A good demonstration can do something a shelf full of rulebooks struggles to manage: make you want to play.
That is the most useful thought to take away from SPRU, Nottingham’s independent wargaming convention. Held at the Albert Hall Conference Centre on 26 September 2026, the event brought games, art, design and miniature making together under one roof. The organisers now say another event is being planned, with details still to come. SPRU’s event information and latest update confirm the date, venue and plans.
For local players, that is something worth watching. It is also a reason to look again at the unfamiliar games on the edge of the hobby, especially the ones you have admired online without quite finding the confidence, or the opponent, to try.
Making room for something different
SPRU’s programme gave independent creators space alongside participation games and talks. Its advertised sessions covered terrain, sculpting and game design, with contributors including Andrew May, Planet Smasher Games and the designers behind Tonks and Aetherpunk. The official site also lists exhibitors including Bad Squiddo Games, Ramshackle Games and Turnip28’s Max Fitzgerald.
The appeal of that mix is easy to understand. You can see a miniature, ask how it was made and find out what happens when somebody puts it on a gaming table. The distance between admiring something and having a go becomes considerably shorter.
For anyone whose hobby routine has settled into the same game, the same army and the same argument about terrain, that is a welcome invitation. There is pleasure in being a beginner again, particularly when someone else has already set up the table.
What happens when people actually get to play?
One exhibitor’s account offers a useful glimpse of how that worked in practice.
Writing on Improbable Solutions, CJ Shearwood described hours spent running demonstrations and talking to visitors. The retrospective praised the event while also noting practical difficulties around unloading, access and table arrangements.
It is one exhibitor’s experience, rather than a verdict on every stand or a substitute for official attendance figures. Nevertheless, it gives the discussion something more substantial than promotional enthusiasm: an account of people stopping, playing and, in some cases, buying.
For shops and clubs, there is a practical idea here. Give an unfamiliar game a table, a patient host and a short scenario. Let players discover what interests them through a few decisions and some dice rolls.
An introductory session does not need to explain every campaign rule before the first model moves. The supplementary injury table can wait. Its moment will come.
Bringing that spirit to a local gaming night
A small indie demonstration afternoon would be a sensible place to start. Choose a few games that the hosts know well, prepare the models and terrain, and make the time commitment clear.
Players should be able to sit down knowing roughly how long a session will take and whether they need to bring anything. That removes much of the awkwardness of trying something new.
For a retailer, the same approach can give an unfamiliar product some context. A painted warband beside a rulebook helps someone picture the game. A demonstration lets them decide whether they enjoy it. A visiting designer or terrain maker adds a conversation that an online product listing cannot provide.
There is room for collectors here too. SPRU’s website links to an official event miniature from Ramshackle Games. As a souvenir or painting project, that has an obvious appeal. Any prediction about future rarity or resale value would need evidence we do not have.
Buy it because you want to paint it, display it or remember the day. Those are perfectly respectable reasons to acquire another tiny person.
Elsewhere in tabletop: familiar names, changing arrangements
While SPRU put independent makers in focus, the larger publishers supplied their own news.
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