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!

Reviewing CONFLICT RHEINLAND

This weekend for the very first time CONFLICT RHEINLAND is taking place in Langenfeld. The city itself isn't too well known I presume but at least it's located between Düsseldorf and Cologne aka. the heart of the Rhine Area. Thus three reasons made a visit there mandatory for me:

- It's only an hour from the place I'm living

- Our club brings a AWI table to the show

- The fellows running the show are really decent fellows

Thus I headed the train to Düsseldorf at 07:00am where my friend Holger picked me up and took me to the club house where the show took place. After approaching Torsten and Thorsten the two major heads behind the show I met my THS club fellows at our table:

My friend Heinz prepared the table and most of the terrain and figures on it. It a AWI game based on some events during the Saratoga Campaign in 1777. Experimentally I made a short video of the British comun with my mobile phone:

Sorry for the poor quality. On the phone it was much better but after uploading it looks kind of downsampled... Anyway the tune you are hearing comes from a small gadget Heinz integrated in the scenery:

But besides ourselves there were some other clubs delivering interesting and exciting tables as well as wonderful participation games. Especially the Force on Force table caught my attention and finally I found an excellent introduction into this exciting game:

Hunt for Red October

Beginner's table Force on Force

Delta Force sneaking around.

But besides that there were more nice tables, good games and fine fellows. Here's a selection of pictures:

WW2 Operation Squad in 28mm

Whitechappel a detective tabletop about hunting Jack the Ripper

 

The Goulston Street grafitto

 

28mm Chain of Command

 

Bridge on the River Kwai with Poor Bloody Infantry

HeroQuest 3D

HYW with Saga

One of my current favourites: Congo

Team Yankee

15mm ACW Regimental Fire and Fury

28mm Sudan with This very Ground. The game I played at Tactica this year.

After all there were a couple of really excellent tables although the place of event was rather small with about 250m². But I saw people from Hannover as well as chaps from Karlsruhe which is a radius of 300km. In my humble opinion that's a great influence for a small show during its first year. From my point of view Torsten and Thorsten performed a sublime job organising this event and I dearly hope that for them it was as successful as for us visitors. If Conflict establishes itself it could become an excellent familiar show perfectly set between the gigantic players Tactica and Crisis. Best of luck boys!

Of course yours truly wasn't able to keep all the quids he brought. In Langenfeld were only a few local traders but nevertheless Didier's (More Terrain) work seduced me enough to acquire some pieces for Congo:

Alltogether a wonderful day and a real pleasure to visit the very first Conflict Rheinland Wargames Show. I really hope that many will follow!

1st Conflict Rheinland Wargames Show

Heading to Düsseldorf and Langenfeld then. This weekend there'll take place the first CONFLICT RHEINLAND wargaming convention. Some great participation games have been previewed so I'm looking forward to a good day out with my mates.

Tactica Review (2) - Tremendous Tables

Last week I introduced the we brought to Tactica but this week I want to focus on a couple of the excellent tables other people presented. As the years before there were some awesome pieces of craftsmanship and as the years before I wasn't able to take good pictures of each and every of them. Thus I do honestly recommend you search the internet for other Tactica reports to get a complete impression of the whole show.

Anway here we go...

Eladan's wonderful winter table for SAGA 'Game of Thrones'

Winter is coming ! 

Möckern... Napoleonics with 'Black Powder'

A very nice WW2 winter table

Germans approaching.

Great Northern War; unfortunately I don't remember the rules.

A dungeon across several levels.

Saint-Aubin-Sur-Mer behind Juno and Sword Beach. Rules were 'Behind Omaha'.

Gliders behind the city. Actually part of the force attacking the Merville battery.

Paper soldiers.

Designed by Peter Dennis.

A modular ship acting as stage for a cinematic 'Black Ops' game.

Silent death...

The agends entered the belly of the ship to rescue a couple of hostages.

And had to explore two lower decks.

On the first floor there was a theme room presenting 40 years of wargaming history in Germany. Several contributors brought an interesting collection of wargaming stuff and models from the early 1960s until today:

Well known GW games from the golden 90s.

Molds for DIY figures. My start into metal miniatures as well...

Our club fellow Kalle explaining 1960s game 'Romans vs. Carthagians'

Besides meeting old friends and making new ones Tactica is always a great chance for playing. It's two days offer plenty of time to try a couple of game but nevertheless during the last years I never found the time to take this chance. This year I was lucky enough to have some free time on Sunday morning and joined a Sudan game the Kurpfalz Feldherren presented. They used the rules of 'This very Ground' and create an interesting and thrilling scenario:

This British caravan had to reach a small supply point. It was accompanied by a unit Camel Corps.

But of course there were more Brits in the supply point. Their player decided to leave his camp to guard the caravan.

But we incited our Mhadist troops to make short shrift with those disbelievers.

Fierce fighting broke out and took many lives on either side.

But finally some of my troops stormed the barricades and achieved victory for us.

As you see it was a tremendous weekend again. I had a really great time with my friends and enjoyed the show even more then the years before. It was priceless to see old friends again and make new once. Especially meeting Michael aka. Dalauppror was a great pleasure. Although there are eleven months to come I'm already looking forward to Tactica 2018 !