Anyway, Manorcon 2024 took place at the University of Leicester in a newer builder, closer to local amenities with what felt like alot more open or at least less cramped open gaming. Now it wasn’t perfect, there were no signs outside the venue telling you were in the right place, there were tables with elevated plugs in the middle, which essentially made them unideal for gaming. And wow the temperature of these new buildings, unbearable greenhouse would be a fair description, with little to no airflow , and no windows. It was somewhat grim in the later hours of the afternoon. However, near enough everything else was pretty good, the lighting, the majority of all the other tables, space to move, the food and drink was reasonably priced e.g. you could get a meal deal for £3.95 or a substantial hotmeal for £10 (none of this burger is £10, chips are £5 or getting a measly portion for £9/£10), teas and various coffees were £2.50, which I think alot of conventions could learn from.
Manorcon however, does suffer from beach toweling, and I suspect that is in part due to the largely old white male population attendees that seem to be largely responsible for this. That’s despite the committees wording on flyers etc saying beach toweling is not permitted. The demographics of the conventions has felt to be shifting but definitely feels predominantly old white. The convention finally after years has players wanted signs and you are given a warm welcome, which pales in contrast to my first manorcon in 2018, where I walked in, approached several tables to join games and was told no.
However I think it’s quite telling when you listen to organisers saying that they setup the spreadsheet for organising games so that they (yes they the organisers) can avoid certain people. That feels like a conversation just needs to be had to say sorry don’t attend or you need to reflect on how you conduct yourself, rather than work around trying to avoid people who create negative gaming experiences. I myself (in pasr years) have sat and gamed with some of these people and it was one of the worst gaming experiences ever.
We approached a committee member about beach toweling, they were largely unbothered and suggested we just look elsewhere or take a table with an elevated plug, rather than all the best tables that had clearly been claimed the night before. Needless to say, we just moved stuff to recieve the grumbles of those waking later.
Overall, Manorcon has improved since 2023, but there’s lots of room for improvement:
1) signage for the event and events at the convention
2) temperature
3) active policing of beach toweling each morning
4) they desperately need a vastly improved website and ticket ordering system
But now to the games! Over the Manorcon weekend, I played 20 games, which is alot less than Handycon’s 37. I suspect that was in part due to the 2/3pm start on the Friday. And probably because we played heavy game after pretty much heavy game on the Saturday, so we only clocked in 4 plays on Saturday.
I started my convention experience with games of Beyond the Rift, a periditions mouth game..well we know how that went. Unfortunately it isn’t the best game ever (and clearly the publisher doesn’t like that!). Needless to say I stuck it in the bring and buy, and well nobody wanted to buy it even for a fraction of it’s RRP!
The first actual game of the convention was Zuuli, which I’ve come to realise is group dependent, my local group aren’t keen on Zuuli. But it always goes down well at a convention. Zuuli was followed by my first play of Ezra and Nehemiah, what a game, after 1 play I wanted to go out and buy it. Luckily someone owns a copy locally, but it’s such a satisfying combo type building game. Each turn you’re taking an action and the strength of that action is determined by the number of flags of the corresponding colour on cards in your play area. You overlay cards too and play a total of 6 cards per round, it feels like everything is a possibility but you really need to probably hone in on a couple of areas of focus to maximise points.
Ezra and Nehemiah was followed by games of Fantasy Realms, a card combo building game that is significantly better than its younger sibling (Red Rising) and just has the core of combo building without the added fluff.
The final game of day 1 was Terminus, which ultimately I found to be frustrating, resources felt incredibly restricted and the game felt punishing e.g. if you make a mistake or get blocked in early game. That’s probably game over, I’m not sure I’d play it again, okay maybe I’d play it once more but it just didn’t feel super enjoyable and left me with a negative feeling.
Saturday was a heavy day, in terms of complexity but also game physical weight!
Starting with the Gallerist, which may be my game of the weekend. I was surprised how much I enjoyed this, and how relatively simple it was. I say relatively simple in comparison to other heavy Euro games, I was expecting a wall of complexity and it wasn’t really there for me. It felt a bit daunting, but it’s fundamentally 8 different actions which all are relatively straight forward and easy to grasp. I now feel like I’m on the hunt for the gallerist, as the game I want to add to my 40 game collection. And I was surprised that it took little over 2 hours with 3 new players.
To mix up and give our brains a small respite, Ra was next. Having never played Ra before, the game was a breeze to pick up from just the iconography alone. Ra is essentially an auction game in which you are trying to build up end of round scoring, and end of game scoring. And every time you win an auction you swap your bid with the tile in the center. I did terribly, winning very few auctions and those I did win, won me so few tiles it was almost pointless. Scoring a big 10 points.
Next up was Kanban, which I can’t say I felt honestly fussed by, it was underwhelming. And I’m not sure a game can be easy to teach, if there’s one particular action the game teacher did for all the other players. It can across as a game that was okay. I’m not sure I’d be back for another game either, maybe one more try. Kanban is about working in a car factory and loosely working through the different departments of design, testing, manufacturing and product lines. And is a worker placement game, or maybe an action selection game, I’m not entirely sure which, but either way I thought it was okay, and definitely not in the same league as the gallerist. I do however want to try other Lacerda games now.
Hegemony followed Kanban, and although it definitely overstayed its welcome clocking in on this play at 5.5 hours. Our other plays have been somewhere between 2.5 and 3 hours. I’m largely in love with Hegemony and it’s one I can’t wait to get my hands on. I think I’ve now played every role, and I’m not sure which role I enjoy most. I’ve enjoyed playing as the state, the capitalist felt like the most challenging role as I felt hampered at every corner.
The middle class was almost boring, and the working class was refreshing, needless to say I’ll be back for more games as it’s fast becoming one of my favourite convention games. I’d just love to be able to play this game at game night.
And somehow Saturday is already over, Sunday day 3, my last day although there was a 4th day I could have stayed for. Sunday was a matter of finalising a few sales in the bring and buy, before then getting to games. I think everyone was probably flagging by Sunday, so Sunday felt like we were easing into games before one big game at the end to conclude the weekend.
We started with Ecosystem Savanna, one of my go to drafting tableau building games. For 1 to 6 players, and having played it at all player counts, it’s a game I enjoy solo. In Ecosystem Savanna you are building a tableau of 20 cards which will represent your Savanna. There’s always a satisying combo to be found, and I’m never sure if there’s a strategy that works best having seen people win with different strategies. Either way, it’s the only game of mine that got played and it was so well recieved we played it twice!
Afterwards we moved to Cubirds, which I haven’t played since 2022 or maybe 2021, it did get alot of play on Boardgamearena at one point but it’s been sort of relegated down the list. As we don’t tend to play games in real time on Boardgamearena, so cubirds has dropped off the turnbased game list. Needless to say cubirds can be frustrating as you can be forced to discard a perfect hand should an opponent clear their hand on their turn. I think Cubirds could be a good pick for the game night library so may need to add a copy.
Vegetable Stock was next, which again is a simple card game around a “stock market” of vegetables. It’s super easy to grasp, and played over 6 rounds, in which the card left in the central display is the one that impacts the stock market. And you’re aiming to have a hand worth the most money at the end of the game. I think literally the only flaw with this game is the terrible box. Otherwise it’s superb.
Our penultimate game was Avant Carde, which was another new to me game. And honestly the artwork was somewhat off putting, and almost had me questioning what we were playing. Then it all became obviously clear, a deck builder, a simultaneous turn deck builder. Every turn you’re effectively playing uno by yourself needing to play cards that either match the suit or number of the card you’ve previously placed in front of you, and each card generally has an effect too which you’ll need to consider. For example playing a 5 allows you to draw another card. Everyone is doing this at the same time, until you’ve played as many of your hand of seven as you can. Before everyone totals up with each card played being worth one gold, and if you played 6 or more you’ll take a trophy, and then in player order taking turns to buy cards. I can see myself playing a whole lot of this, although I’d find the organiser desperately annoying. It’s a simple fast paced deckbuilder with some neat tricks and some variability as you can swap the number powers around. Another solid game played, although I’m not sure if it’s a game I need to own.
Our final game of the weekend was another play of Ezra and Nehemiah. In this game I took a different losing approach of focusing almost entirely on clearing walls and building walls. Which turns out to be a poor strategy, as I scored poorly on all the other tracks. But, I can’t wait to play Ezra and Nehemiah again.
All in all Manorcon was a great weekend, a pretty decent venue, with improvements over last year. But there’s definitely room for more improvements. Ultimately I’m now on convention countdown until the next one!