CRISIS 2017 - Part 1

Let's do it again!

After half a year of absence from my blog I'm trying to revive this obervation window to my workbench and relatied things. My apologies to those who came here to see this old article from May and who had to withdraw disappointedly.

It's not that I lost my hobby mojo but during the last months hobby time has been precious. Too precious actually to use it to take pictures and prepare articles I thought but after all I discovered how valuable those connection within the bloggosphere grew to me and that they diserve a lot more care than I spent lately. Thus I'll start as I ended: With a show report.

The first Saturday each year is reserved for one of the most - if not the most - important wargaming shows on the European continent: CRISIS in Antwerp. This year my THS club fellows and me decided to bring fourth a project that mainly my friends Michael, Bernhard and I myself belaboured: The Nortwest Frontier (aka. 2nd Anglo-Afghan War). But this shall be covered in a second articles. First for the show itself, some impressions from the wonderful tables the other clubs brought and for a series of tremendous ecnounters I had.

As usual CRISIS took place in two large hangars near the Schelde river in the centre of Antwerp. Traffic is always an issues these days since there have been extensive roadworks proceeding in whole Antwerp for the last years. Nevertheless we were rather lucky this year. We billeted on the Ibis Budget Antwerp Port and luckily our paths led us around the heaviest construction zones.

Anyway at 10am the show opens for audience and within minutes the larege hangars are filled with hobby enthusiasts from all over Europe. What makes CRISIS so special for us continentals is that a lot of British traders and visitors use the opportunity for a quick jump over the channel. It's always tremendous to see those people face to face who I usually know from Blogger, Facebook or Skype only.

As international as the crowd is are the presenters. Thus clubs from Belgium, the Netherlands, England, France and Germany come there to present their output. Here are some impressions of a few table:

Later that day the stand of the Too Fat Lardies turned out a most important place to be for me. On Friday I read that the Lardies would bring Adam 'Sidney Roundwood' as aide for their Sharp Practise participation game. Thus I showed up there around 11am and made Sidney's enjoyable acquaintance. We had a good chat about hobby and real life while some other well known fellows creeped up on us. All of a sudden an illustrious fellowship scraped out from the crowd and Dave D. (One man and his brushes), Nick (Moiterei), Christopher (Axebreaker) and most surprising Curt (Analogue Hobbies) appeared. I knew that Dave wanted to come and I had been really looking forward to meeting him but making the other fellows acqaintance was a sublime moment of surprise. Unfortunately Sidney was too busy to join us but we others found the time to have a pint and a chat during which Sander (...) with his son joined us. We had a wonderful hour of conversation which I truly enjoyed beyond all measure. This small blogger gathering really made my day!

At 5pm then CRISIS came to an end. It was a blast of a day in many respects. A great weekend trip with my club friends, a wonderful rally with friends at the show and last but not last a good oportunity for some Christmas shopping. Here's the loot:

Not too much this year but at least...

- the CRISIS special miniature 'Till Eulenspiegel'

- a set of additional special figures 'Till's Companions'

- a wonderful miniature of Lord Uxbridge by Gringo40s

- a nice incarnation of the 'Iron Duke' by Wargames Illustrated

- some grass tufts from Warbases

- walking and neeling camels with baggage by Iron Duke Miniatures

- a couple of modern miniatures and a technical by Spectre

- a frame of modern plastics from the Crisis bag

That's it for now. I'll try to be back soon and will cover our NWF game then. See you soon!

Crisis 2016 - Some impressions...

So last weekend Crisis 2016 took place in Antwerp and I had the great pleasure to visit the show with a couple of friends from our THS wargaming club. A tremendous weekend again from which I collected a couple of impressions.

Finally I'm off to Antwerp for CRISIS 2016.

This year our club will bring a fantasy game covering a battle losely based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. There our club fellow Robert will present his extraordinary collection of 15mm fantasy figures and his lovely terrain to bring a skirmish battle between orcs and Riders of Rohan to life.

We'll use the 'Dragon Rampant' ruleset for a quick and entertaining game. There are some preview pictures on the LAF forum: Here.

Please drop by and take the chance to leave the anonymity of the Internet. I'd be glad to meet some of you in Antwerp and have a chat about the hobby.

Here's were you find us. Pretty much in the centre of hall 1:

See you there !

Monty on tour: Crisis 2015 (2) - Gorgeous tables and charming encounters

Missed part 1 of my review?

Look here.

 

Of course our table wasn't the only one in Antwerp. This year the show was again larger than the year before and there were countless clubs bringing excellent table for nearly each and every period and kind of warfare. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take pictures of all the tables and unfortunately not all the pictures I took turned out well but here's a small selection that might give you an idea how many efforts our hobby fellow put into their boards:

30-years-war in 20mm from the Hamburg Tactica club

Alde Garde with 28mm 9-years-war

20mm Operation Market Garden

A view to one of the landing zones.

Monty on tour: Crisis 2015 (1) - Our Plancenoit game

What a weekend! What a show!

Last weekend Crisis 2015 in Antwerp took place and the organisers from the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp performed an excellent job once more. The show itself was organised as perfect as ever and it seems that it has grown once again. The selection of traders and clubs who gave themselves the honour of occuring there was even better than the years before. Although some traders avoided the journey to Antwerp their places where taken by interesting newcomers without loss of quality.

Once again yours truly had the chance to be part of the show again since our club was presenting the Plancenoit game we've been preparing for more than a year under guidance of my chaps Bernhard and Holger. Alltogether we had a L-shaped table of about 5m x 4m on which we created the small village where French and Prussians clashed in June 1815.

The table in all its finery. Please ignore the folder on the field on the right.

We employed more than two dozens of buildings and roughly 1,500 figures to recreate this epic afternoon. Everaything is in 28mm scale and most figures are from the ranges of Perry Miniatures, Calpe and Front Rank.

The centre of the battlefield: The church of Plancenoit.

The buildings were a mixture from different manufacturers or buildings. Some are from Grand Manner's and Hovels's excellent ranges and some from a WW2 range with pre-painted buildings. Unfortunately I don't remember the company that made them. Some buildings came from a Canadian modeller who is specialised on 28mm wargaming buildings, others were made from MDF kits and two were built from the scratch by our club's most talented architect Michael. Yours truly was lucky enough to contribute two ruins from Stronghold Terrain and a converted estate by Grand Manner.

A wonderful vignette by our fellow Michael.

Crisis coming! Estate finished... Finally!

Two days until Crisis 2015... Huzzah!

Yours truly is keen on this show. A trip with some good friends, good Belgian beer and the most important wargames show on the European continent. I'm really looking forward to see some chaps from the UK who are coming over. Mostly traders but some other hobby fellows as well.

As I mentioned a couple of time before our club is preparing a 28mm game featuring the battle of Plancenoit meaning the Prussian advance towards Waterloo in June 1815. Since neither Prussians nor French are my cup of Napoleonic tea I agreed to prepare a couple of buildings for the table. Now I finished the largest one... Finally:

The model itself is by Grand Manner. A wonderful piece from Dave Bodleys gifted hands but rather too modern since it came from his WW2 range. Thus I removed some parts of the estate as mentioned earlier here.

Last weekend I painted roofs and sealed my humble work with two coats of varnish. Afterall I'm really satisfied with the result. It was an excellent chance to improve my building skills and thus I'm planning to make more terrain during winter time.

In case that you'll be in Antwerp please let me know or just come by our table. We'll be near the main entrance just behind Magister Militum and Caliver Books.

Our game for Crisis: The battle of Plancenoit

Last week we had an extraordinary club meeting and had the blocking rehearsal for our rather large presentation game for Crisis 2015 in Antwerp. It covers the final episode of the battle of Waterloo taking place in the village of Plancenoit. Our fellows Bernhard and Holger conceived an L-shaped table of around 3m x 5,5m which came into being with the help of the whole team. The humble author is contributing three houses and a couple French figures as you may have recognised as attentive readers of this blog.

So here are a couple of pictures from the great day. Some of them are rather blurry since I had to use my cellphone and lighting is rather subjar in the club HQ. The few better pictures are by our friend Holger. Please klick onto the pictures to enlarge them:

Overall impression of the whole table. Some houses (e. g. mine as well) still WIP.

Prussian messanger delivering Blücher's orders to advance.

And so they do...

Frenchmen hastily moving through the village.

Prussian artillery support.

Crisis 2014 - Picture Report

As I already reported Crisis was an awesome show. There were a lot of clubs presenting excellent wargaming tables and interesting games. Additionally a lot of internationally well known traders came their and offered their stunning ranges. During the show I took far more than 100 photos and have sorted out the best of them.

But first of all many, many thanks to the TSA for organizing and running this extraordinary event !

The information stand of the TSA

But now for the pictures... First for a selection of the traders which were present. Although there were many more like Empress, Pendraken, Wargames Foundry and many more, I picked only those I made personal acquaintance with. For a complete list look here. Unfortunately Stronghold Terrain is missing in my pictures because the stall was always so crowded that I didn't get a nice picture of those nice people.

Sascha and his fellow from Black Hussar miniatures... Excellent 28mm for SYW they have.

Martin and Diane from Warbases in action...

Ged from Gringo40s (the handsome chap behind the Space Marine of course).

Wayne from Wargames Illustrated and his charming wife Vhairi.

Annie, the Dice Bag Lady

Gripping Beast explaining Jugula

And besides this the awesome tables everywhere around:

A mixed crusader army storming a city in the holy land.

Chaaaaaaarge !

Deus vult !

A stunning Japan board with loads of samurai and ashigaru.

A very interesting airplane game.

A huge Warhammer 40K game.

Obviously Tyranids attacking an Imperial stronghold.

Air defense.

Yom Kippur War with lots of tanks.

WWII - Flames of War I presume.

A stunning strategy board with 10mm or 6mm figures.

Crush the Kaiser in small scale.

Another view of the table.

The most impressive and justly awarded table about Keren 1941

Brave Tommies preparing their advance.

Charging with artillery support...

... and air support.

A view from the Italian position.

The broadcasting house at the foot of the hill.

D-Day landings

Brave Americans trying to settle on the beaches of Normandy.

But they come under heavy fire.

Last but not least our table about the French intervention in Mexico.

Kalle, Holger and me busy with a young prospect.

The safe fortress is far away for the Imperial forces.

The Belgians fought bravely in the rearguard.

Actually that's it. A great weekend out with the boys and a lot of nice wargaming things to see and to try on Crisis 2014. Although it's a year away I'm looking forward to the succeeding event next year.

Nearly I forgot to mention that I bought a couple of things. No show without loot:

My loot from Crisis 2014.

But this time only an advance order from Warbases and a couple of single blisters from different companies. One of them is my present for the Santa Clause...

Further reading (more Crisis pictures):

- Brückenkopf Report Parts 1, 2 and 3

- Peter's Report

- Burkhard's Pictures

Have a look at those sources. There are some excellent tables I didn't get good photos from. Don't miss them.