Games Day 2013 Germany Report - Part 1

Games-Day Greetings everyone! 

Thank you so much! 

What a couple of crazy-busy weeks! First the release and shipping of our first ever miniature painting DVD set with multi-slayer-multi-demon-winners Ben Komets and Rafael "Volomir" García Marín, which you guys turned into a success that we did not anticipate. 

Busy, busy, busy...

Games Day 2013 USA -
an unforgettable event

Next followed our big trip to Memphis, Tennessee, for Games Day US for which we still are missing Part 4 and 5 of for our review - having been so super-busy with everything (reports coming this week, though, for sure!). 

And this weekend was this year's 'big' Golden Demon event - 

The Games Day Germany 2013 - Part 1

Some very tired guys of our big group
from Berlin on our train-ride back.

We have returned!

After having arrived back home at 2am last night - followed by about 4 hours of refreshing (?) sleep - I got up to get all the information, reports, pictures and everything ready for you as soon as possible. 4 hours a night seems to be about the average amount of sleep for the last couple of weeks and thus I gave Ben and Mati off for the day - to recuperate from the fun and glory of the last couple of weeks.

If you followed our Facebook page yesterday, you hopefully enjoyed our live-posts throughout the day. 

All winners (even if mispelled, sorry!) were posted about 5 seconds after they were announced - in most cases with pictures. Thousands of you followed along as things got hot and steamy! 

Never miss another report on international miniature painting events - follow us today!

Live-posting was a lot of fun to do. Let me know if you liked it and if we can improve on it for future events!

Slayer Sword Winner GD Germany 2013 - Roman Lappat! From all of us: CONGRATS, DUDE!

Reports: The days ahead

1: Pics or it didn't happen 

First and foremost, I know that all of you are very interested in pictures. After all, "Pics - or it didn't happen" is nowhere more true than in miniature painting! 

So right now I am scrambling to get two albums uploaded: 

• Pre-Games-Day Party (album link) and
• Games Day 2013 Germany (First Version ONLINE)
  (Will add/remove more: Need to do cropping (esp. on minis), editing and such - will continue to work on it after a short break. I am at it for 7 hours now. With no sleep and no coffee left :D). 
  
  
  Follow us on Facebook - we will let you know when all pics are uploaded as soon as they are! 

As you can imagine, sorting, cropping and editing a total of over 2000 pics will take me a few hours at least. I know you would like everything NOW, so I decided to roughly sort out all the really crappy pics, then upload all of the pictures so you can SHARE & ENJOY them. After that I will go ahead and edit everything (cropping, contrast, color, brightness). 

Example: I take pics of miniatures at a very high resolution. For simplicity, the pics I take usually have a lot of 'border area' - I will crop that down as soon as I can. 

So, you got three basic options: 

• first: have a look at all the unedited material as soon as it gets out (I know you will)
• second: wait for the update on our Facebook Page to enjoy the more edited content.
• third: all of the above. This is gonna be a not so productive day in the office for you guys! No, no need to thank us! ENJOY!

2: International Games Day Controversies 

How to shoot yourself in the foot and enjoy it.
A book by the Games Workshop Management

In the last couple of months there were a lot of controversies surrounding the GW HQ management decisions (not only) with regards to Games Days worldwide and the now 'binding' "International Games Day Codex".

Having followed the development of Games Workshop very closely over the last 21 years, I will write (or record, haven't decided yet) a summary of what's going on at GW right now, the results the recent HQ management decisions has had in particular on the Games Days so far, my assessment of the overall situation plus my personal conclusion on where this is all going to end. 

I think, this will be very interesting for many of you. If all goes well, this article (or at least the first part of it) should go up tomorrow.

If YOU have any questions or comments on our view of the latest GD developments, please put them in the comments below. We will try to address all of them!

Pre-Games-Day Party

Over 60 friends from all across the globe (France, Italy, Denmark, UK, Turkey/Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Russia... did I forget any?) met for our traditional Pre-Games-Day-Dinner in Cologne, Germany. 

The night before the Games Day is always the best part about this event. We head out for dinner together, followed by a nerd gathering at our hotel with epic proportions. Every painter unpacks all the great masterpieces and everyone can have a look, ask questions and in general SHARE & ENJOY tipps and tricks, tales of dropped miniatures or even just a beer. 

Hot ladies know: Nerds make the best husbands!

People with very small, tired eyes - a sign of nights of painting-induced sleep-deprivation, celebrate themselves and their hobby. If you have never been on any of these meetings, I urge you to join us at the next international event (GD UK, anyone?). We are all like a big, happy family of slightly-crazed painters. 

For me, this is the highlight of every event. You have to be there to understand and feel the warmth and happiness of these events. We all hope to see YOU at the next competition!

>> Here is the link to my Picasa-Album from this year's Pre-GD-Party. (around 300 pics) <<

As always, feel free to SHARE & ENJOY any of these pictures. If you be so kind to link back to us, that would be great, but it's not required. Remember, SHARING is caring! :D

Games Day 2013 Germany - Event Day

Too early

Matt & Matteo:
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed

Early in the morning, flocks of nerds with even smaller eyes than the night before slowly converged on the Gürzenich in Cologne. 

Since we organize live painting demonstrations for visitors of Games Day Germany since as long as I can think (which is surprisingly not so long, it seems :D), we were able to enter the premises around 8 am. Games Workshop staff was busy with last minute presentations and we were confused by the new floor layout of the event. After a few minutes we did, in fact, find our assigned spots, though (unfortunately on a narrow and somewhat remote balcony), and started our preparations. 

Fabrizio fills out his GD entry form

9am - doors open

At 9am participants in the Golden Demon and the Armies on Parade were allowed to enter the building. The first people dropped their entries off at the always friendly GW grey-shirts (yes, no red this year), rushed to the Forge World stand to get their daily dose of resin or went up to the retail area to purchase their Games Day shirt (surprisingly it was BLACK, not bordeaux, as in the US!). Of course, I was so busy all day that when I got to the shop, my sizes was completely and utterly sold out. QQ. 

10am - operation "quiet storm"

Imperial Guard controls
at the entrance. 

In previous years, at 8am there were hundreds and thousands of people lining up to get inside. The line of people often times went all the way around the Gürzenich, which is a couple of hundred meters long. 

This morning, shortly before 10am, the lines were about 10m long. Crickets were chirping. A lone tumbleweed rolled across the street thinking to itself 'Da fuq?'. It was not needed. 

Regardless, the doors open and the people streamed inside in a steady trickle. 

The nerds. The brave. The FEW. 

Activities at GD Germany - the old and the new

As always, you had the usual shops: Forge World, GW, Black Library and 3rd party IP users like Ravensburger (comparable to FFG). 

Also the expected 'Scratch Demon competition', 'Speed Painting', 'Terrain Building' and gaming tables were there, no surprises. Also the PCs with demos of 'Space Hulk' and 'Talisman' don't stir too much confusion.

Some GW and FW designers were there, as usual, this time showing the same 'news' as in Memphis. So yada, yada, yada. 

What was unique at this year's GD were - two things. Well, three. Games Day Germany (sadly) remains the only Games Day where painters showcase their talents for the general and - as a whole - tax-free entertainment of the masses. 

Like always, our booths were flooded with people all day long, even though we were located on a very small, narrow balcony which was directly above the Golden Demon display cases. 

The two 'unique' things were: First, at GD Germany, there is a 'dungeon-like' area where people can play board-games such as Blood Bowl or Talisman. This area - probably not seen by 80% of the visitors - was actually one of the nicest areas during the show. Great lighting, great atmosphere and friendly nerds shaking dice. 

The second 'new' thing was the 'Auditorium'. Throughout the day, interesting people gave interesting presentations on such interesting topics as "How to prepare a GD diorama" (by later sword-winner Roman Lappat), readings from Black Library, FAQ with Jervis Johnson and so on. I only visited Roman's opening presentation and - to be honest - had goosebumps as he showed how he built his Slayer-Sword winning diorama with a total of no less than 127 miniatures. Insane. Genius. Roman. 

Golden Demon

Would the real painting master
please stand up?

And now for something completely different. The GOLDEN DEMON part of the report. 

With thousands of organized players boycotting this years Games Day Germany, the ratio of painters to gamers has never been favoring our side by this much! 

With Games Day France and Spain having been cancelled, many of Europe's top-painters came to Cologne to enter into the battle for the many Medals, fewer Demons and the one Slayer Sword. 

The number of entries was pretty high and the amount of absolute top-entries was mind-boggling. Hardest categories this year were WHFB Monster followed by Diorama and Open. 'Weakest' categories were LotR and 40k unit. And, of course, next year it will be the other way round. That's what always happens without fail ;) 

Personal Favorites

Judging was the hardest job during GD Germany 2013
Always remember: Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder

In my opinion the best painted model was Mo' Gobbo Wizard in WHFB Single. It was painted in the similar style as his last year Gold-Winner Orc: Acrylics and Watercolors. Also perfectly painted were LOLer's Demon Prince and Volomir's Dragon Prince (Princes seemed to be popular, huh...) :D

In the end only very few people did not agree with the Judges decision to give the sword to Roman Lappat. His Diorama "The last light" - an epic scene with Blood Angels getting overrun by Tyranid hordes featured no less than 127 miniatures. 127. 

Unfortunately, this decision was greeted by a lonely boo-caller (who had just won Silver behind Roman and stood on stage). I would call that bad sportsmanship in the heat of the moment. 

I recently told Tom Ales, Slayer Sword winner in US after 'that controversy' that - unless there is no discussion about whether or not a Slayer Sword was deserved - the slayer sword wasn't deserved. 

I still can't believe what I saw. Thank you, Roman,
for this most memorable of pieces!

And to douse all doubts: The fact that Roman won had nothing to do with his fellow monkey and Massive Voodoo member Raffa "Picster" was in the Jury. It was because Roman had turned a vision that all of us have about the Tyrannid horde overrunning bravely fighting angels into an epic display, a piece for the ages. Nothing like this has ever existed before - and few works like this will follow in the future. In 42 months, pictures of Roman's Diorama will still be all over the internet - when my brave Lizardman Slaan has long be forgotten and gathers dust (oops, I think that has already happened).

Roman's diorama wrote Golden Demon history. It is our hobby's version of Guernica. If you really can't understand how this diorama could possibly have won the sword: Go home, you are drunk. 

The cheers in the crowd seem to support my point. Under 1000 people made more noise than I remember from last year. Maybe my hearing got miraculously better, I don't know. 

Jury: Awesome job! Other Games Days should consider
allowing the Slayer Sword winner from the previous
year to be head judge of their events, too.

Why? They kinda know what they are doing.
'Nuff said.

Yes, the painting quality (127 minis!) was not the same as on some other pieces. But you need to take everything into consideration. Composition, mood, spirit of the game, epic-ness AND quality of painting. And in total, there is no discussion. There can't be. Not at a Golden Demon event. 

And one thing about Raffa being the head judge: This must have been one of the hardest Games Days to judge ever. Period. And I think the whole judging team did a terrific job. Sure, I'd like to have seen LoLer get at least silver in Monster - but I can't take the mini out and look at everything like a judge. So I shut up and marvel at the beauty of what my old, weak eyes can still see. 

After the Games Day is before the Games Day

Merry gathering with awesome friends!
After the Games Day is before the Games Day!
Hope to see YOU next time!

After the end of the event, about 30 of us went down to the River and had a beer or two. Or three. Unfortunately we had to leave this giddy crowd around 7pm to catch our train. And the rest of the trip was a fun, laughter filled journey - with a live performance television family drama courtesy of "Mandy and Katy" - the girls who discovered Timbuktu. 

Insider-Joke? Sure. You are hereby invited to join us next time to laugh with us - Euromillitaire at Folkstone and Games Day UK in Birmingham on September 28th are our next vistis.

See you there!

Update on Facebook

Again, follow our Facebook Page to see when we have uploaded and finished editing all pictures. Since it is 1:30pm already I kinda forsee it might be a long day editing ^^

SHARE & ENJOY

Please SHARE & ENJOY this post, our blog, our Facebook page and our fantastic new Miniature Painting DVD Set (the one with the unbelievably high quality and low price) with your friends!

In doing so, you help us to continue to be able to bring you reports from all over the world to an Internetz near you! 

Until tomorrow EACH Facebook/Google+ SHARE will qualify for our big Stack'O'Swag Sweepstakes. Every share is an additional ticket! Winners will be drawn tomorrow evening!

This is what you can win: So now we have : A rare limited DA Codex, we got got three paintingbuddha Supporter T-Shirts, the 2013 Games Day Limited Miniature, a Happy Monk, three MYSTERIOUS Swag Bags from Games Day US, a Limited Games Day 2013 Mini (Marco Colombo), a Limited Edition Dark Vengeance 40k starter box (whaaaat?), a Limited Edition XXX Dwarf and now the Hobbit Rulebook on the Stack'O'Swag.

SHARE & ENJOY

Winner List: 
A winner list with pics is now available at from our friends at Massivevoodoo.com.