Show Report: Wulpertinger 10th Anniversary

Friendly local wargames Club Die Wulpertinger celebrated their 10 year anniversary and I was invited!

First off..

What is a Wulpertinger?

Wolpertinger, based on Dürer's Hare, Rainer Zenz, 2005 Source: Wikipedia

A rabbit with horns, possibly fangs, possibly wings, possibly duck's feet. A chimera, basically what Americans call a Jackalope, but usually with upgrades.

Good mascot for a wargames group.

10 Year Anniversary

First time I ran across the Wulpertinger I think was in 2018 at a modelling show at Vienna army museum. And from then on on several occasions. They are an active bunch, especially in and around Vienna, hosting tournaments, propagating the hobby and putting on lovely demo tables at shows.

The past weeekend they made their own one to celebrate their 10 year anniversary and I was asked if I would like to attend. A 2-days affair, right outside Vienna, I was honoured to be there. I did bring my camera too, but not the objective on day#1, so you'll have to make do with 'orrible cellphone pictures of day#1. 

'Adjust the brightness of 
your screen so you can just
see the antlers on the blue 
quarter.'

So I arrived early in the morning on the Saturday, things were set up, all went swimmingly. There were several gaming tables, a bring-and-buy table, as well as catering! Venue was really lovely. New building, very tall room, good lighting, lovely ventilation, parking space. What more can you ask for.

On to the interesting part - the gaming tables.

Dropzone Commander

A rules set which is very actively played by the club is Dropzone Commander, which is lovely. They got two lovely tables, at least one of which I'd seen before at other shows.

One table featuring resin ruins, the other one is made up of the cardboard buildings set, which I also got last year. However, their version is spruced up to look really cool. 

I decided to steal basically all these ideas to improve the look of my own 10mm sci-fi terrain: Especially-made FDM-printed plinths, reinforced upper edges, extra 3d detailling on the roofs as well as little roof gardens and plants. All of that adds different textures and another dimension to these buildings, which they can really do with. 

The other table is just lovely overgrown resin ruins. Again, note the mix of textures. This is what makes a table look good. 

On top of that there was this army of very bright blue, shiny alien(?) craft hovering over it, which made for a very effective and errie visual. 

One Page Rules

The other thing which I noticed the club is very big on is One Page Rules.

Custom things!

Lots of Grimdark Future, based on 40k....

...but also massive Space Ships!

One of the absolute highlights was the massive Trench Crusade table, made by Ulricson.

A lot can be said about trench crusade, the hows, the whys, the rules, the look and about its popularity. One thing is for certain - it probably made people build more gaming tables with trenches than ever before. 

Later on day#2, a 2on2 battle for that table took place. Heresy-Era Iron Warriors and Custodes on one side....

...and an alliance of lizardmen and Space Marines based grimdark people (sorry, I didn't get a closer look) on the other:

...using Grimdark Future rules. 

On both days, various representatives of the Katzelsdorf club dropped by as well, running lovely demo games on both days. Unfortunately I realized that I have no photos of the Kings of War table with it's great-looking, colourful armies. Maybe I can add some later on. For now you have to take my word that the table looked really cool.

Trench Crusade

There was a TC table too though, WITH the rules on it and all. Very different theme. At the very least, the barbed wire obstacles were made by Ulricson, if I remember correctly.

 

Photo courtsey of Sujan, because I forgot taking pictures
of that one!

Saga

Day#1, Moar and Spaßbüroler ran a Saga table!

They invited me for a demo game. Usually I don't play games at these events because I gotta be at my own table, but they had an army of Franks with them, which I painted about 10 years ago. It was nice to see the figures again, and getting a chance to play with them too was too tempting. 

So for the first time since 2013 I played Saga. It's a strong game, I can absolutely understand its popularity, and the command phase makes each game turn a pretty brainy puzzle. Also, the way fatigue is modelled is pretty ingenious. Extremely clever game and very popular in German-speaking areas since a company started translating the rules into German. And we don't get that many wargames rules translated into German. (one of the key differences to the UK wargaming scene and one of the reasons why wargaming in German-speaking areas is - broadly speaking -different to what it's like in the UK)

On day#2, the Katzelsdorfers brought a fresh contingent of club members and games with them! The face-lifted Wayland version of

Dystopian Wars

Really like the robot who seems to be hip-deep under
water, like Godzilla emerging from the sea.

I'm rather sure they made the new ships much bigger than the old ones, which is a bit of a shame. I actually own a painted Chinese fleet for Dystopian wars.

Armoured Clash

Right next to it, there was a lovely game of Dystopian Wars' latest spin-off, Armoured clash. Both games were run by the same chap throughout the day, which is quite a feat!

A whole new system, 10mm sized (which is always a good idea for land battles. Love 10mm.), with loads of neat models and a busy release schedule.

Another Katzelsdorfer presentation on day#2 (replacing day#1's Dungeon Bowl table):

Infinity

Infinity tables always have a very distinctive look, don't they. 

Very MDF-y and lots of plastic, but very coherent, and this looks like a proper busy are to CQB (or parcour?) on. Of course this is due to the background and rules. I vaguely remember from my Infinity games: You want those cool walkways, but you also need terrain to interfere with LOS, on both levels. Or three or four, as in this case. So you need a proper sprawl-looking  table. 

Lovely figures (if you can spot them through Stealth, Camouflage, Mimicry and whatnot), strong rules and lots thereof. Always popular.

Last but not least, there was the little gem that's...

The Drowned Earth

Post-Apocalyptic skirmish game sat in a flooded world, and there's dinosaurs too!

This table is the work of Ulricson as well. As great as the Trench Crusade table, but a whole different thing. And it's all modular! You can rearrange the terrain between games. I see this game regularly at Tabletop Knights' Gaming Days, sometimes at Austrian Salute as well. Always very inventive, colourful tables, and lovely to look at. 

That was on day#2, replacing the Shatterpoint table, of which I foolishly didn't take any pictures.

No vendors, but a very cool bring-and-buy table. In fact, I bought some stuff.

MASSIVE and slightly damaged stone bridge,
armoured boars, BB beastman
(came bundled with plastic ungor, see bag)

Of course I also brought a bunch of figures to look at:

...including part of my new Empire army! 

So yeah, lovely two days out. I was rather knackered by day#2, but the changing of the guards when it comes to gaming tables kept things fresh. The event was a very nice get-together for the club and friends of the club. And it was catered too! Cooled drinks (of the beer-y kind too! Not for me of course, because I was on duty.) throughout the weekend and lunchtime snacks. The door of the drinks fridge was charmingly squeaky, so that sound was a bit like the pulse of the event.

Wargamers war-gaming.

Day#1 also had a little painting competition, for which I was the jury. Extremely diverse models and figures on show, reflecting the great variety of games on display and a bunch of lovely paintjoby. I hope I did my job well there and didn't just end up making myself unpopular with several people. :-D

So yeah. Good club, those Wulpertinger, playing loads of things which are a bit off the all-too-trodden paths, which is always good. Oh, one more things - the demo tables were proper demo tables; it felt like there were loads of intemringling between tables, people playing stuff they hadn't played before and so on, which is always cool.

Many thanks to the club for hosting the lovely event, thanks for having me, thanks to everyone who participated and happy birthday, Wulpertinger!