Well, UKGE 2025 has come to an end and what an awesome weekend it was!
A huge thanks to all who visited our booth, chatted with us about the games we all love and of course, for all of your support over the weekend…
It just wouldn’t be the same without you! Thank you!
The BTST team put a lot of thought and work in the months leading up to the show and it’s extremely gratifying to receive such positive feedback for our booth and products from the community.
This year we opted to place our booth in hall 4, next to the gaming hall. While not necessarily placed in the optimal footfall area, we wanted to allow players participating in tournaments to visit us with enough time to make their game slots.
The lift of a tokensmith is hectic, and whilst we weren’t able to participate in the tournaments ourselves (except for Ed who has to get his FaB fix), it was awesome to see so many games we love being played and such community spirit. X-Wing remains very much alive, with a turnout of 64 players.
Star Wars: Unlimited was played all weekend whilst Flesh and Blood ran pre-releases all throughout and we even found a huge Arkham horror LCG event taking place!
I love seeing these games being played in force and also seeing our tokens and accessories in the wild.
It was also lovely to see so much interest this side of the pond in our partners at ChronoCore TCG! Folks were keen to learn about the brand new mech-based battler'
We had a blast checking out and play-testing some of the new games on the horizon.
Here are the team's notable mentions over the weekend:
Trench Crusade
Having backed the Communicant KS all those years ago, this miniature war game has had us excited for a while now. It was great to get a game in with the TC team using their beautifully painted miniatures and terrain. @tuomas pirinen even signed the gorgeous artwork print purchased from their booth! We can’t wait to see the fully printed rules and with that maybe some glorious tokens in the future.
Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship
As both fans of Lord of the rings and Pandemic, this feels like a perfect match. Pandemic: Fall of Rome is a personal favourite, so it was awesome to see those mechanics shine through in Fate of the Fellowship. It’s also a feast for the eyes, crammed with miniatures, meeples and gorgeous artwork all over that gives a certain Ralph Bakshi energy to the whole affair.
Gundam TCG
Who doesn’t love a mech based game? Not us! Finally got a chance to play test it here and it did not disappoint. We appreciated the level scaling system which dictates when you can deploy your units (despite their cost) in the game, and the pilot linkage system is a theme win!
Flesh and Blood TCG: High Seas
The pirates are here! We got our hands on the first of many, many packs for High Seas and so far the new Mechanologist, Puffin, has not disappointed; who doesn’t want to literally build an engine on the table from Cogs and airships? The Treasure Island macro mechanic for sealed and draft adds a really interesting dynamic to the game where players must read when they can allow their opponents access to that precious gold. Coupled with the resource intensive costs of a lot of the new cards makes for a format where blocks matter more than ever. We love to see LSS develop more of these unique sealed environments.
Neon Hope
We’ve been excited for Neon Hope ever since we saw it last year at Essen and we didn’t need much convincing to back the game on kickstarter.
While Hopeful Games themselves sadly did not have a booth at UKGE this year, we were fortunate to meet with Dominik from Hopeful games, who was kind enough to demo the game with us! Like the idea of Arkham Horror LCG set within a not too distant future? Then this game is for you!
Tag Raid
It’s almost like someone at BTST likes really big robots. This is a game we missed out on crowdfunding a few years ago and have regretted ever since, it was a pleasant surprise to spot this in the wild with Corvus Belli and after ogling some PVC mechs (and gorgeous metal minis) for a while, we’d better get painting.
Battletech Alphastrike: Aces
Battletech Alphastrike has been lingering in the background for a little while at BTST. We’ve been appreciating the speedy plays and arcade-y style as well as the many many mechs. Aces, then, is a format which has been whispered about as the co-op/solo campaign companion which as LCG gamers got us right at our cores. The game has an intuitive ai deck system in which the opponent personality changes depending on the status of the game, shown as various decision trees. Coupled with a nifty narrative mystery objective system, we’re excited to see this couple with the decades of lore this game has to offer. Great stuff!
Rookland Heroes
Big Punch Studio returns after their solo RPG hit Colostle with a two player ECG in the form of Rookland Heroes. Nich Angell’s tiny castle critters are battling out in an easy to learn lane based card game. This project is on Kickstarter right now and we’ve already got our pledge in!
Sadly, the weekend passes too quickly and we can’t quite fit it all in…but there is always next year.
We hope to see you all again in 2026!
Written by Christopher Scillitoe