Crisis 2013: The Aftermath

Another year, and I think this marks the end of the one year long 'sabbatical', as the circle comes to a close.  It started at this event last year, it ends at this excellent event again.

For the second year running in the excellent, large, airy and roomy Hangar29 "Waagnatie", the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp have put together another excellent show.  Taking along my nephews for their very first wargame show, and with a shopping list, of we went.

Here are at first some pictures of the hall to give an impression of the crowds.  And there was a big crowd to boot!

Trade stands where well present and a lot of gorgeous games on demonstration.  Another thing compared to last year was a mightily impressive Bring and Buy 'Fleamarket' and it was stormed during the first hour by people looking for deals.  I went to have a stroll after midday in there, and it seemed most people had been doing good business.

Though I still have my doubt that every 'average' wargamer has the same special character boxed set 10 times in his basement...

Now, let's have the stuff you are all waiting for: the Eye Candy.  As with any show report, I still suck with clubnames and game names, so if you recognise yourself, put a reply down here!

 A very large and impressive Napoleonic game, one of my personal favorites today

 A small scale airplane game

 A raid in the Dark Ages in full swing

 The Dropzone Commander demo game

 Crooked Dice, gorgeous models and Uti in full sales pitch swing

 Odd porcupines battling it out

 Wooden terrain, cut to size.  It looked darn fine to boot

 A stand for the future: 3D printing of a mightily impressive ermmm... Eiffel tower.  They are looking for 2 and 3D designers if you want to errrrm... admire that building on a daily basis.

 Small scale gaming, this is the kind of game I'm going to be forced to play if I get back into it.  Small table, still a decent amount of figures to simulate a battle and not a manfight.

 I barely day to say it for My Nemesis, but 15mm World War 2 was like the most played of the whole show (not necessary Flames of War)

 Another very large 'Era of the Big Battalions' in 28mm

 Great War in full swing

 15mm Highlanders take on the British.  I loved this game and the looks of it

 X-Wing was also well presented, seems this CMG has hit a mark as the new 'Wings of War' game

 Two level War Machine gaming

 Warhammer, it wasn't that well represented this year, overall I thought Fantasy was mostly present in the bargain bins

 Fmaes of War, this seems like a fun game!  Oi My Nemesis, what do you think, let's try this, I'll get some british and you get some Germans????  (He's going to hit me for this, he was trying to sell his army today)

 A Song of... ACW skirmish.  I love the rule engine, but it just doesn't do it for me for some reason.

 A great presented Blood Bowl match

 Saga demo game (which reminds me I forgot to get some 15mm Irish at Commitatus, crap)

 15mm ACW, always a winner in my personal book

 2D paper game

 Shoot-out in the Old West

 54mm gaming is a visual impressive display

 A cool Corellian transport running from TIE fighters

 By Fire and Sword was present.  I was lucky with the fact I have Cossacks as home, as the people that are intended to play it at TSA have chosen Turks, Swedes and Poles as their armies :-D
Now to start painting...

 Phil and companies 'Meta game' demo.  A crowd drawer, yet again simple but beautifull in execution and rules.

 Generals Humpty and Dumpty making sure that Victory will be turned in Defeat

 Nemesis LOOK, more of that 'Flames of War' thingies...

 Storming the Beach during the Longest Day

 Ancient naval battling, this kind of games always tend to draw my eye

 LED empowered smoke keeps being eye candy

 As I said, when Highlanders charge, people are in the right mood

And L'Empereur, he watched and saw it was all good today!

So those are the pictures of the show itself, rounding out we end with the traditional 'The Loot' part.

Planned and Bought

All on target, I got the Longstreet book (not the cards yet though) and a new sort of paint I didn't know.  Redoubt sold these, and at a show price of 6 pots of paint for 10 euros.  This would buy me 3.5 pots of Vallejo, and as it is all for undercoating anyways, so it's not like I can get screwed to much.
And of course the free entry model, so the collection keeps complete.

If I was in the Mood

Yup, I was.  Over at TSS I found 15mm banners for my ACW forces from the Cotton Jims Flags range.  At Plastic Soldier Company (hello Gunbird ;-) ) I did indeed find some of my needs as he told on my wishlist blagpost: the reinforcement sprues for 2 Cromwells and a Sherman Firefly for the armoured platoon of my Flames of War small Late War force.

And I got me the By Fire and Sword rulebook.  It was at show discount, and being a mightily impressive and heavy tome this would have cost a lot for postage on top otherwise.

Unplanned

Well, only this small book in the BnB, detailing the uniforms of the ACW for only 5 euros.

And so ended another excellent Crisis, without financial aftermath drama's and all.  Next week I'll be back at the venue, but more on that in a latter post one of the days!