time to say a huge thanks to all our very many Tournament Organisers, Demo Game runners, Traders, Too Fat Lardies Participants and Lardy Game Hosts, the highly eclectically-attired band of East Midlands MegaGame Revolutionaries (!), Dan  and the whole team from Wargames Illustrated (who brought The Perrys, Jervis Johnson, Andy Callan and some of the best demo games on the UK circuit to the Wi Room all weekend), Youtube "celebs" Pirate rich paints and The Terrain Tutor, Gary and the tireless team from The Lead Belt Arena running the Bring and Buy, Tim and the bars team (who this year didn't manage to run out of Britcon Ale or Ale Caesar - phew !!), Warlord Games, Gripping Beast and Mierce Miniatures who all brought their own flagship tournaments to Britcon this year, Will at 7th City Collectables for introducing us to the League of Hobbits, everyone who donated their £1 beer glass deposit to our collection in aid of SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity ...  and of course our just-over 500 Britcon Trade Show visitors who came, who saw, and ... along with our 400+ onsite players and 100+ trade stand staff and demo-game runners ... almost certainly made this our first ever 1,000+ attendee Britcon!!

We'll all now be taking a well earned rest for a short while, after which we'll get around to updating the Britcon web pages on our site with the 2025 info - after which we will most certainly be back next year over the weekend of 8-10th August here again in Nottingham - the heart of the Lead Belt ! ​

This year visitors to #Britcon will have the opportunity to refresh themselves with not one, but TWO special beers exclusive to Britcon 2024 !

Ale Caesar is a tribute to Warlord Games Epic-sized (in every way!) new Ancients box sets, and is a punchy yet classy American-style IPA brewed with extra pale malt and a deluge of hops for those with a taste for those huge American-sized flavours.

Timed to coincide with the new Epic Scale ancients going on sale just before Britcon, Ale Caesar is ideal for quenching your thirst after a hard day of wargames shopping in the warm and sunny climes of Central Nottingham.

For the more traditional drinker Britcon Ale will also be back this year too - this classic East Midlands style best bitter is well-rounded with some residual sweetness (like many of our players tbh...) and is well balanced with resinous hop character

Both will be available on draft on Friday evening (for players) and Saturday all day (for players and show visitors) from our onsite bar.

What's better than being able to chat to one "celebrity" painter at a wargames trade show? 
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Well... you could always have TWO - and that's exactly what we will have for visitors at the #Britcon trade show in Nottingham, as on the 10th August we will be playing host to pro painters from two of the biggest names in the business - Warlord Games and Gripping Beast!

Gripping Beast will be bringing along Pirate Rich, host of the "Pirate Rich Paints.." weekly live stream on YouTube (see his review of Amy Painter Fanatic paints above)  in which he paints Gripping Beast figures and tries out the latest paints on the market . 

Rich specialises in ‘painting for playing’ level, not Golden Demon (although he can) and this is really popular with GB's customers. Rich has also painted many armies for Gripping Beast, most of which Lord S (GB's illustrious and highly loved leader) has managed to loose with.

As anyone who's seen his YouTube channel will testify, Rich is full of practical tips and techniques to help everyone improve their gaming standards. 

Warlord Games will also be bringing Darek, one of their Nottingham-based pro studio team along to the show on Saturday 10th.  

Darek has been described as a "hobby hero" by people who he's given advice and tips to at Warlord Games open days in the past, and renown for being down to earth while also having a absolute wealth of knowledge and skills in painting and modelmaking. He will be working on the Warlord Games stand all day and available to answer questions and pass along some of the tips and techniques he's picked up when painting many of the figures and vehicles you'll no doubt have seen on Warlords prolific output of new ranges and box sets. 

You can see Darek in action here:

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As well as these two star painters, the #Britcon Trade show also features around 40 traders, a host of demo and participation games, the Wi Room hosted by Wargames Illustrated (with a chance to meet the Perry Twins on Saturday), a well stocked Bring and Buy, and a Wargamers Bar with two special Britcon beers - Ale Caesar and Britcon Ale - all happening on the weekend of 10/11th August right in the heart of Nottingham. 

Entry to the show is FREE if you register in advance at https://www.bhgs.org.uk/britcon-trade-show.html or £3 on the door on the day.

Our spies have been out and about and have managed to take some pictures of a rather stunning test-run of one of the games due to feature at Lard Workshop at #Britcon in Nottingham in a couple of weeks time - and this one is "proper-secret" too, as it makes use of the Too Fat Lardies upcoming and much-anticipated "Midguard" ruleset !

Word on the Lard Street is that this Midguard setup is titled "Over My Dead Body", with a scenario set in the heart of the Trojan War where Achilles comes face to face with Queen Penthesilia and her Amazon warriors, meaning that it’ll be a case of "Death before Dishonour" as the two heroes and their warbands fight it out over a champion’s corpse.

​Lard Workshop takes place at #Britcon in Nottingham on Saturday 10th August - the signup list for the games there is already full, but visitors to the #Britcon Trade Show are welcome to visit and ogle the Lardy goodness in the Old Chemistry Theatre, which is located (perhaps unsurprisingly) close to the #Britcon Bar

We're delighted to announce that Wargames Illustrated will be bringing the Perry Twins to BRITCON in 2024, as part of their "Wi Room" presentation of some of the most eye catching and award-winning games seen on the UK convention circuit in the last few months !
 
On Saturday the Perry's will be joined by Jervis Johnson in the Wi Room, where they will be acting as your hosts in a series of games of Valour & Fortitude, Jervis' renown Napoleonics ruleset.

As well as this stellar lineup of wargaming luminaries, you can also see the ‘Best Historical Game’ award winner from Salute 51 - presented by the Southeast Scotland Wargames Club, and the Boondock Sayntes’ Partizan ‘Best in Show’ Indian Munity game - Unao 1857. 

Entry will be free to all trade show visitors to the Britcon Trade Show. 
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​The 2024 Challenge was again played at the NEC in Birmingham as part of UK Games Expo this weekend, one of the largest tabletop gaming events in the world with almost 40,00 attendees!

This year DBMM and L'Art de la Guerre were played. The results are now posted on the BHGS website, along with some photos from the event.

In an extremely sporadic but no doubt warmly welcomed occurrance, the BHGS FoGR Rankings have been updated for the first time since October 2023 !

​The full rankings now feature 21 players and can be found on the BHGS website 

One of our team was invited to do a guest spot on the very popular Plastic Crack Podcast earlier this week, and managed to get some "Britcon"-related talk into the discussion while he was on air. 

Check it out in this section of the pod (the link should start at the relevant point in the podcast as well), but if not it's at around 1 hour 42 minutes in. 

If you are nterested in bringing a group to play at Britcon (Competition or just "3 day s of games") you can get in touch with us at [email protected]

Last weekend the BHGS staged our annual Roll Call event in Cranfield. 150 players took part across 10 different events, and all of the results are now posted online on the BHGS Website together with a host of photos taken across the weekend of the event showing some of the armies that were in tabletop action - meaning that those of you who headed off early to beat the traffic can now find out where you placed!

We're now also only 4 months away from our biggest event of the year, Britcon (9th-11th August) running in the heart of the Lead Belt at Nottingham Trent's University City Centre Campus.

This year Britcon is playing host to a number of high-profile events, with the Gripping Beast Saga Grand Melee joining the Warlord Games Bolt Action GT on the Britcon tournament roster for the first time, along with both Swordpoint and a more relaxed Saga "Ironman" events running alongside the Saga Grand Melee competition. 

We've also added a slew of new periods and systems, including: 

• MESBG - a more "relaxed" Mixed Doubles event for this popular "historical-adjacent" system, hosted by UK Hobbit League Supremo Will from 7th City Games
• Darklands - The Sherwood GT, organised and backed by Mierce Miniatures
• Blood & Plunder - bringing 28mm Pirate Gaming on the high seas to the streets of Nottingham !
• The Generalissimo is Dead - a 30+ player Megagame set in a fictional superpoer conflict,  organised by the EMM Group 

As a result bookings for Britcon are really racing ahead of last year, with over 200 players already signed up across our plethora of one, two and three day events and competitions, including:

• Footsore Miniatures Barons War - a one-day event on Saturday
• The Too Fat Lardies Game Day "Lard Workshop" running on Saturday 
• DBM 15mm 2-day event Sat/Sun
• L'Art de la Guerre 15mm 6-games 3-day event Fri/Sat/Sun
• L'Art de la Guerre 25mm 5 games 3-day event Sat/Sun 
• Mortem et Gloriam 15mm 5-games 3-day event Fri/Sat/Sun
• Renatio et Gloriam 15mm 5-games 3-day event Fri/Sat/Sun
• DBMM 15mm, 3-day event open pool 5-games Fri/Sat/Sun
• DBMM 25mm, 2-day event open pool 4-games Sat/Sun
• Epic Armageddon 3-day event 6-games Fri/Sat/Sun 
• Field of Glory: Ancients & Medieval V3.0 15mm, 3-day event 6-games Fri/Sat/Sun 15mm
• To The Strongest!​​ 2-day event Sat/Sun 
• Bataille Empire 15mm  Napoleonics - 3-day event Fri/Sat/Sun 
• DBA  1 or 2 day event options available, multiple themes
• Armati - 2-day event Sat/Sun

If you've not already signed up, why not book your Britcon ticket right now and start planning your weekend of gaming in Nottingham this coming August?

Every Britcon entry ticket again includes a £5 trader voucher and also a grab-bag lunch for each weekend day you are playing - saving you somewhere north of £15-25 in on-the-day outlay compared to many other events and venues on the UK wargaming circuit (and also meaning that "queuing for food" isn't going to eat into your gaming, shopping and socialising time at Britcon either!).

The BHGS have also secured even more student accommodation in University Halls this year for our "onsite" Bed & Breakfast Gamers Accommodation Deal just 5 minutes walk from the venue (and even closer to a Weatherspoons with late night opening!) which you can book along with your gaming ticket. The Uni will be asking us to lock-down the number of rooms we will be taking up sometime around the middle of May, so to take advantage of this offer make sure you book soon, as we will only be able to hold a limited number of additional rooms for sale once we get past the venue's May cutoff date this year.  

We are also working on bringing in a few more competition periods, as well hosting several groups who will be sharing our venue to stage their own weekend-long "social" gaming events this year. If you think your group or gaming community might also interested in sharing our venue for a long weekend of uninterrupted gaming please get in touch and we'll see what we can do to accommodate you. 

Before Britcon of course the The BHGS Challenge will again return to the UK's biggest gaming event, UK Games Expo at the NEC in Birmingham over the weekend of 1st & 2nd June with ADLG & DBMM on offer this year and available to book on the UKGE website.

Whichever of our events you are planning on attending, we look forward to seeing you across the table later in the year.

The BHGS Events Team 

Tickets to the competitions at this year’s BHGS Challenge @ UK Games Expo have just gone live on the UK Games Expo website.

This year we will be running events for :

• DBMM 15mm
• L’Art de la Guerre 25mm
  

Both events will run across the 1st & 2nd June at UK Games Expo, the UK’s biggest tabletop gaming event, and can now be bought direct from the UK Games Expo website.

To play you need to purchase a ticket for the competition (via the UKGE "Events" page) plus a visitor pass to UK Games Expo covering at least the two weekend days. If you are attending other events at UKGE, or coming with friends and family there are many other types of passes (3 days, family entry etc) available to extend your visit.

Full details of the competition themes for these three events are available on the BHGS website.
We look forward to seeing you across the tabletop at the NEC this coming June when we will again be part of this truly amazing festival of tabletop gaming!

The BHGS Challenge Team