With a whole host of events and wargames shows coming this year, we thought we would give you a rundown of the events and conventions Wargames Illustrated will be running or attending in 2020.
February
We start the UK show season at Vapnartak in York on Sunday 2nd February, one of the best shows at a great venue in the north of England.
Then, on the 15th and 16th of February, we’ll be over in Hamburg, Germany for the Tactica show. Between running our trade stand, we look forward to checking out some of the finest games available to play at this great event.
March
On Saturday 14th March, we’ll be over at the excellent Hammerhead show in Newark, towards the north of Nottinghamshire. There’s always a great mix of traders and the organisers maintain the rule that all the games are participation only. As usual, Wargames Illustrated will be running a painting competition at the event, so make sure you bring along you best brushwork and see if you can’t return home with an award for your work.
For full details on Hammerhead and the painting comp go to hammerheadshow.co.uk
April
April is a huge month for the wargaming industry, with new releases and showcasing upcoming ones at Salute at Excel, London – the world’s largest wargames show. This year, the event takes place on Saturday 18th. We will be there for our 32nd successive year, with great offers on subscriptions, our famous golden ticket Dice Off and unique show offers on magazines, giveaway figures and much more.
Our first WI Event of the year also takes place this month. These are the events created by gamers for gamers, focussing upon popular rulesets. On 25th April, we have the second Rampant Ages Day, where we offer the chance to take on gamers from all over the country who sign up to play either Osprey’s Lion or Dragon Rampant or the Pikeman’s Lament off-shoot.
For more information, visit our Events page.
May
On Sunday 17th May, it’s the first of the two Partizan shows. Our long association with Partizan continues, and our visits to the Newark Showground for this show are always enjoyable.
From a show that we’ve been at for years, to one we have only attended for the past few. Although we won’t have a stand at the UK Games Expo, we’ve come to recognise it as one of the best places to visit for the crossover between wargaming, boardgames and RPGs. We look forward to reporting from the event between the 29th to 31st of May at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre.
July
On the 4th of July, we’ll be running our second event of the year. Now in its 5th year, we’ll be running games using the 7TV rules system over at Wargames Foundry, trying to save the multiverse once again in the ‘Crosstime Caper’.
Our next stop is Historicon 2020, over at the Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square in Pennsylvania from 8 – 12 July. As well as running a stand in the vendor hall, armed with magazines and other items to sell, we’ll also be running the annual Wargames Illustrated/HMGS painting comp AND running a number of WI Showcase games under the 7TV Day USA banner.
Full details can be found in the Events section of our website
August
With barely a breather (well, about two weeks actually…), it’s time for our next WI Event. On Saturday 1st August, we’ll be celebrating the release of Osprey’s Frostgrave 2nd Edition by running a day of gaming entitled “Frostgrave II: Die Frostier’. We’ll be joined by game author Joe McCullough himself on the day.
Once again, full details can be found in the Events section of our website
September
This month, we head down to the Colours show at Newbury Racecourse on 12th September, where this ‘southern shopping show’ always has a great atmosphere and friendly staff.
October
Back we go to the Newark Showground for our third show at this popular venue. This time, we’re at The Other Partizan on Sunday 11th October, as the event moves to a new part of the year but offers the same opportunities for visiting some of the best traders and seeing some great games.
November
Tired but unbowed, we come to our last two shows of the year, the first being the fantastic Crisis over in Antwerp, Belgium on 7th November. Rivalling Salute in terms of size and number of traders, this is always a good show for us. A popular away day (or two) for UK traders, the show also attracts the best of the continental wargames companies, thousands of gamers and numerous great looking games.
Our last show of the year is the Warfare show over the weekend of 14th and 15th November. This year, the show moves to its new venue, the Grandstand at Ascot Racecourse, with even more space and free parking. Well worth a visit in the past, this exciting new chapter in the show’s history is surely worth checking out?
And that’s it for 2020 – we may add more WI Events during the course of the year, but we think we’ll be busy enough as it is with all those listed above!
