Below are my five most recent miniatures related photos. These used to be freshly painted miniatures only, but now include game photos as well.
Brought to you by Flickr.
The high point of the wargaming year in Belgium is without a doubt Crisis, TSA’s yearly convention. Each year since 1997, we have presented a participation game there, and so will we in 2005.
Each year also sees a long and convoluted decision process on what the game for that year will be, and this year was no different. We quickly settled on a participation game system, proposed by Phil, but had not decided on a game yet.
We had the faint idea of doing something really spectacular, then dropped that idea and focused on the Battle of Halen (famous Belgian victory over German cavalry in 1914), but that was probably a bit too ambitious to do in full S&V style.
The latest suggestion is to do Arnhem 1944 in 6mm, and I quite like this. I’ve always been interested in this tragic battle, and when our recent love affair with Blitzkrieg Commander incited a renewed interest in WWII gaming, Alan came up with the idea (the suggestion was mentioned innocently in a game of War of the Ring and took hold from there) of doing Arnhem in 6mm for Crisis.
The plan is to use BKC rules, combined with the participation system (Phil, that’s your job :) ), as the game system. For the terrain and OOB’s, we’ll use the excellent Rapid Fire supplement on Market Garden. The terrain will probably be in the order of 3x1.5m and we’ll be representing the entire Arnhem - Oosterbeek - Wolfheze sector, featuring the entire 1st Airborne division and all of the German units represented.
It’s a tall order, but I’m fairly optimistic we’ll be able to complete the game on time. And when it’s completed, it’s just a question of doing some extra troops and terrain boards to be able to do the whole of Market Garden. Megalomaniacs’r’us, indeed.
When exactly is Crisis 05 … I couldn’t find the dates on the TSA website at all.
Actually, now that you mention it, I have no idea when Crisis 2005 will be. It’s usually the last weekend of October or more likely the first of November, so that would make it Nov 5 this year.
Let’s see if anyone from TSA is reading this - Rudi? Willie? Any comment? :)
Please keep us informed - I have had a desire / plan to do this for the last 3 years with Adlers and GHQ armour. I have it all and am gradually painting my way through. Then to do the terrain.
Well, the first battalion of paras is painted, only 8 to go! But they are quite straightforward and very quick to do, even if painting camo flocks in 6mm is a bit tricky.
I think it should be reasonably easy, if a trifle dull, to get all the figures done. But it will definitely be worth it. As a scenario, it lends itself very well to a game and particularly the kriegspiel type game.
On the terrain front, our local DIY (Brico) had a 10% off on everything sale, so I bought 6 polyurethane foam insulation boards which will become the base for the terrain. They’re 1.25m by 0.60m, so the full terrain will be 3.75m by 1.20m.
Once I start terrain construction, I’ll start taking pictures, and we’ll start a ‘Constructing the beast’ article series on this game.
Guys,
Crisis 05 is on 5th November; it’s been on the front page of the TSA site (at the bottom, in the Crisis section) since November 04. When viewing a page on the net, please bear in mind not only to look at big boobs or well sculpted lead, but try to read some of the text as well…
Rudi
Hi Rudi,
you mean there’s well sculpted big boobs on the TSA site? Why did you not tell us before?
:)
I have a large amount of 6mm 1944 UK and German Inf/Armor and support mostly painted up. All of which should help in the cause.
Finally back amongst the living …
Anyway, I think that using both the Free Kriegsspiel participation game mechanics as well as BKC might be a bit too much. I’m in favour of using a completely Free Kriegspiel style, but the internal game engine the GM’s using can of course be based on BKC, albeit not necessary.
I might have to think about it a bit more, but if ( :-) ) I would be given a totally free reign, I think I would strongly favour a pure GM-driven game rather than using any sort of rules.
In any case, we’ll have to do some dry-runs, maybe with the Desert Games that have been played lately.