Rapture Gaming Festival 2021 held a great variety of different attractions this year, but one of the more captivating areas was the Tabletop Gaming section. The majority of the tabletops featured miniature collections from popular brands like Warhammer, Dungeons & Dragons and Warlord Games. My personal favourite out of them is the Greenskin Warhammer collection, these were a group of tiny detailed orcs. The artists showcasing these had used realistic miniature details such as snow, grass and leaves to add extra character to their models. When I start collecting and painting models, the Greenskins will for sure be my first target.
The Tabletop Gaming area had a nice selection of small businesses set up, each with alternate sets of game kits, expansions, transparent glues, paints and even miniature details such as grass, snow and razor wire. Other than the pop-up shop stools, there were other small businesses offering custom services such as mini paint job commissions. It was the realistic miniature details that really caught my eye; the stall that Shaun from Sheppey Models held particularly caught my eye with the intriguing selection of realistic foundation settings he had for sale. These were part of the Battlegrounds collection produced by The Army Painter. To say the least, it is the small businesses to blame for my increased interest in the tabletop world.
There was no mistake in understanding that you have entered the Tabletop area. It would be difficult to miss the vast table display exhibits, especially with some of the eye catching, surprising details that were in place. The most impressive details to me was the collection of trees, forestry and other environmental foundations. The miniature bushes and trees were impressively realistic, but the miniature grass and rocks gave the table a great finished look. Lastly I’d like to highlight that there were some very great paint jobs to be seen, specifically on the Warhammer collections that we see, its mind blowing to see the amount of detail and shading on such a small object.
While visiting the Tabletop Gaming section, we got the chance to interview Steve, a war games enthusiast with over 12 years of experience. He & his team were already playing a game whilst exhibiting their impressive war scene build, this scene in particular was “A re-fight of the Battle of Quatre Bras, it took place 2 days before the Battle of Waterloo”. The scene consisted of super realistic forestry, farms, buildings, roads and hand-painted animals & soldiers. The placement of the pieces at the start were true to history, “it stopped being historical when the dice started to roll, then everything went wrong”. Most of the parts were part of the Black Powder collection by Warlord Games, this collection was all collected and painted by Steve’s associate Simon, “this was a labour of love that he started about 25 years ago”. It was great talking to Steve and learning more about these detailed tabletop worlds and the artists behind them.
I definitely was not expecting to be as pleased as I was when I saw all of these crazy exhibits. Before Rapture, I had minimal knowledge and interest for tabletop games, however I’m now interested enough to begin my own collection. Personally, I look forward to obtaining and using the realistic miniature details and attempting to create some models with extra comprehensive customs. As somebody who was a stranger to this world just over a week ago, I recommend anybody with the slightest interest to get involved and possibly even visit a tabletop exhibition like this. I will definitely be making an effort to visit the tabletop gaming section at Rapture 2022!
Jack is a graphic and Content Designer with a passion for creative work . In his spare time, Jack likes to spend time creating digital art and playing video games.
