Show Report: Tabletop Knights GD

Last night I returned from yet another trip to Bavaria; from Tabletop Knights' Games Day (spring edition) 2018. It was a great day out, and in the following you'll see my picture report of the day.

For two years I'd planned to attend this show, which takes place roughly 3 weeks after Austrian Salute, but it never quite worked out. So I was very happy to be invited again this year, packed up the old glass showcase cabinet, a bunch of showcase figures and all the painting stuff and drove down to Marktl.

The Tabletop Knights club (formerly Die Grüne Horde) logo

As with Austrian Salute setting up was done the evening before the show, which is a comfort I came to enjoy a lot recently. The venue is the town's community centre. Big hall, high roof, okay lighting, right in the middle of the town. Really, really nice.

Already it looked promising:

So we got everything set up, said hello, many familiar faces there.

The next day at 9am the show officially started. The weather was splendid, which is bad for a wargames show. Good weather of course is one of the natural opposites of the wargamer.

Back in the centre you can see my painting table with the showcase stuff, painting setup for two or three if need be. I also brought two big stacks of old White Dwarves I had to get rid of, so I had decided to bring them along for people to grab them for free. 

Very often on the day I heard "no need for WDs, I just got rid of my own collection when I last moved.". Thank god in the end I was allowed to donate my WD collection to the Tabletop Knights club to educate the youth about what us old people get all nostalgic about.

Along with my efforts three vendors were on site:

Once more, Roll-the-Dice with a bunch of cool merchandise and the familiar SW:Legion and Test of Honor demo tables:

Of course El Cid of Silent Night Games was present as well.

El Cid preaching to his disciples here.

...and to round it all off the guys behind the skirmish fantasy game Summoners were present with an impressive display and nice little demo table:

Proved to be quite a draw throughout the day. These very, very pretty figures were sculpted by László Juhász. I strongly suggest you have a look.

Now let's have a peek at some of the other tables, shall we. Because there were a lot.

Warhammer 40,000:

The calm before the storm...

Can't have a wargames show without a bunch of 40k tables, right?

Even El Cid of Silent Night Games frantically threw dice on the 40k table

Age of Sigmar: 

...neither is AoS, brotherbrother!

Right next to the AoS table - it's friggin' Warhammer Fantasy Battles, 7th edition!

Bretonnians vs. Empire. A classic and very, very pretty match-up.

And now for something completely different - Airwar C21. Modern air-to-air combat. It's one of the Tabletop Knights' staples and ever impressive. This time fought across a brilliant gaming mat.

Dropfleet Commander and Dropzone Commander:

Another great mat for this one. Including an angelic, late-afternoon sheen.

This one was a rather pretty table indeed, with tons of tiny
civilian cars strewn about for scatter terrain

Already you can see the diversity in games systems on display. Here's Team Yankee:

...and one I was very happy to see again personally - it's the Thirty Years War table (Father Tilly rules), depicting the battles around Maissau:

That's actually a rather ingenious way to depict cannon fire; made from aluminium foil

Couldn't have a wargames show without a Saga table, especially as 2nd edition was just released:

Infinity! Haven't seen a demo table of this one in a while. Fun fact: I ran an Infinity demo table at an anime convention once. 't was a memorable day.

Just look at the number of these much-coveted
shipping containers in the left...

Here's another familiar table - the really neat Lord of the Rings Helm's Deep table:

For more pictures of this one (and many other cool things) have a look at my show report of Austrian Salute 2018.

Firestorm Armada!

For some reason I find this astroid with its trail just amazing. 

 A very effective demo board for Eden:

Not as broadly known as other games on the day, but some rather nice minis.

Right at the other end of the spectrum-of-knownness - here's Frostgrave!

Drew the whole day. Most of the time there were a bunch more people than in these photos.

A variant of the Frostgrave - Ghost Archipelago table already seen at Austrian Salute 2018. Very cool layout with the tiles. Also note the giant mushrooms in the bottom of the photo.

And another Legion table. Saw the AT-ST in person for the first time. Yeah, it's massive. Wait, that's a weird word for an AT-ST. It's humongously tall.

There also was a tournament on site. Behold the competitors of the official Guildball tournament:

They played all day on at least four or five fields.

Speaking of competitions, there of course was a painting competition. Three categories: Monsters/vehicles, single 28mm figure and Groups/units/squads.

Monster category winner. Very pretty indeed.

Single Miniature category. Big Nurgle dude won.

In the end there was a big ceremony for the winners.

Here's an interesting one which was entered in the 'mystery category' (and entered out of competition). Really like this water elemental:

...and that's it pretty much!

At my end of things I had a lot of good chats, people inquiring about prices, I met a few people I'd formerly only known online, gave out business cards, met familiar peeps, had some more chats, showed some painting, all of that. Good day, that Tabletop Knights Gaming Day! Looking forward to next year!

It's an interesting show. Very good venue, good organization too. The crowd is a bit different to the shows I usually do, with a wider field of interests, and that's reflected in the games present. Very much more weight on fantasy/sci-fi. Come to think of it, there only were three tables displaying historical wargames (and I'm already counting Team Yankee in there!). Good stuff.

Oh, and here are some shots of my table and display on the day:

Due to the table being deserted in these photos (because I take them myself, don't I) and the daylight lamps these photos always look a bit dark and creepy for some reason.  :-p

Anyway, thanks to the Tabletop Knights for running the whole event and being so welcoming, thanks to the guys who helped me get stuff out of the car and set up and back into the car respectively, thanks to everybody who stopped by!

For a whole bunch more photos of the event have a look at TheEverl@st's flickr album!