A happy new Year plus scoring some books!

A belately happy and healthy New Years wish from the Alde Garde (Peter and Jan). 
We hope that you enjoy your wargames, paint succesfully all the figures of your lead mountain and score some cheap books, figures and other models during the coming year.

And for those who missed the resurected Crisis in 2024; Crisis is back  in 2025 and will take place on November 1st 2025 in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium; the same venue as in 2024. 

Just great and hope to see you there!

And to start with scoring some cheap books: there is every year in January a nice book auction nearby where sometimes you can buy historical books very cheaply (if you are lucky and on time!).

This year Jan bought some 4 books for 8 Euro in total (see picture underneath); all in Dutch but nice additions to his library.

Left upper corner: D'Artagnan at the siege of Maastricht in 1673 where he met his death.
Upper right about the battle of Bouvines.
Lower left about the history of the Dutch field artillery (titled: Vuur in beweging or "Fire in Movement"; sadly mostly about the 20th century and lower right a book about the Battle of Lafelt 1747. 
Now finding the time to read!

Autumn session of the Dutch Society for Model figures

Totaly forgot to put some pictures of the Autumn session on the blog, so here it goes.

The Dutch Society for model Figures (Nederlandse Stichting voor Modelfiguren) has two times a year a meeting for members and they try to keep it in model/historical related locations but mostly in museums.

This autumn meeting was held in the Museum of the Corps National Reserve of the Dutch army (in Dutch: KorpsNationale Reserve). The Nationale Reserve consists of about 3.000 volunteers who guard and secure objects on Dutch territory. The members fulfill their military functions besides their normal, civil, jobs.

Although small, their museum is very nice with various objects about their history, uniforms and functions. 

As Alde Garde we took with us a 28mm game situated in the first part of the 80 years war. Rules used were Pikemans Lament.

Some pictures of museum and game; starting with the museum and after that about our game.

                                    

Open Museum Day at the Dutch Artillery Museum

  Already some years a tradition is the open day at the Dutch Artillery Museum at Oldenbroek/'t Harde which is situated at the Army Barracks there. It is a terrific location as the buildings are end 19th century monumental buildings situated in an English style park and you can see the Veluwe moorland.

Part of this day is a small wargames day, so three clubs did participate with various historical displays. We took our 1748 Siege of Maastricht with us.

Some pictures underneath:

The TheSome pictures of the other two nice tables!

Crisis 2024. A short report.

Thanks to the cooperation of the HQ and TSoA Clubs, Crisis was resurrected; not in Antwerp but now in a new venue at Sint Niklaas and it must be said, a great day it was. 

It was nice to see again all those faces of well known wargamers but also new faces and as far as we know all had a great time. Of course it is a pity that due to British politics, British traders were missing but a lot of traders from mainland Europe were present.

There was of course one trader (although without its wel known trade) Barry Hilton who presented two 17th century games in one and received a well deserved a Best of Show trophy (left picture underneath ). Petra and Peter from Murphys Heroes got the prize for most innovative game (right picture).

We presented for the first time a game situated in the beginnings of the 80Years War with Pikemans Lament rules and 28mm miniatures (mostly by Tag). Some pictures underneath but it must be said that sometimes the sun peeking through orange painted windows gives a strange effect. 

Of course we quickly took pictures of some other games at Crisis (sorry, didn't get the names of the clubs). As we didn't have time to takes pictures of all other games, please go to Chaosbunker.de for more pictures.

:It was a great show, so thanks for the organizing clubs HQ and TSoA and hopefully see you next year!

Scaleworld 2024 KMK Geel

On the 2nd of June 2024, Scaleworld, organised by the KMK group of Geel, Belgium was held. But of most importance for us was that for the first time a lot of wargamers were gathering there to have games and demos. The first wargames event we could visit for years! 
This wargames event was organised mostly by members of the Witte Ridder of Leopoldsburg, Belgium so a big thanks to them esp Patrick and Dominic (which we know for years already) but maybe more members of de Witte Ridders needs to be mentioned but sadly , and sorry for that, we don't know their names.

We love to chat to a lot of people (wargames and modellers), look at various presented games that were on and admire all efforts. And although there were ,in our humble opinion, some minuses regarding the location (celllar of the schollcomplex) and communication, we like to come back next year (hint, hint!).

To give some impression of the big modellers part of the show:

We had our French revolutionary game with us, so some pictures of our table:

 

And some pictures of other tables/demos etc. 

A great day, big thanks to the organisers and hopefully we will see each other at Crisis in September!