Hamburg Tactica 2023 Loot
After the event coverage, here's my loot post from Hamburg Tactica 2023.
I got myself some reinforcements for World War 2, adding the Bofors gun by Rubicon for my 8th Army and got the new Sd.Kfz. 250 plastic kit for review purposes. The large Start Collecting! Box for Age of Sigmar covering the new mortal Chaos, was something I got from Fritz the Brushzerker, I've been tempted by that box for a long time and the updated range really speaks to me. Maybe we will see more of them as I got my hands on the army box, including the new Daemon Prince as well.
Hamburg Tactica 2023
After 4 years, we're back at TACTICA in Hamburg! Our last visit was back in 2019.
TACTICA is Germanys largest wargaming convention and usually held in february (this varied in the last years a bit) in the Wilhelmsburg Community Center. I'll talk about how to plan a trip and combine the show with other things in Hamburg in a separate post. The show is open two days, Saturday and Sundays and usually the first is the more crowded one.
TACTICA covers trade stands and participation / demo rounds of various games, in different scales and settings. You'll find historical as well as ficitional setups, with detailed tables and many wargaming clubs work all year to prepare their demos for the show.
Event Schedule for 2023
A brief overview of the events that are on my radar for this year.
List will be updated accordingly and focus around DACH and BeNeLux countries, with minor exceptions for special occasions:
LARDwerp 2022
November 5th, Saturday morning, 10 am - LARDwerp starts. I should be around2 pm that we arrive at the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp club house, in a northern suburb of Antwerp itself. And as you know from our event coverage, we start with a picture of the parking lot.
Properly filled with various gaming tables, the club house even covers a licensed bar, so beverages and food were secured. This is off for a good start!
8th Rhein Main Multiversum 2022
Nidderau is back on the schedule! This weekend (we've been there yesterday) the Tabletop Club Rhein-Main hosted once again after a break the 8th Rhein Main Multiversum.
This time, due to the circumstances, the Rhein Main Multiversum was not as a convention but as an open gaming weekend (so without traders) to accomodate any (possible) restrictions and so on.
August 2022 review
August is over, we're in the last third of 2022. Let that sink in.
I was at RatCon 2022, a roleplaying convention not far from me. It is part of the Ulisses Con Tour and covers multiple pen & paper role playing games, organized partially by the hosts or gamers themself. There are a variety of rpgs available and played, but The Dark Eye / Das Schwarze Auge is the most prominent. From time to time, the RatCon included smaller tabletop side events, but due to the health requirements and organisational conditions, this wasn't the case this time. Yet, I was able to get my hands on an old Armalion blister (with miniatures sculpted by Werner Klocke) and the RatCon event miniature (3d printed in dark grey resin). The next event of the tour will by DreieichCon from 19. - 20. November 2022.
We even met some folks from Asgard Aschaffenburg and are really hoping for a soon return of the Tabletopia event (last one was in 2019).
Prelude to Rhein Main Multiversum 2022
The Rhein-Main-Multiversum returns in September 2022 after a two year break.
Internal CONflict Rheinland 2022
Finally - an update in the event category! Conflict Rheinland returns after a 3 years break with a private event, and 2019 was our last visit to the event in Langenfeld. Yet, the return is a bit special, as this is not a public event, as they had to cancel that format about a month ago and went for an invite only meet up of some of the hosts and clubs, that would just do a private get-together.
Torsten kindly invited me to join that round of wargamers and I happily accepted the invitation as it would be my first wargaming event in over a two years (my last wargaming road trip was January 2020 to Nottingham, visiting Warhammer World).
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.