Heidelberger Burgevent Stahleck 2016

The annual event hosted by the Heidelberger Spieleverlag at Stahleck Castle for supporters, colleagues and friends was this weekend. So where to begin? With a parking lot picture of course.

It's a youth hostel in a castle, so many of the visitors park in the town and hike the hill upwards. If you want to park closer, you'll have to find one of the few parking places on top of the hill.

The weather was fantastic, i enjoyed the car ride from Koblenz down the Rhine until Bacharach. And with a sight like this, who could argue about that?

The court yard offers a lot of space to sit and play a game or two under the blue sky and bright sun. Inside the castle are several rooms, among them the knights hall, with the most gaming tables.

Many of the games are prototypes and early mock ups to gather feedback and do fine balancing on the rule sets. One of the first games that caught my eye was "Age of Thieves". They had these huge 3d printed miniatures, but unfortunately i wasn't able to play a round. The same goes with "The rise of Odin", lots of miniatures, nicely designed board, but no free time slot.

As Mantic partnered up with Heidelberger a few years ago, Josh was there, supporting the range and giving demos in Dungeon Saga and The Walking Dead. The game shown was an early prototype, with the final miniatures and masters, but not the tokens and cards.

I was absolutely amazed by the quality of the sculpts and cast. The miniatures themself are roughly 35mm in size, so a bit larger than even larger 28mm miniatures. The material is hard plastic, not rubber or resin. Very stable and crisp casp, with a low amount of mould lines.

The grey miniatures are like they will be included in the final boxes and sets. If you've missed the kickstarter, don't worry, it'll be available in trade and even have some trade exclusive product codes and miniatures. The game itself plays incredible smooth and straight forward. And it is deadly, oh boy, can it be messy. In any other game, like a dungeon crawler, this would be upsetting, but it catches the feel of The Walking Dead so perfectly. Keep an eye out on this one. Seriously.

An early prototype, that was invited to be tested and gather some feedback was "Super Fantasy Brawl" (working title, the final game - if it is released - will carry a different name). It is a MOBA-styled board game, like DotA, League of Legends or Heroes of the Storm. The artwork and miniatures on wood are all early draws and totally mislead you, that this might be an easy and friendly game. But hell no! This game is pretty brutal and has some very effective combinations. So the first game might hit you quite hard, but if you know about the cards, the characters and their possibilities, it get's quite funny. I hope for Jochen, that they'll pick up the game, give it a darker or at least more mature look, that fits the rules.

In one of the smaller rooms, they had a "This War of Mine" prototype for gaming. From the feedback I got from others, that tested the game, it is really depressing and grim. But that is the mood, the pc game carries as well, so it fits. Unfortunately the host was  speaking rather broken english and was very tight about taking pictures of the game (which is absolutely not understandable as the game is promoted on Kickstarter, BeastsofWar and all across Youtube in the current state, shown at the castle).

In the afternoon bad weather was approaching and covered the castle in rain. But shortly afterwards, the sun broke through the clouds and filled the rhine valley with light.

We had a good time in Bacharach. I really can't wait for The Walking Dead being released this autumn, as the miniatures are top notch. This War of Mine looks promissing, but I hope that I can get a closer look on that one in the future. Thanks again for the invitation towards the Heidelbears, and i hope you guys enjoyed the pictures.

I participated last year, you can see the pictures from the barbeque etc. there as well, so i left it out from this years coverage.