Open Monumentendag was a nice day

The open Munumentendag at the Dutch Artillery museum was great.

A nice sunny day (well, most of the day, it ended in heavy rain) resulted in a lot of visitors (a lot more then expected!) at the museum, the various information stands from the museum and other organisations, the displayed guns/trucks/material etc and of course also at the NCO mess were the wargames were located.

Some 6 wargames tables were presented; two WW2 games, two ACW games (28mm and 15mm), one KNIL game (from the year 1905) in the Atjeh war period and of course our 1511 game: Siege of Venlo.

The nicest thing (at least we think so) is, that visitors aren't the "normal" wargamers but whole families who spent their saturday at the Open day and have no clue what wargames are, how they play and what it represent. So we were talking a lot ( really a lot!) to people, explaining what wargaming is and show how rules work etc. You get the picture. 
Some visitors probably thought that wargamers are weird (grown men playing with miniatures) but a lot also liked it very much, admired the tables, talked about the modelling aspect and find the history part interesting. 

So thanks for the Dutch Artillery Museum to invite us and of course special thanks to Ludwig van Dijk who organised the whole thing for us. Of course, we hope to visit and participate again next year.

And then of course some pictures (what is a blog without them); starting with our table and then from the other ones.
Our game is situated in the early renaissance period during the Guelders War. We used Pike&Shotte.

Other pictures fromthat day (some from Arthur, hope he doesn't mind that we use them here also as some of ours were not good).

From the 28mm ACW game:

 They used these Osprey rules. And the author was playing them!

15mm ACW

WW2 pictures (both using Bolt Action)

and pictures of the KNIL game using home made rules.

Open monumentsday at the Dutch Artillery Museum

 Again a year past and a new open monumentsday at the Artillerymuseum is near.

On the 13th of september we, again, will put on a 28mm wargames demo at the museum. This year it will be the siege of Venlo 1511, a theme we also did earlier this year but of course witth some additional figures, some more terrain features etc. We will be using Pike & Shotte again as rules.

Hope to see you there.

Information about the museum, you can find at: www.nederlandsartilleriemuseum.nl 

Also look at pictures taken in earlier years on this grat location (look under heading of "museum")

The program on this day is underneath (sadly only in Dutch). And of course, admittance is free on that day.

And by the way, the museum has its 75th birthday this year!

Another Dutch WW2 museum

After visiting the Dutch ww2 museaum at Overloon (some years back so a new visit is overdue) and the museum at Best ("Bevrijdende vleugels") in march of this year (see the april post) when on holiday on the Walcheren Island (part of Zeeland) a visit to the Bevrijdingsmuseum at Nieuwdorp was planned.

Of course the name Walcheren must be known to wargamers. For the Napoleonic ones it was the scene of the 1809 landing and after many British dead, mostly through diseases, the retreat from the island.

But also the WW2 scene of the 1944 landings and bitter fighting of Allied troops on Walcheren to open the Scheldt estuary so Antwerp could be used as a harbour for getting supplies to the fighting troops in the Netherlands and Germany. 

The Bevrijdingsmuseum tells that story but also paints the wider story of Zeeland in WW2 starting in May 1940 with French forces in Zeeland, the victory of German forces in 1940, the occupation of the next years and of course the 1944 liberation (Bevrijding in Dutch) of which the museum takes it name.

With pictures, models, real rolling stock from the WW2 period, etc etc it gives a great impression of this period and it is recommended. The museum is situated in a small village near Vlissingen.

Some pictures of our visit underneath:

Modelling and wargames show Geel

 As said earlier, we participated in the Modelling and wargames show at Geel. Of course the modelling part was a lot (really a lot!) bigger then the part of wargamers but it was a nice day. 

A lot of modellers with their family walked around, being surpised that people really play with miniatures and most of them had started with plastic (Airfix) miniatures but then went into modelling.

We had nice discussions about wargamig, modelling and history so, as said, a nice day.

Pictures of our presented wargame (The Siege of Venlo 1511) are underneath. As it is the same period as the more wellknown Italian Wars but situated in the east part of todays Netherlands, it shows of cousre more or less the same miniatures (except Italians/Spanish etc)!  

We had little time to go around the modelling part of the show, so were sorry to have only a few pictures of the models portrayed. Suffice to say, a lot of them were just great. When you are a modeller and in the neighbourhood, go there next year, it a great show (and it is free!).