HomeThis year was BIGGER, BETTER and… CUTER!?
The annual UK Games Expo in 2026 was incredible, the crowd was much larger than the 72k visitors last year with almost 88k visitors! As we immersed ourselves within the realm of all things nerdy, we wanted to delve straight into it.
Gelatinous Cute
We headed straight to the back of the programme to circle the pins we loved from the Pin Badge Collective – for those out of the loop, the Pin Badge Collective is a series of fun events where you trade and swap pin badges from doing various things from each vendor who participates. It’s a good way to get a cute pin badge and also an incentive to check out a stall.
Gelatinous Cute is founded by Tyne, and the pin badge for her shop was absolutely all the rage, everyone was looking for it and they were limited.
“Since I was 15 I have been making jewelry, everything that caught my eye I just made it and I learned more skills along the course of my journey. But my true journey into the realm of fantasy and whimsical which started Gelatinous Cute begun during lockdown. I started playing D&D online and the monster [the Gelatinous Cube] inspired me as I moved more into this side of the market.”
The badge was incredibly cute, it was my personal favourite one there and I asked Tyne what she thought made the badge so popular – and when I say popular I mean I had to queue up for it, and it was gone within the first 10mins of opening – she said quite simply in keeping with the aesthetic of the shop, it’s cute!
Top; Tyne’s stall offering all bespoke crafted goods, below; all the badges from the pin collective (bottom one is the 2026 badge)
The very cute Gelatinous Cube mini from Gelatinous Cute
She started this journey properly in 2017 and wanted to spread joy through her work, you can definitely see that in the aesthetics, everything is indeed whimsical, bright, lots of smiles and a really decent degree of humanity, something rare at conventions these days as AI and corporate agendas pave the way, but not here, not at Gelatinous Cute and not at UK Games Expo.
I visit Gelatinous Cute every year and this year I finally picked up the adorable mini that is their mascot! They now sell a rubberised variant which I sorta regret not getting, they’re hollowed out so you can use them in your Dungeons & Dragons games to capture those pesky heroes! I asked Tyne if she has a message for the world and here it is: spread joy and try out D&D!
Next year I will pick up the other variant and I hope to see you again Tyne!
Tritex Games
Next up is Tritex Games who were smack bang in the eastern quadrant of Hall 2 of the NEC for UKGE 2026. Based in Stafford, Jason (the owner) has been in the business since the age of gaming begun. I’ve know Jason personally since I was a teenager, with his store famous for their friendly, genuine approach, great customer service and really great value on all releases. Last year, Tritex Games did a D&D themed advent calendar for Christmas, where each door opened up a miniature from the official WizKidz range and it was absolutely phenomenal.
Tritex Games have been at the expo every year since day one. We picked up a ‘cup of dice’ for £10, but it was more of a big goblet! Insane amount of dice for that price; I also grabbed a D&D mini and our friend Simon picked up a load of sleeves for his Magic: The Gathering cards. They literally do everything in the geeky realms from plushies, to board games and from cards to miniatures. Some of my friends travel up to his store to play Marvel Crisis Protocol, that’s how popular this guy is.
I wrote a bit about Tritex Games in the article from 2025 and implore you to click that link and read about them there, they’re awesome people, they have a sense of humanity about them which is again, as mentioned above, one of the staple points for UKGE compared to other events – and Tritex Games is a core ingredient in the cake that is UKGE. I had to take that picture a few times above because as Jason rallied up his staff (thank you btw, you guys were incredibly busy!) Chris Barrie walked by and I have photos of each head in succession looking to their left as my friend Jack shouted “Chris Barrie just walked past us!”
Keep up the good work Jason and crew and thank you for being so wholesome and welcoming as usual.
So with that out the way, I went about having a look this year for some personal inspirations, and some of the reasons this blog exists. I found the co-founder and creator of Warhammer himself, Sir Ian Livingstone doing signings for the special hardback edition of the very first Fighting Fantasy choose your own adventure book, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, originally released in 1982.
I asked him what inspired him, how did he become this incredibly inspirational man – you know, he’s sorta one of the main reasons most of the people at this expo are here, a key player in the business alongside Gary Gygax, the founder of D&D and other such prominent names like Steve Jackson, the other half of Games Workshop.
“Well, I came from a poor working class background, there wasn’t much to do in the day, I played chess, I made miniatures and me and my friends rolled dice and made up stories, and I started writing about these adventures.”
Ian came across as really humble, I wasn’t some annoying fanboy who was there to just get his signature, I wanted to know who the man behind the myth was, and he was just that, an ordinary man with an extraordinary story.
“I mean, Ian, that’s a very humble and unexpected answer, was there any defining moment, or specific inspiration like a person, who drove you to succeed and spearhead in the direction you went?” I asked.
My personal signed copy of The Walock of Firetop Mountain, “To Rabs, Welcome to Firetop Mountain. Zagor is waiting! Ian Livingstone”
“Yes there was” he replied. “I had a teacher in school, Mr. Coleman, who saw I was into all the writing and creative things. He always used to tell me to keep pushing my dreams, to keep at it and one day I will do well. I didn’t intend to start everything I have created, there was never a plan, I just had a thought, pieced everything together over time and now I am here.”
I was quite elated after speaking to Ian Livingstone, he was really humble, very honest and happy to talk, he is a big reason why Tomb Raider kicked off the way it did and was doing talks at the event on his career, as well as a live session of the Fighting Fantasy books.
Left: Rabs and Duncan Rhodes, Simon and Will from D&D Shorts; Right: Rabs, Simon and Jack with the UKGE Mascot
This year marked the 20th anniversary of the UK Games Expo and they had a nice exhibit displaying the story behind their humble beginnings, it started off as a small bunch of tables in a hall for like-minded people to discuss and trade and became the enormous event it is today, with display cases capturing momentos like badges and board game prototypes that have featured at the event to the history of their branded pin badges and tee’s.
Simon having his fangirl moment with Louise Sugden <3 UwU :3
Simon and I watch Rogue Hobbies on YouTube whilst we ourselves hobby, and Louise Sugden was there for a couple of hours doing a meet and greet. We went up, had a chat and again, another social media influencer who is down-to-earth, nothing short of a sweet person who just wants to utilise her skills to do good; Simon got his hobby stuff signed by her and she signed my new Kill Team: Nemesis book (so did Ian Livingstone, forgot to mention that earlier).
I enjoyed the general vibe of the expo as usual, there was so much to see and do, and luckily the map and signposting was easy to follow as usual.
There were lots of freebies being given out by so many vendors, I got some lovely dice (also gelatinous cube themed) from the stand that Will from D&D Shorts was at, we met him and were talking for a bit regarding his channel and his thoughts about Helania’s Guide to Monster Hunting, it’s a set of additional rules for battling BIG EPIC monsters like how to latch onto them and fight, how to harvest their parts to create armour and all that jazz.
I bumped into Duncan Rhodes, probably the most famous painter in the history of miniature painting with his early day Warhammer studio videos, his contributions within the ‘Eavy Metal team and now his Painting Academy as well as the memes. He also signed my Kill Team: Nemesis book and I gave him a cool gift that I received from Ian, who is a key figure for Army Painter, another major name for paints. Ian, Duncan said it was cool too btw and was grateful for how versatile this piece of kit is.
Army Painter & Wayland Games
Alongside other major names at UKGE 2026 was Army Painter and one of their suppliers, Wayland Games. Army Painter is a big name who rose to prominence just before lockdown in 2020 as their paints were cheaper than other brands and people spent more time on their hobbies during that strange period of time.
Ian was displaying the paints and having a chat with his colleague Peachy and the stand was quite popular as one would expect from such a brand. I personally love their bright green ‘Rainforest’ paint for illumination effects, it’s great and combined with technical paints like Hexwraith Flame it can really up your painting game!
Ian showed us his Vitruvian Man inspired paint palette, it’s a beautiful abomination of orc, human, alien and cybernetic parts with flat, rounded, curved and spiked surfaces, ensuring that you can get a versatile range of painting techniques covered before you commit to them, or simply just to test on – it’s really cool, they’re not currently released yet but the aim is to sell them in packs of 3 in the near future. Fantastic stuff and just another example of something cool being demonstrated that can enhance your skills in the hobby community.
Ian from Army Painter proudly showing off his plastic paint testing palette
As part of the Pin Collective, we headed to Wayland Games who had not one, but two badges for us to collect. One of them was given to those who demoed the Warcradle Studios game Armoured Clash. For those who don’t know, Wayland Games themselves have branched out into the miniature gaming market, Warcradle Studios is their creation and the game Armoured Clash is their latest baby that they’ve been pushing into the market. Olden Demon on YouTube did a great video covering this here.
In their own words, ‘Armoured Clash is a thrilling tabletop wargame of epic land battles, using highly detailed miniatures to represent massed battles across the globe. Set in the alternate late-nineteenth century of the Dystopian Age, players become generals for their super-science-fuelled nations that clash over resources and power.’
The minis were lush and the game to me was reminiscent of the Horus Heresy tabletop game mixed with their own unique rules. It’s tank heavy with lots of unique abilities on cards which reward high risk or, opposingly, can keep you locked down with good defensive capabilities. The game is in epic scale so you can zoom through the painting and I had a chat with the leads at Warcradle Studios, Chris Pond and Edward Spence.
The game is unique, which is nice to see in a market with easy accessibility these days with people being able to hit the prototype stage quite easily, with the invention of AI, 3D printing and with more games to take inspiration from; that said, Armoured Clash was really cool, it’s definitely up and coming and there were a lot of people crowded around the table who were there to demo the game without even knowing it was part of the pin collective. The badge was dope too, it’s a tank from the game!
The history behind the game is fun, you can tell that unlike other big names, the team at Warcradle Studios communicate well, they are brilliant designers in terms of both aesthetics and game design and I wish them all the success with the revival of epic scale miniature games. Chris and Edward took great pride in what they do, another of Warcradle Studios games is Dystopian Wars, a naval version of Armoured Clash which Wayland Games acquired back in 2017. Again, it features epic scale miniatures in an alternate dystopian timeline but is naval themed, without touching precious real life subjects. You can read more about it here.
Once we’d finished up, we headed towards our Adventurer’s League session, at 1pm on Saturday I donned my wizard costume and headed straight to the room within the adjacent Hilton Hotel building to begin.
We had decided to continue on from our last adventure which we played with Tabletop Scotland, you can read more about that at the end of the 2025 article as it was epic, people remembered us and were still talking about Tanathil’s story! We even had the same DM Pete, but this time he sported a beard and was like the evil Star Trek alternate version of himself.
Chris and Edward from Warcradle Studios proudly displaying Armoured Clash and Dystopian Wars sets
The Fellowship continues...
We entered the room, sat down, and the session begun. It was a sea themed adventure with us evacuating a doomed town, making choices between supplies, saving people (and pets) and battling the high seas as we tried to survive the evactuation. An ancient black dragon descended upon us as we escaped spitting acid, and in the end, we saved a cat, Puschkin, who gave us luck every day. It was a fun adventure and we met some more new friends, one of the beautiful side-effects from playing Dungeons & Dragons.
This adventure, named ‘Flotilla of Fate‘ was another great one from Tabletop Scotland and ironically it was written by the husband of the woman who played Skalnaedyr, the Dragon who saved my character from death last year. Big thanks to all of them at Tabletop Scotland and a massive shoutout to Pete our DM and Samantha (Skalnaedyr), very inspirational people who keep the scene alive, and in keeping with the theme of humanity as the UK Games Expo celebrate their 20th anniversary. Truly, we appreciate what you do and can see that you spread so much joy with so many new people coming into the community via your efforts <3
As we head into my final thoughts, this year at UKGE surprised me, again, as I didn’t think it could get better. It’s like they listen to everyone, continuously improving the experience with a wide and varied cast of exhibits and with so much to do I can never say anything bad about my experience at the event, it’s the one I look forward to the most every year!
Some cute memories we made this weekend =)
Final Thoughts
The logo and adorable mascot for Button Kin Games! The pin badge was this!
I want to give a massive shout out to another vendor who was at the event this year, and one who was part of the pin collective – another cute badge, we headed to Button Kin Games, founded by Yvris Burke. Button Kin Games make whimsical themed TTRPG’s as well as interesting and unique content for D&D, and I was honoured to add their badge to my collection. Head over to their website to check them out. I hope to see you next year Yvris so I can go into depth with you guys and grab one of your adventures!
I want to give one last shout out to Crusade Supply, another vendor participating in the Pin Badge Collective. Their apparel is an oldschool fantasy aesthetic that’s very metal and just rocks. Their pin badge did too, it’s a wizard holding an orb that’s made of crystal. The guys at the stall were brilliant and their clothing was just… just go and check them out here. Very Mörk Borg coded.
Also just a side note, I noticed there were way more cosplayers this year, we kept bumping into Frieren, there were Imperial Troopers everywhere, some LOTR Orcs on parade as well as Mandalorians about so that was nice to witness – amongst other cosplayers from all universes. Simon made me laugh when we were looking for something on the map and some Mandalorians walked past us, we had to follow them and he couldn’t help himself as he pointed in their direction and said “this is the way.”
Four more of the wonderful coins purchased from Gametee this year for my D&D games!
I went back to Gametee this year and picked up more of their coins [pictured above] for D&D, as they’re fantastic, beautiful and very creative, throwing these into your adventure sessions can really enhance the mundane things like collecting treasure. Also picked up another tee from them, last year I grabbed The Wizard and this year The Cleric. Thumbnail for the article is also from their stand =)
In keeping with tradition, we headed off to Sky Bar, grabbed a cocktail, debriefed on our wonderful adventure and went home. See you in 2027 UK Games Expo! *Clinks hotdog*
– Rabs, The Saucerer
Customary glizzy shot from Fat Snags this year 🌭