Show Report: Tabletop Knights GD 2024

 

For the spring circuit of wargames shows, I attended Tabletop Knights' Gaming Day 2024.

The show re-emerged from Corona hibernation last year. One of the bigger wargames-centric shows I attend, organized by Tabletop Knights club in Germany.

Traditionally very strong in terms of Fantasy/Sci-Fi, because that's what they do 'round there. I was infromed that Songs of Ice and Fire (not a Ganesha Games title :-P ), Warhammer 40k and Star Wars Legion were the main games to play with them currently.

There were some traders; all the usual suspects: Roll-the-Dice brought a lovely assortment of things (loads of Wargames Atlantic stuff, Perry and Warlord Plastics, etc.), along with a LOVELY 0200 Hours table. Very gladly surprised to see that at TTK GD.

Rooster Models, run by the event organizer, was present with fine MDF products:

Spielbrett.co.at brought the usual assortment of Warhammer stuff, along with a TON of Mechwarrior things. :) 

As usual, the main hall was all about ...well, everything whilst below they ran a 40k and a Star Wars Legion tournament simultaneously.

Some impressions (because I'm sure I didn't get all the tables; sorry about that!):

So it was May the 4th, but even if it had been October the 17th or June the 25th there would have been a strong Star Wars presence to be felt anyway. It's the popular thing.  

Like with prior years, the Drowned Earth table was particularly impressive, run by a friendly man whose name I keep forgetting (sorry!):

TTK GD is always an occasion to learn about interesting projects from Germany. Dockfighters (think Crimson Skies, but with a background of warring German mini-states for flying beer convoys and such) I'd seen last year:

...and this year I got Space Kraken presented to me by the author. A very cleverly-designed sci-fi dungeon crawler, all based on a big ring-bound book. A bit like Four Against Darkness, but with millions of things added.

Kingscorner Painting also brought a historical topic - a very pretty Bolt Action demo table. His group's completely enamoured with BA at the moment, which is nice.

Battletech! As it's supposed to be played. I had the honour of painting one side's figures.

Two tables of which I'm not sure what was going on, but it looked fun:

Gotta love an underwater fantasy table.

Warmaster! Because Warmaster's been a thing again in recent years. Because of reasons.

Thanks to YellowWithHobby for the pictures of the WM table. I'd forgotten my proper camera, which is why all I have is cellphone pictures. These pictures here and some later on will show the inherent superiority of taking pictures with a photo camera rather than with a telephone. ;-) 

A few shots of tournament games of 40k and Star Wars Legion:

Welcome to the CONTROVERSIAL and OPINIONATED part of this article -we have to talk about these plate things they put on 40k/AoS tables now. Huge, 9" or whatever it is discs, usually gaudily coloured to denote a radius around a mission objective. Of which there are about three, on rather small tables. I saw it for the first time early last year and almost fell over. So at TTK GD, they looked like this:

....which is possibly the best solution I've seen for that stuff so far.

Here we see them in action, with some tournament-ready Custodes (told you, this was the CONTROVERSIAL part of the article. Custodes, Custodes, Custodes! ;-) ).

I'm just a paintmonkey, but I do have two eyes connected to a heart, and so I find these translucent home-made discs to be less irritating than the gaudy pie plates I've seen elsewhere.

Right, now that I calmed down a little after this emotional outbreak let's get brack to things. The painting competition was a big draw as usual, and entries were even better than last year. Overall, the quality is really impressive. Once more, Kingscorner Painting and I were the jury. 

Here we see Christoph, announcing winners and doing a rousing speech at the end of the day:

Once again, a lovely event. By the way, other than last week at Harucon, Wi-Fi at the hotel worked, and I had dark Weissbier (the paradox intrigued me), followed by Weissbier with Cola (the concept intrigued me).  Stayed at the same hotel for the fourth time, so by now it's a bit like coming home away from home. 

Still, its got one of my favourite hallways. Each time it makes me want to put on really heavy boots, make unnerveing heavy steps, dragging one foot a little as an hommage to most pAper chAse songs. :D

Partook in a tombola on the day. I won a random Battlemech (which I donated to a Battletech player), a set of Project Z dice, which I migth be able to use because I actually own Project Z (the Warlord Zombie game), another set of regular dice (always useful) and a Summoners figure. A sort of ice elemental, which is always useful as well.

Also, friendly Roll-the-Dice man helped me out on getting my hands on a Warhammer Magic book (in mint condition)!

So that's cool. 

YellowWithHobby also took some pictures of stuff I'd brought on the day:

It was a lovely day out again (two days, including the travel day), I actually got to see stuff I usually don't see of as much. Many thanks to everybody who dropped by for a chat, to the people who tirelessly ran tables throughout the day, thanks to the organizers and I'm looking forward to the next year!