TabletopWelt Paint Meeting 2024

For the third time, Robert aka Grinsemann of Wolpertinger Miniatures organised the TabletopWelt Maltreff (Painting Meeting), and this time - after some mild persuasion by Dino - I joined in.

The venue is a youth hostel, located within an old manor in the Eastern part of Germany, in Thuringia about half an hour north of Erfurt. But more on that later.

So I packed my car, with all the tools, miniatures and paints that I needed and headed off to my about 3 hour journey right across the country. I had a charging stop near Herleshausen, and this was actually the first time, that I saw charging stations right next to the gas pumps and not somewhere "nearby".

The manor is located in a rural area, and the youth hostel is setup as a conference venue for cultural gatherings. A lot of music societies and schools come there to have rehearsal weekends, and that would be the case while we were there as well. Keep in mind, these pictures are taken in November, thus the lack of green on the trees and just for that weekend the temperatures decided to drop to around 0°.

The aspect that the location is not just a youth hostel but a conference venue as well, provided us with the perfect surroundings for our painting meeting. The Knight's Barn is a new building, offering lots of space for our weekend and a very close proximity to the dining hall and rooms. Both available at very reasonable low rates.

But let's jump to the main topic - the Painting Meeting in the Knight's Barn. A tall and very well illuminated hall, everyone had their own table and as this is a new building we had lots of sockets (never the less, highly recommended to bring your multi-plug,  and free wifi.

I set up my place, right next to Dino and beside the paint desks, we had some gaming tables in the front, and a display of various miniatures by the other participants on the back.

I had three projects with me, I finalized the primer on my retro-Necrons for the 2nd edition of Warhammer 40k Projects (Yes, I'm aware the Lord and the Immortals were 3rd edition models) and did a first colour test for the base colours. And of course, this is going to have goblin green bases.

The second project, I took with me for this weekend were the High Elf Blood Bowl Team of the Caledor Dragons. Beside some details, I manged to finish the base colours. The skin tone took me a bit more time, as I did a test model but for what ever reason forgot to write down which paint I used for that, and failed to recreate the tone. In addition to just surrendering painting the skin on black primer, so I gave all the fleshy bits a coat of Corax White, before adding Sunny Skin by Vallejo.

These are only missing some minor clean up and gold trim, before I can give them the first defining wash. And I am still looking for proper decals for this team.

The third project were the Legio Astraman addition. On those I mostly did the remaining bases, and some base colours on the last few titanicus models. Quite happy how the bases turned out, those are finished, just missing the name plates, which I already printed. With the oval ones it is easy, I could continue on them, but with the round ones for the Warhounds and Dire Wolves, I want to have the final position of the legs to properly align the front arcs.

The people around me were busy as well. Most obviously painting, on all different kind of projects, from regular miniatures in different scales to busts, and some used the chance to do some gaming as well, including play testing their own rule sets.

Among the games offered for matches was Blitz Bowl, including some painted teams. If you're unfamiliar with the game, we covered the Ultime Edition on here as well.

Dino brought along Mortal Gods and gave some introduction games as well, using his recently finished demo setup, with Plataians and Thebans.

And there was Warcry as well, including some warbands for the game.

For what ever reason, I missed to take more pictures of Drudenfuss, the game by Robert. But I took some pictures of the miniatures exhibited. And I forgot to take pictures of the amazing Gargoyles display, you can see in the background of Jabba the Hut. But I'd like to point out - look at that amazing Necron Hot Rod and how it is flying across the dunes.

To conclude this brief visit report, I'd like to share more pictures of the location. There is a playground and some greens with bbq spots on site as well, along with a "chill area" and small pond. So I expect this to look more inviting when the temperatures are up.

Regarding the rooms. It's youth hostel, so the rooms were functional and clean, and the promiximity to the venue is a huge plus, as we lost no time for commute, had not to get designated drivers or a cab. And in the morning the same thing the other way around, get up, get to the dining hall, grab some breakfast and get straight to painting.

While the event is running from Friday to Monday as a potential 4-day event, I "only" stayed until sunday noon, as I still had a three hours ride back.

We didn't manage to take a picture of all the people, participating in the paint meetup, but our wargaming buddies from our own "painting circle" took one on Sunday, before me leaving. (From left to right: Swarley/Daniel, Dino/Daniel, me, Grinsemann/Robert, Fritz/Christian).

The costs were very moderate, especially if you count in that everybody from us had a room to themself. So if the event grows and you share a room, you can bring the costs even further down. Catering was solid, was positively surprised regarding all three meals of the day (I opted out for the fourth "Kaffee & Kuchen"). The only downside really is getting there, as the three hours take a bit of toll on me, as only 2/3rds of that distance is highway, and you can't really choose to get their by public transport (You could grab the train up to Erfurt and ask one of the others to pick you up from there).

Great type of event and I'm very satisfied with the output from the weekend. Undisturbed painting for hours. The Progress would have taken me multiple evenings across several weeks, especially with some of the more dull activities like touching up the primer. We used to have something like this as a long friday at our local gaming store on the third weekend of each month and I remember how much I got done back in the day (well, I was a student back then), but having a more frequent paint meetup would certainly be benefitial for my pile of shame.

Thanks once again towards Robert for organising and for the warm hospitality of the Rittergut.