Due to my work schedule I haven’t been able to make the Richmond Open the first two years. Considering I only live two hours from Richmond it felt like a real shame so when my schedule cleared up and I was able to make it for a day trip I jumped at the chance! This year the Richmond Open moved to a different facility twenty minutes north of Richmond so it was even closer to my house!

As you can see it is a large, single room, venue. I went on Saturday and it was mostly tournaments. There were indications of a few other games, and some demo games set up but for the most part they were unattended. I was told most of the demo games and Games Mastered games would be held at night but as we weren’t playing in any of the tournaments we didn’t stick around to check this part out.

There were a number of different vendors including the Baron of Dice, Your Hobby Place, Bra Full of Sawdust, Atlantis Games and others. There were about fifteen vendors with a wide variety of products available.

These are some of the games and armies that caught my eye. As you can see there were a lot of different tournaments. I was surprised at how many people were playing in the Warhammer The Old World tournament. There were about 40 players, and I only saw half that for Age of Sigmar. Of course the 40k tournament was the largest I saw, but there was also a Kings of War Tournament, Marvel: Crisis Protocol, Star Wars Legion and many others.

There was a board game library available which I thought was a cool addition. I also talked about Rumble Slam which I didn’t quite get a demo in but I talked about it quite a bit. I almost bought a copy but some fiscal sensibility caught me just in time. I have too many projects going on right now, but I doubt I’ll maintain my will power next time it crosses my path!

After a few hours wandering around it was time for a late lunch. Besides the onsite snack shop there is almost no food in the immediate area of the convention so we decided to start our way back up to Northern Virginia with a stop in Fredericksburg to eat at The Alpine Chef. I had a bowl of goulash followed by a cold beer and Jagerschnitzel. My friends have been here plenty of times, I’m glad I finally got to go with them!

All in all a trip to the Richmond Open was worth a day trip for a few hours. We had planned on going to a museum in Richmond but as we were north of the city we decided we were going to be lazy and not head down further, only to have to head north again. I would definitely consider going back, especially if there was a tournament I was interested in. The last two years there was an Arena Rex tournament but there wasn’t one this year. I’m hoping it makes a return in 2025, I might finally have a ludus painted by then!

-Wachtmeister

PS If you want more Richmond Open content check out my buddy Manteuffel over at Wargaming from the Balcony!