Roll Deep: Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts

The lifeblood of the tabletop community, a good gaming club can be a home away from home. And none more so than when they’re set up as a space for a bunch of misfit goths, punks and “assorted weirdos” to get together and roll dice. That's certainly the case with East London’s HATE (Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts), who despite the name are a friendly, inclusive, lot and who for ten years now have made their home in one of our favourite drinking holes, the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club.

We caught up with Sasha Bilton, one of the club’s founder members, to find out what’s to love about HATE...

Hi Sasha, so tell us a little about the club and how it began…

Sasha Bilton: Back in the mists of time, Toby, one of the original founders of HATE wanted to try and find a bunch of north London 40K gamers to play with. Asking around his friendship group, who were mostly ‘alternative’ types - punks, goths, cybergoths, and other general weirdos, he found interest but not very much experience and so started a 40K Combat Patrol learning league.

My girlfriend, now wife, was a friend of Toby’s, introduced me to him and the subject came up. I’d played a lot of Warhammer back in the day, was heavily into roleplaying, still running Dragonmeet, and had been given a bunch of Tau for a birthday present the year before so I was very much up for it.

The league was a blast, with Toby an excellent opponent, organisers and game wrangler. Friendships grew and we moved from playing in peoples houses to using a room above The Prince in Stoke Newington. Dan, another founder and weirdo appeared, and he had extensive club, Games Workshop and 40K experience so the idea of an actual club started to form.

Since most people lived in Stoke Newington or Dalston and the pub was in Hackney, we decided to name the club after the borough and strong dash of sense of irony.

I was also running 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign with many of the original crew, so it was very much a games club rather than just a 40k or wargames club right from the beginning. We needed bigger premises, and through connections ran a few events at Slimelight, the alternative club in Angel before settling in at Bethnal Green Working Men’s club, who would let us store scenery and gaming boards.

We’d played in a lot of 40K campaign weekends up and own the country, and had a made a lot of friends where our brand of have fun at any cost, drunken happiness and socially liberal ways resonated with great number of people, so when we opened our doors to the public we had good word of mouth growth.

Although we didn’t initially think about the opened-minded, tolerant stance we take and promote, it was who we all were. I think people from communities that get kicked about by the small minded reactionaries in the gamerverse thought they’d give us a try and, despite us being a bunch of straight white men at the time, found somewhere they could relax, roll some dice and not feel like an outsider.

You’ve been going for a decade now, what have been your favourite moments in that time?

We’ve had several narrative gaming leaving do’s for people moving away from London, that have universally been wonderful celebrations of friendship and gaming. Whiles it’s been tremendously sad to say goodbye to people, these events have shown the how much we can care for each other. I also think the relationship we built with the staff at BGWMC, who are proper Eastenders, is great and very much added to the sense of community the club has.

In 2019 a group from the umbrella club, so London, Reading, Bristol and Hastings, went to Warhammer World in Nottingham on one of the rare weekends when they had no events running and just hung out with each other, the fine people of Nottingham and played games. I designed a 40K racing game for the event since people had been building some amazing kit bashed 40K vehicles. We even had a couple GWers join in, including John Blanche, and my geek-heart burst with fan-boy love. John is, as anyone who has met him will tell you, a lovely man.

Finally the nights when we’ve resorted to floorhammer for space, or had to gently eject people at the end of the night who just don’t want to go home and don’t even remember if they won or lost, have been some amazing times.

In that time there’s also been a real resurgence of all kinds of tabletop gaming, what have been the biggest changes that you’ve noticed?

Remembering back in the 80’s when Dungeons & Dragons had it’s previous peak, I think there was still a huge stigma around being a nerd.

Even then it was never anywhere near cool and while I don’t think hobby gaming is considered cool now, I do think it’s more widely accepted as just something people do. It doesn’t mark you out as an outsider in the same way.

I think we’re also seeing people trying new approaches to traditional games (D&D & Warhammer 40k) or just trying new games entirely now. Experimentation is good, and hopefully there is so much diversity of players and games that edition wars become pointless.

What games can people play at the club?

The most common games at the club before lockdown were probably 40K, Age of Sigmar, Necromunda, Infinity, Blood Bowl, Bolt Action and 5e Dungeons & Dragons. But there are lots of games that people play fairly regularly like Frostgrave and Kings Of War, along with Trail Of Cthulhu, Ars Magica and Pendragon. You might on occasion also find Dragon Rampant, Epic, Warmaster, or a range of historical games going on.

There’s usually a fair few people who are just there to hang out, snipping and gluing models together, as well.

And on a scale of beer & pretzels to win-at-all-costs table-flipping savagery, where does the average HATEr sit?

We only flip tables in-character. We’re dedicated to the fun side of gaming, and promote the idea that gaming is about entertaining your fellow players. This can be done by having super competitive lists and playing very graciously and co-operatively, or having stories for each of your leaders, or beautifully converted or painted models, but in the busy lives we tend to led these days spending 3+ hours on a hobby in the evening and not walking away happy just isn’t worth it.

How’s it gone this year, did you manage much in-person gaming?

We had a couple of months when the infection rate was at its lowest when we did have in person gaming at the club. It was carefully managed by both us and the BGWMC staff, with much reduced numbers and social distancing. I managed to play Battletech for the first time since maybe 1986.

Have you managed to keep playing online when getting together in person’s been impossible?

There are some great pockets of online activity, with Zoom based paint and chat sessions, Tabletop Simulator and online RPG tools being used to facilitate sessions.

Mira organised an online book club, and managed to have Dan Abnett, one of the most famous 40K fiction authors, amongst a whole bunch of other cool things, join in and talk about his book Xenos, which was a fantastic night.

I personally struggle with gaming online, for me HATE is a social club first and I miss the seeing the smiles, hearing the rolling of the dice and the clink of glass terribly. Being on video calls so much for work means I really don’t enjoy it much for gaming.

What should someone who wants to try out the club for the first time know? Where’s the best place for them to go to find out more about the club?

Because of the campaign, narrative and friendship based nature of the club, we don’t really do ‘pick up’ gaming, so it’s always best to organise a game before coming, unless you just want to see what the atmosphere is like.

However there are always people who love playing pre-arranged games with new people, and the best place to start is joining the main Facebook group.

Finally, what are your plans for a, hopefully, virus free 2021?

Oh yes! We’re beginning to work on a new HateCon around heavily narrative miniatures gaming, but have been talking with a few people in the industry and it might become something bigger than the club.

Personally I plan to run a very fast paced, probably rowdy, large player group dungeon crawl when we can crowd in together again (anyone welcome!) which might be sometime after we can open in a more sensibly distanced way. And I’ll be reviving my 5 year old D&D campaign of course.

Find HATE on Facebook or Discord.

This interview originally appeared in Wyrd Science Volume 1, Issue 1