Throwback – RPC 2010 Cologne Tabletop Demo Area
I somehow missed the proper opportunity for this throwback in 2020, as it would have fit the 10-year anniversary.
During my studies, while I was editor-in-chief for a German wargaming portal, I was approached by Michael Kränzle, back then with Leuchtameisen and owner / editor-in-chief at GamesOrbit, before being head of marketing at Pegasus Spiele and now fulfilling this role at Heidelbär. GamesOrbit was one of the media partners of the RolePlayConvention that moved from Münster to Cologne in 2009, and the show had its troubles to integrate tabletop wargaming into its portfolio.
Michael has a soft spot for miniature wargaming and wanted to push that hobby within the spectrum of tabletop games and was looking for somebody who could support that vision. And for that reason, he got in touch with me. He thought of some kind of christmas market, with small booths and lots of space for participation area. And that was kind of a problem, because usually you book a booth at a fair and depending on the pricing or the size of your booth, the venue may give you some space for that kind of activity. But it's usually pricy.
Throwback to Salute 2012 in London
Another throwback! 10 Years ago, I went for my first trip to Salute and it was not just any Salute, it was their 40th anniversary.
This was during my time as editor-in-chief for a large German wargaming portal, and to cover all (or at least most) of the novelties, we put it in our schedule to fly to London, take a lot of pictures, talk to a lot of people and arrange for some review material to cover in the upcoming months.
Most of the shows I participated until then where local conventions, held in community centres or similar and the largest was the Crisis 2011 in Antwerp or Action 2011 in Rheindahlen at the British Army HQ. And people already told me, wait until you see Salute, it's huge! I knew the South London Warlords from their elaborate participation tables on other shows and was eager to find out for myself.
spiel.digital and throwback to Spiel 2010
Like many other shows, the large toy and game fair SPIEL in Essen went digital this year to accomodate the needs of the current situation. A good reason to take a look on how they handled the transition from physical show into a digital one and a great invitation for a throwback!
In October 10 years ago, the I was quite busy, we just came back from our Nottingham tour (read about our throwback here), we went to one of the last DUZI shows and the Games Day Germany was just last week (throwback on that one is in preparation). So towards the end of the year and tour season for us, we went to the largest toy fair in Europe, SPIEL in Essen.
Back in the day, due to their size and to safe on marketing costs, Warlord Games and Mantic shared a booth (and Alessio joined in with Riverhorse as well to present Shuuro and support Kings of War), and the old set up of hall 6 at the show took not only a bit of preparation to avoid missing out on some wargaming or tabletop booths. It was great fun to drop by, as we met most of the lovely people just a few weeks ago on their home turf.
Throwback – Lead Belt Nottingham 2010 – Day 4
Last day of our trip to the lead belt and we headed to the outer area of the Nottinghamshire, to Mansfield to be exactly. Why head out there? Maelstrom Games had their facilities there, back in the day one of the largest wargaming stores, maybe only second to Wayland Games in the UK.
What made it interesting was not only the vast range, but the incredibly large gaming hall with 72 (!) tables, that hosted two tournaments at the same time. Epic 40.000 and Warhammer Ancient Battles on that day we were there. But not all, they even covered a bar, lounge and even more gaming tables. I think one of the things that impressed me the most, that even although the vast amount of tables and this not being club rooms, the amount of terrain was high and the quality of it more than just presentable.
Throwback – Lead Belt Nottingham 2010 – Day 3
Friday started quite early, at 9 a.m. we went for a quick shopping at Mantic, as some of us wanted to buy some Kings of War armies. In my case, it were a few zombies (I really like the versatile use of the ghouls and zombies by Mantic) and the Dwarfen kings council. On top we got these Mantic messenger bags with personal dedication by Ronnie and Alessio.
But that was just a brief stay at Mantics, as we had the second part of our meeting with Warlord Games. I had the chance to meet John Stallard, who was tied the day before (he participated in the Games Workshop shareholder meeting). It was really great to meet another former high ranking manager. John participated in the same battle report, we mentioned yesterday with Ronnie.
Throwback – Lead Belt Nottingham 2010 – Day 2
For the first full day in Nottingham we had the two newcomers on the miniature market on our schedule, Warlord Games and Mantic Games.
Warlord was already in the Lenton Business Centre where they sit until today. But back in the day, as a young and small company, they only rented single offices that were spread across the centre and not the whole wing and own brick & mortar store like today.
The range was already quite broad in terms of historical coverage, but far from the variety of plastic kits as today. The Early Imperial Romans and some Black Powder kits were already available and the first German soldiers for Bolt Action.
Throwback – Lead Belt Nottingham 2010 – Day 1
In August I have written about my anniversary in "professional" wargaming, and during my time as editor-in-chief I visited a lot of shows and convention, and we did some tours to meet with some of the manufacturers. Our first large tour of that kind was exactly 10 years ago (well in the night from the 14th to the 15th), towards the lead belt.
For those of you not familiar with that term, the lead belt describes the greater Nottingham area / Midlands, as due to Games Workshop sitting there, a lot of other tabletop companies were founded in the surrounding area - many by former Games Workshop employees.
As we were already in touch with the bigger companies for coverage, news and such, we arranged a couple of meetings in and around Nottingham and booked our stay in a hotel in Nottingham (Jury's Inn, proper stay, can only recommend). When I say we, it was Christian/Darkover (my former second-in-command), his wife Sarah, and two friends of mine from the local wargaming club; Andre (the albanian national coach, more on that later) and Lukas (my flatmate from my student days).
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