October 2024 review
While it is spooky season, I enjoyed my first vacation since may, when we went to Scotland. We stayed in Germany and went for a prolonged weekend towards the south western part, Trier and the surrounding Eifel.
We went for a bit of sight seeing and lots of animals close up, at our stops at the Porta Nigra and the Wildlife Park Daun.
Prelude to Crisis 2024
While I already covered the visit to the actual show of Crisis 2024 in Antwerp, I'd like to give an additional insight on a few bits around it, just like I did in the past. And pardon the delay, the trip to Berlin and preparing for the Battle for Uulda postponed the release of this article.
As usual I travel to Antwerp by car, but as I drive an EV now it requires a bit more planning. But Belgium has a proper grid of ev charger stations, so that was not an issue. Others, especially the British got there by train or plane, as you can get to Brussels quite easily and then grab a connection train from there to Antwerp (and arrive at a very impressive central station).
Victrix – Ancient Greek Hoplites
At the beginning of the year, Victrix Miniatures released new Greek Hoplites (VXA050) as a plastic kit. Although the previous version is still available, it is also one of Victrix's oldest kits.
As typical for Victrix, the minis come in a larger plastic bag. The bag contains 48 Hoplites, consisting of six different bodies that can be combined with pairs of arms with spears or swords. 15 arms are armed with spears, seven with a sword.
A visit to … Battlefield Berlin
During my visit to the German capital I managed to cross something off my long-time wishlist, paying a visit to Battlefield Berlin. In march, when I was in Berlin as well, I just couldn't fit in the detour, but this time I had a bit of time on my hands and was just one district over, so I grabbed the public transport and went to Kreuzberg.
I think I am customer at Battlefield since the mid 2000s, and there are a few things that make them stand-out from other stores. The major aspect certainly is the width of the ranges. You can order items from them, that you would otherwise had to import from the states or might just get your hands on at trade shows. And they didn't do that for two or three ranges, but really a lot of them, so they are pretty much a one-stop-shop, where you get almost everything beyond the big brands. Oh, and they actually have a lot of those items on stock, and don't just forward your order / organise group buys.
Beyond that, there might be of course bigger stores (in terms of shop space), but this is a pure miniature wargaming store, with a few board games, but not the "usual" fantasy store that has trading cards, comics and maybe a bit of wargaming. But let me show you the pictures.
September 2024 review
Oh what a September it has been! Quite packed with travelling and that is not over in October either.
Right in the beginning of the month CRISIS! returned, and what a return it was. Proper weekend in the city of Antwerp, including meeting Tuomas Pirinen (and having my Mordheim book signed). Due to unplanned coincedences the festivities of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the city (Bevrijdingsdagen) were hold simultaneously . So lots and lots of World War 2 vehicles, people dressed as Allied forces and music was going on.
Crisis 2024 – Part 1
It is finaly back - Crisis could again hosted in 2024, after the last instalment in 2019.
The break had multiple reasons, and after the forced break due to Covid, the aftermaths of Brexit made organizing an event quite difficult, especially as one of the unique aspects of Crisis was the large amount of british manufacturers and traders at the show. In 2022 and 2023 there was a smaller convention at the club rooms of the Tinsoldiers, with support of the Lardies, creating LARDwerp, which we visited as well back in 2022. And due to scheduling conflicts with the new venue, it had to be moved from the first weekend in November towards September.
What is new about Crisis? First of all, it is not just the Tinsoldiers of Antwerp hosting the show, but they joined forced with the HQ Gaming Club and used the 't Bau-huis in Sint Niklaas as the new venue. While it might (currently?) not be the at Waagnatie in Antwerp anymore, the new venue is a proper alternative for the restart. About 15 minutes outside of Antwerp, you can easily get there by train from the Central Station (with the IC-line you can drive every half an hour, and it's about 7 EURs for a weekend ticket), as the venue is just 500m from the local train station. For those of you arriving by car, there are is a parking lot and even some charging stations for BEVs.
The tickets were 12 EURs (dropped to 10 EUR, due to some last minute cancellations of vendors) and visitors under the age of 14 had free entry. Due to keeping the risk and costs as low as possible for the restart, there wasn't a show miniature this year, but that might be for the reason as well, as the show didn't have a topic this year, unlike it did in the past. So we might see that return in the future.
Crisis 2024 – Part 2
Now that we have finished the traders in part 1 of our CRISIS 2024 coverage, let us move on towards the clubs and gaming systems.
A very special guest at the show was Tuomas Pirinen with Trench Crusade. I follow this system for a while now, as they have a very active facebook group, with various conversions and I was excited to see the miniatures at show.
The setup was a bit spontaneous, as Tuomas had little time to prepare much more, as he basically finished his regular work day as Game Designer for Sony Playstation and directly jumped into a plane towards Belgium, grabbing just the few items that fit into the luggage.
August 2024 review
Welcome to September, quite the busy month ahead of us.
I dropped by my local Warhammer Store, who just had their 6th anniversary, to pick up the miniature of the month along with the new Stormcast sculpts and a bit of yellow for "projects". Impressive to see how more dynamic the Stormcast Eternals have become, especially compared to the very first releases with the rather bulky Liberators.
Anyhow, the miniature of the month is a great series for me, as I can pick up models that will be used in the scale comparison shots of our reviews, without me having to buy the entire box and it provides value for our readers.
Road to CONflict – Part VII
You could see my progress on the tanks in the last article, Road to CONflict - Part VI, and now we were on the final steps just days away from CONflict 2024. In part IV I gave you the overview on the terrain files I printed for our demo table.
Grabbed a variety of green tones to paint the base colours, and moved on to the further scatter terrain and mines.
Road to CONflict – Part VI
And on we go, after adding the base colours to the tanks in the last part of our Road to CONflict, we applied the first weathering and first coat of wash onto the models, in this case Army Painters Dark Tone.
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