LUCCA COMICS & GAMES 2004: the Reportage

There you are (ready to forgive me for my awful english, written at night after a very long working day as well...), to our small reportage about Mindstalkers presence during "Lucca 2004" Fair, both as exhibitor and as sponsor of the prestigious modelling contest "Trofeo Grog"! We want to thank the organization that this year, thanks to a good logistic rearrangment, has granted a great event without any fruition problem, both for visitors and for exhibitors; forget the bad things of the 2003 edition, this year all was great! Also the climate, in spite of some drizzle, was good (or stable) enough to let people have fun... four days of pure fun!

The ManorHouse Staff arrived in the morning of the 27th of November... one of the first company to arrive to prepare the stand and the gaming area. All this under a stormy weather... all the fairs starts and ends like this, with an empty stand and a LOT of boxes to clear out (or to fill)...
 
The preparation phase was lasted half a day, with the assembling of the wondeful gaming board made by ManorHouse Workshop (nearly 3 square meters of gaming board!) made for the fair. At this point the pavilion started to come to life with all the other exhibitors and wargames manufacturers. And, at the end, the stand finished! Banners in a good position, gaming table ready to wink to people, posters at walls...ready to welcome our gamers! In the next two photographs some Staff people...

A particular novelty were the Mindstalkers T-Shirts, available in different colors and with different artworks, that have had a good outcome (some of them was purchased also by some Rackham's stand salesclerks... ;) ). Soon you'll can order these T-Shirts also on-line on this website, choosing color, subject and size! A little narcissistic space for our blister's rack... entirely made by brilliant plexiglass! They were admired by a lot of people...
 
The great attraction of our stand was for sure the big multi-levvel gaming table, specially the ruined octagonal chapel (a new 28/40mm Kit by ManorHouse Workshop) with two Mindstalkers Faction fighting each other...
Soon on this website you'll find a wonderful step-by-step about how to made this impressive gaming scenery!
 
These Mindstalkers special plexiglass packages were the prizes for the Trofeo Grog (see later on). These special packages are available on request, and are perfect as a gift idea; the upper part can lifted from the base, and so can be transformed in a perfect case for dioramas: once closed, your miniatures are protected by dust and by your little brother...!
 
The day after was the first day of the fair. Usually the Friday is a little bit "empty" day, because people is still working, but around our stand there was a big interes and a lot of people.. and, going over our forecasts, people started asking to play! Here you can see Andrea Marconti with two newly ordained mindstalkers! Obviously the demo games was played with only three miniatures per side, on a 80x80cm gaming board, but this hasn't stopped the enthusiasm of the players,clearly showing that our gae-system allows to havve fun also with some few minis, a very small space and in a very few time!
 
During the next two days the requests to play Mindstalkers had an exponential growth, taking up all the time of both Joucularis and Sanchez, here in the photos. The gaming table was truly besieged from people waiting to play, so we were "forced" (with our great pleasure, of course!) to use also a part of the gaming table within our stand, to let more people play simultaneously!
 
Mindstalkers war enrolled also for the "Best of Show" contest... unfortunately, also if the game was truly appreciated by the judging guys, the other games was so important (like the Lord of the Rings boardgames, Chtulu's games and so on) that Mindstalkers has not succeeded in winning this contest! But, the appreciation and the enthusiasm showed by anyone that has played our game, was truly the best "prize" we can win!
 
...and between the "excellent" admirers of our game, we can proudly cite also John Howe, the "guru" illustrator/artworker of the Lord of the Rings, that went to our stand, giving us his compliments for the quality and historical accuracy of our products, over that appreciation for thw work of our illustrator, Andrea Mariconti (in the photo). John gave us, over than his presence, autographed paintings to all the Staff, and he received from us a complete set of Mindstalkers miniatures: he said that he and his sons will be pleased to play Mindstalkers at home!
 

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In the afternoon of the lest day there was the prizegiving of the International Grog Trophy: Tommy Nicosia and Roberto Gigli was the official judges, but upon the stage there was also Lorenzo Marchetto, to consign our yearned prizes!
We want to remark that noone of our staff was in the Jury, to grant absolute fairness to the judgement! Here beside our prized and the Grog trophy...
 
In the first photo you can see Angelo Fregoso, 3° classed, that won the special Mindstalkers plexiglass box with 4 miniatures (all the game's Characters: Karal, Absol with victim, Dara and Jaila).
 
Here beside the prizegiving of Enrico Bertorino, 2° classed, hat won the special Mindstalkers plexiglass box with 7 miniatures (Karal, Absol with victim, Dara, Jaila and three different man-at-arms).
 
And, finally, the well-deserved honour 1st place for Andrea Ottolini, radiant with happiness in the photo here beside, hat won the first prize: a super-special Mindstalkers plexiglass box with 13 miniatures (Karal, Absol with victim, Dara, Jaila, four different man-at-arms and three different Heavy Cavalry models)! Now we're waiting to see them painted...
 
Also the "Dioramas" section of the tropy was sponsored bu ManorHouse Workshop (there was a special ManorHouse Kit for the winner of this Grog's category) but unfortunately the winner, Dario Furlan, wasn't at the prizegiving ceremony, so... no photo, sorrry!

Here below you can see our official painters that taked part "privately" to the Grog and other painting competitions... first photo for the skilful Alessio "Wolfbane" Cisbani, our Team's Lead Painter, with his hand full of prizes (one Bronze Grog for the category "Complex and Converted Miniatures", one Golden Grog for the category "Gaming Units" and a Special Prize for the NKG Lucca Model Contest). Then, Matteo "Beltane" De Franceschi, a new painter for our Team (but well known in the painters' shere), that won a Silver Grog for the category "Single Miniature" and a Bronze Grog for the category "Mounted Miniatures". Last but not least, Luca Fachini (higHLight Studio) that won a Silver Grog for the category "Big Monsters and War Machines"! Our compliments to them all... only the world's best painters in our Team!

For the complete photographic reportagge of the Trofeo Grog we invite you to visit the website of Paolo "Dragonpaint" Guion: DragonPaint's Cave!

That's all... our thanks to all our visitors, and... we'll wait for you all at Lucca 2005!