Game of Thrones megagame Aegon’s Conquest sets Finnish record for biggest board game ever at GameXpo

New Finnish record for the biggest board game in the country was set by 33 players and four game masters as Aegon’s Conquest the megagame was held in GameXpo Helsinki on the 4th of November 2018.

Mauri Sahlberg, the chairman of the Finnish Board Game Society, Venla Leimu and co-authors of the unauthorized Finnish book on Game of Thrones ‘Westeros Correspondent’ Jussi Ahlroth and Mike Pohjola organized and game mastered the event, which was executed (pun intended) with the help of volunteers from Finnish Board Game Society.

‘Megagames are a new trend amongst board gamers. It was awesome to be able to bring one to Finland’, explains Sahlberg. ‘Compared to previous Aegon’s Conquest sessions abroad, our Finnish players put a lot of time and effort into dressing up for their roles.’

Aegon’s Conquest the megagame was created by Game of Thrones fans C.S. Ross and Andy Kotch. The game is set in the continent of Westeros and takes place 300 years prior to the events of the tv series. At the start of the game, the conqueror Aegon Targaryen has arrived in Westeros, determined to conquer the whole of the continent in a daring military campaign. In the Finnish megagame, history was altered as Aegon’s plan failed. Instead of Aegon, it was the ruler of House Stark who was crowned as the King of Westeros.

Aegon’s Conquest combines traditional board gaming with roleplaying such as character immersion and dressing up. Negotiations and insults during the game can sound like dialogue from the books or the tv show. At GameXpo Helsinki, the HBO area adjacent to the megagame featured the Iron Throne, which served as the perfect final act for the game. In the grand finale, the King of the winning team sat on the Iron Throne surrounded by his House, while heads of other families knelt before him.

The game was played simultaneously at four different tables for the duration of six hours. One of the tables was for the House Rulers to negotiate alliances, second for Knights to wage war on a giant map of Westeros, third for Maesters to uncover secrets and fourth for Heirs to search for the legendary relics. A team or a House had to be able to interact, strategize and hatch plots successfully at all the tables and between them in order to triumph over others.

‘I think the game was a great success. There is a lot of hype about it already’, Sahlberg continues.

Contact: Mauri Sahlberg / Suomen lautapeliseura ry, mauri.sahlberg@lautapeliseura.fi

Photos can be found from Google-album.