Pretzels, no beer!

This is the twenty-third Beer and Pretzels event that Spirit Games have run, and it will open on both Saturday 14th May and Sunday 15th May. The opening times are 10am – 10pm on the Saturday and 10am – 7pm on the Sunday. If you want to attend either day, it’ll set you back £5, whereas a ticket to attend both is just £9: Tickets are available in advance by calling (01283) 511 293.

Burton-upon-Trent itself is around an hour away from Leicester by train or by car, and is fairly easy to get to in either case – a return ticket on the train costs around £18 without a railcard. There is free parking, but you need to obtain a permit before you park, or you may get a fine! If you need a permit, ask about it when calling to book tickets.

The day itself consists of a number of different attractions. As the name might suggest, our hosts promise good beer and a selection of hot and cold food. There will be a library of board games available to play for free, and both organised and disorganised roleplaying games. The wargamers amongst you needn’t fret, since there will be historic wargames in abundance, including a game from the sixties for those of you who fancy a slice of history. And, last but not least, the Spirit Games Website Review Awards.

A few specific highlights include roleplaying sessions with Britain’s first ever superhero RPG, a Star Wars Miniatures tournament, and a chance to play wargames centring around both the Napoleonic era and the English Civil War. This isn’t a complete description of everything that’ll be available on the day, so please do check out the Beer and Pretzels page on the Spirit Games website!

However, if you’re going to be in the Midlands but you’re not going to be heading to the Nationals, you may well want to volunteer (or even just head over and play a game or two!). Attending the con is free if you’re running a game, and it’s a good chance to playtest anything you’ve been working on. GMs are being sought to run wargames, roleplaying games and card games. They seem like lovely people, so please help them out if you can!

Street Fighter at Wondercon

In other local news, the Leicester Sabres have been invited to take part in BarFights. This is a new Leicester-based weekly fighting game tournament, which starts on Wednesday 4th April at Pirates Bar Leicester. Using the Xbox 360, the format includes various games including Street Fighter X Tekken, Super Street Fighter: Arcade Edition, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Mortal Kombat 9 and more. This is being co-ordinated through a Facebook Page, and the launch party, which will run from 8pm till 2am, is now also on Facebook.

Last, but certainly not least: our contact for Con-Quest is also involved with Continuum, a biannual convention which regularly sees a large detachment of Sabres in attendance. Continuum is held in the University of Leicester’s John Foster Hall, which is in the Oadby Student Village, and will be held between 20th-23rd July 2012. Whilst this is right in the middle of the summer vacation, we do still try to take people over to Continuum, so watch out for more details about it later in the year!

The Leicester Sabres like a good drink, just like anyone else; with that in mind, please be aware that the upcoming bar crawl will be your last chance to do so this term! Kicking off at 7pm on Friday 30th March, we’re going to assemble at the Old Horse before making merry on our odyssey through the city centre to a nightclub deserving of our greatness. We’re also going to be joining forces with the good people of LUSFAF at some stage, who will be there with their illustrious president, Jamie, and there will be a prize for the best costume!

Last year's bar crawl for freshers was a huge success.

The theme this year is Warriors, which you can take any way you like. If you want to come as a Spartan, then be our guest, but you can twist the theme into any shape you choose. Futuristic supersoldier? Done! Master of the Universe? Why not? Your imagination is the only thing that’s limiting you.

Of course, there is the small matter of the route which we’ll be taking through the city. We are going to be kicking off at our usual venue, the Old Horse, before we move onto either The Pub or Vodka Revolutions. The next stop will be Pirates Bar Leicester before Firebug gets an orange-and-black surprise. If you don’t think you’re going to be on time, ask a Council member for their phone number so we can tell you where we are on the night. (Alternatively, just panic.)

The nightclub for the evening will be Mosh. If you’re not up for the club, our Treasurer and President-elect will be leading the denizens of LUSFAF from Firebug to a Wetherspoons (probably The High Cross) to ride out the rest of the night. (This has the advantage of being very close to Mosh, so if you change your mind you can just go clubbing!)

There is going to be a prize for the most intimidating costume, so get your mindjuices flowing and get a good costume together before the Friday night. The more scared we are of you, the better! Although it’s possibly best to avoid any lethal weapons, if you don’t want a bouncer to confiscate them.

People playing at Sabrecon 2012

Last year, we did the roleplaying games and the wargames very well, but one of the complaints we received was that the games were too far apart and there was nothing happening in the central point of the convention. This time, we moved the demonstration games, the traders and the board games into the Square in the Percy Gee Building, meaning that there was a real buzz around the pivot of the event. The wargamers were very close to the action, too, something that they appreciated.

Speaking of wargamers, we had a fantastic turnout for the talk by Alessio Cavatore this year. Both him and Andy Hoare were attending Sabrecon to show off their new game, Shuuro, and we were more than happy to have them! We also welcomed LeCardo to Sabrecon for the first time, which seemed to go down very well. Various Sabres also ran demonstration games, including the founder of Sabrecon, Nicola, who ran games of Nitro Dice.

Speaking of demonstration games, 6d6 Fireball and Malifaux returned to Sabrecon 2012 after a successful outing at the first Sabrecon. Several Sabres who didn’t get a chance to play Malifaux last year did this time around, and the 6d6 guys unveiled their new Shootouts format, which is much cheaper and more portable than the version being played last year. This was exciting stuff!

The Leicester Sabres are proud to be building ties with awesome gaming stores up and down the country, and Sabrecon was no exception. Both Patriot Games and Spirit Games made appearances at a Sabrecon for the first time, whilst Leicester’s own Tabletop Tyrant (aka Gifts for Geeks) made it two from two after their table at the first Sabrecon last year.

Sabrecon will also be getting a little bit more love in the near future, due to Facebook. The Sabrecon Page will be getting Facebook’s new Timeline feature, according to the website, at the end of March, so we’re planning on closing our discussion group and encouraging people to move across. We’re doing this because having two Facebook places meant some information was only available on one and not the other one; having only one Page means that we can focus on that one and fix the problem, hopefully making things better for the people who want to attend.

Speaking of problems and making things better, if you have anything to say about Sabrecon, feel free to use the Contact Us form or leave a comment on this blog post. We plan to try our best to address concerns as we arrange the next Sabrecon. If you don’t share those concerns with us, we can’t fix them.

Until next year, goodbye, and thanks for attending Sabrecon in 2012!

The council for 2012/13

The official handover from the old Council to the new will be at the Geek Ball, so please don’t email any of these people about any issues to do with 2011/12! The new Council is as follows.

President: Hannah (Panda)

Hannah is currently serving as Treasurer for the society, but is eager to bring her vision and ideas to the Sabres. She’s already served as President for LUSFAF so she has extensive experience, and we’re looking forward to seeing what she can do in the role.

Treasurer: James (overlord59)

James stood for this role last year but was defeated by Hannah by a margin of a single vote. This year, he has won the right to control the monies that the Sabres accrue. He assures us he can count.

Secretary: Becky (Tabasco)

The posts of Secretary and Social Secretary has been merged this year; that’s because the responsibility for managing the board games has been transferred to a different member of the Council. Becky singlehandedly saved the Geek Ball when the venue told us there would not be a sound system at the last minute, so she’s a perfect candidate for the job.

Wargames Rep: Ben (Smurf)

Ben is one of two Council members who are only in their first year of service with the Sabres (since he started his PhD in 2011). However, he has extensive experience of wargames through his involvement with other gaming clubs in the past, and we’re thrilled to see him involved with the Council this year.

Board and Card Games Rep: Lizzie (Castaras)

The position of Magic Rep has been dissolved and the position of Board and Card Games Rep has been created. Lizzie, being the other first-year Sabre that is assuming a position on the Council, will be the first person to take this on, and she’s going to be awesome (I have to say that, since she’s within slapping range at the time of writing).

Nationals Rep: Liz (Miss Hime)

Liz was co-ordinating the Nationals before we had a Nationals Rep. After a brief experiment with not being involved with organising the Nationals, she’s decided it doesn’t suit her and so she’s come back to tell us all how it’s done. Fortunately, she knows how it’s done, and so we aren’t worried.

Sabrecon Rep: Jack (Marty McFly)

Jack was President, and now he’s become the Sabrecon Rep. He’s responsible for co-ordinating, organising and delivering the Sabres’ flagship event, and so if he doesn’t deliver the goods, we’ll break his kneecaps.

Public Relations Rep: John

Well, this is me. Again. The only member of the Council who doesn’t have an awesome nickname, the only member of the Council that has been serving for five consecutive years. I’m old, I’m grumpy, I’m jaded and I like fonts; in short, I’m the perfect person to handle the forum and website.

Hannah with the prizes!

If you hadn’t guessed already, we’re talking about the Geek Quiz! Thank you to everyone who came along, it was a great turnout and it was exciting to see some members from our sister geek society, LUSFAF (the Science Fiction and Fantasy society), joining in the fun. There were ten teams taking part in all, and they were:

• Team Stig: Nick, Steff and Prinn
• Traffic Laws For Flying Cars: Rob, Alan, Emily and Elliot
• Boots, Buckles and Boobs: James, Jamie, Tom and Lucy
• Schrodinger’s Team: Tim, Ben, Katy and Grendel
• Shadow Teddy’s Existential Kids Corner: James, Mark, Suzy and Alex
• Team GalacticAquaMagmaPlasmaRocket: Farran, Alex, David and Sophie
• Very Hungry Cthulhupuiller: Graham, Jenny, Lizzie and Nic
• Get Your Tits Out, Carl!: Smurf, Ash, Tony and Sam
• Gamesoc One: Jack, Dan and John
• Mystery Men: Tom, Dave and Becky

The winner of our lovely wooden spoon prize was Team Stig. By the time the quiz had finished, Team Stig was comprised of just Prinn, but he gallantly handed out his extra spoons to other Sabres.

The winner came down to a tie between Team GalacticAquaMagmaPlasmaRocket and Get Your Tits Out, Carl!, so we turned to Evil Dan for a tie-breaker question. How many Sabres could name all four of the sisters in Charmed? Apparently none, since both teams only got three sisters! So, the second tie-breaker was put to the crowd. One inappropriate suggestion later, we had Dave and Smurf representing their teams in an arm wrestle. Smurf clinched the contest, and the triumphant winners were Get Your Tits Out, Carl! Congratulations to Ash, Tony, Smurf and Sam.

As well as our normal rounds of questions, as written by Carl, we had the SUCKIT +3 (or King Geek) questions at the end of each round. These were written by the reigning King Geek himself, Evil Dan. Unsurprisingly, by the end of the quiz there was a clear leader, and even he only knew half of the answers. So I once again extend congratulations to Ash, who was knighted as the new King Geek by Tim in a beautiful ceremony.

Thank you to those who attended! If you weren’t there, watch out for a copy of the actual questions as soon as Caboose, our social secretary, releases them. We hope everyone had fun (even if that fun was just abusing Caboose) and will see you all next social.

Hello, Sabres! It’s once again getting to the time of the year where we hold our AGM. This allows the members of the society to vote in a new council (and yell abuse at the old council). If you have any ideas about how the society should be run, it’s also a chance for you to get involved and tell people about them – you never know, they just might vote for you!

The positions available on the council are President, Treasurer, (Social) Secretary, Wargames Rep, Board Games/CCG Rep, Nationals Rep, Sabrecon Rep and PR Rep. Here’s how to get involved:

1. Find a position you want to run for, or that you want someone else to run for.
2. If you want to do it, find two people who think you’d be good.
3. Have those people send PMs to Jack on the forum, or post in the AGM forum thread.

It’s that easy! Then, we’ll meet on Monday 19th March at 6pm, pile into the Film Theatre in the Attenborough Building, vote on who should do what, watch a movie and go to the pub. Come along, it’ll be fun!

The skyline of Leicester.

If you’re too lazy to click through to either of those pages, the basic gist is that, for the autumn term, there are now three weekly meetings. The additional meeting is Sunday Magic, which is held in the Ken Edwards building and will mostly be Magic: The Gathering with a smattering of other card games. The regular two meetings are the Monday Miscellaneousness and the Wednesday Wargaming, which are both based in the Attenborough Seminar Block. Both meetings will almost invariably wind up with us going to the Old Horse, since that’s a long-standing tradition.

If you’re a Fresher, and you’re new to the city, we understand that it can all be a bit overwhelming, especially when we start bandying the names of buildings around as if it’s obvious where they are (which, for a lot of students, it isn’t!). As such, this year, we are introducing a Google Map of the places we frequent. This will eventually appear on the website, when the Google Maps plugin has been installed and configured, but for now just follow the link for all your geographical needs!

That’s all for this time, folks, except to let you all know that the first meeting of term will be on Monday 10th October. There’s a special introduction for the freshers, so we’re starting at 6pm instead of the usual time of 7pm – this is to let the council and the GMs explain their roles in the society before we let you all loose on our carefully crafted roleplays. Until then, brothers and sisters!