THE TIME: 16.30hrs
THE DATE: Tuesday, 17th October 1995
THE PLACE: Alternative Armies HQ, Nottingham, England
THE MISSION: Reach Essen, Germany, the next day for the largest international games fair and debut Flintloque on our poor unsuspecting European neighbours...
Easy? Well, for some...
The transit was packed, we were ready ands the ferry left Harwich at 11.30pm or so we thought. Luckily we got there too early (with the intention of getting something to drink and a bite to eat) as we noticed the ferry was loading, checked the tickets and found the sailing was at 9.30pm. Whoops!! Fortunately we'd made it in time. With the first part of the journey negotiated, we sloped off to the bar, apart from Mac (who went to bed as he was driving - a rather poor excuse). A mere nine and a half hours later, (earlier for some, due to my snoring!), we awoke to strange sounds emanating from the tannoy - Dutch! Getting up and looking outside confirmed it, we'd got as far as Holland, now for a very long drive...
"Have you had anything to drink Sir?" was the first question we encountered upon disembarking the ship, "not a drop" came the reply and we were waved on our way, no passport inspections, not even with our own German speaking Armenian terrorist look-a-like, this new Europe thing sure does have it's bonuses...
The roads out of the Hook of Holland are quiet at 7am in the morning thankfully as us Brits are not used to this foreign driving lark, this problem was soon over come and we were merrily on our way(you can still get Chris Evans on the Big Breakfast show over there). Germany came with a bump, thier roads aren't a patch on Holland's and Atlantic 252, the only vaguely musical station available. Mid morning came and went, along with many a giggle every time we passed "Ausfart", still where was Essen? - we'd been driving for hours. Suddenly it was upon us, Essen Zentrum the sign said, now came the time to really get lost.
The Messe/Essen where Spiel'95 is held luckily wasn't to hard to find, partly because it's well signposted, and partly because it's BIG (approximately the full size of the NEC), and it's better designed! After a wait in the car park, we were allowed in to unload. Then a strange thing happened, we drove the van into a lift and went up a floor! Why don't they have these things in Britain? We unloaded and set up in about two hours, then found the Hotel about five miles out of town, found the rest of the English contingent (about twelve in total) at the bar and went out and got associated with the locals in Bochum's Irish Bar!
The morning dawned fair and cold as we stood freezing on a train station platform. Someone once told me working for a games company was easy... not when you have to get up at the crack of dawn!
We arrived at the Messe in time for work at 9am and the doors opened an hour later.
A distant rumbling could be heard. Gradually it drew nearer and nearer and suddenly floods of avid gamers were upon us. Never in my life have I seen so many gamers in one place solely to buy products. Usually shows have huge playing areas; not this one, it's virtually solid trade stands and everybody in the games industry in there from Children's Toy Manufacturers, Computer Gamers, War Gamers, Live Roleplayers, Pog Players and of course M:TG Players.
As the hordes flooded our stand we gave Flintloque - The Skirmish it's German debut and it wasn't long before we had a crowd of eager gamers who'd never heard of Sharke and the Boys, but became thoroughly engrossed in the game. There was one problem however, and that was that our Sharke, together with all the rest of our painted miniatures, had missed the ferry and we're still sitting on Mac's desk back in the AA shed. Luckily a quick call to UPS saw them on thier way. In the mean time we found a Brit who had brought his own Flintloque army (yes, an ARMY!) with him, so we begged and borrowed them.
Hard at work outselling our Jockian neighbours Grendel, there promoting Leviathan at a ratio of 2:1 (Flintloque vs Leviathan), I didn't see much of the gaming, though Mac wandered off on occasion and reported back that things was going great guns, though the Germans showed a marked reluctance to get stuck in, preferring to fire from long range and a lack of imagination when it came to torching buildings!
By the end of the first day we'd recruited our first two German demonstrators and had made Germany a happier nation, quashing the myth that Alternative Armies had died (again!!!). Thus a few (thousand) tired feet crawled of to the bar to recuperate for the next day, as they did every night for the three days following.
Spiel'95 certainly was an international game fair, with representatives from German, England, France, Russia, Spain, Belgium, Italy and the USA to name a few. Maybe TSR should take note for Euro Gencon - how's about holding it in Holland or Belgium? (If people pay to go to Camber Sands/Loughborough, it wouldn't be to hard to get them there and maybe it really would be Euro!).
All too soon the show was over, Flintloque had sold by the bucketload (apparently some customers thought the box only contained figures and were gobsmacked to find a set of rules included as well!), the Germans loved it, the Dutch loved it and even a number of Americans loved it. All we had now was a long journey back to England ahead of us, via a hypermarket that was closed (bugger...) and the be back at HQ Monday morning to fill the masses of orders now coming in for Flintloque in the UK.
