The Spoils of War(game show)

Another year, another Crisis... Last weekend saw the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp's wargames show on what was to be the hottest 1st of November since measurements started. With clear blue skies and temperatures up to 20°, like a few thousand other gamers living within a few hours driving from Antwerp, I decided to spend the whole day in an old warehouse and not come out untill sundown...

Another great show by the guys of TSOA, with even more floorspace, more space for the catering and a very swift moving queue when the doors opened. Despite being a few hunderd meters from the door, it only took twenty minutes to get in and get hold of this year's goody bag.

The Free

 Not just a free 28mm figure this year, in addition to King Albert I (100 years of WW1, it had to be him) Warlord games threw in a sprue of Hanoverians (and my buddy decided to throw his sprue in as well, thanks, I guess), Laserbases threw in a bag of 25mm wooden bases and Figures in Comfort provided a fire angle thingy... And for the first time there was a full blown show guide.
I also got rid of one of those car boot sale figures from a while back and got some tank obstacles in return and a visit at the Mantic stand got me a special convention only card for Mars Attacks. Now I just have to wait for the rest of the game to arrive. But according to Ronnie Renton all Kickstarter shipments should be out the door this week...

The cheap

 First stop on any wargames show, the Bring and Buy section. Am I going to play Napoleonic naval any time soon? Or even ever at all? Probably not, but that Warhammer Historical rulebook was just to nice to ignore and even just reading through it and looking at the pretty pictures makes it worth the money.
Another seller had a nice selection of plastic kits at very nice prices, at least untill I showed up :-) Now I have 4 jeeps, 4 kuebelwagens, 2 kettenkrads, 2 schwimwagens, a SdKfz251, a StuGIIID and a pontoon bridge to build (and even worse, paint). Guess I can't pass up on a bargain and at an average of about one euro each... Anyway, the jeeps have already been built by now and the kuebelwagens are about half way done. That's lightning fast for my doing.

The regular retail priced I 

The biggest part of my spending: rulebooks and expansions. Early East front always had a special appeal to me* so I couldn't leave without the new Barbarossa book for Flames of War. Not that the others at the club seem to agree, they are too fond of their big cats and other heavies. So a quick visit to the Heroic and Ross dealer would bring the answer... or not, he didn't bring the H&R line along (lack of space apparently).*

Now that I organized my ancients collection into DBA armies, I couldn't ignore DBA 3.0. Now I'll have to recheck all armies and see if the rumours are true, it has been whispered that this version was written in English...

Battlegroup Overlord, just because by the time I decided to go shopping at the Plastic Soldier Company stand they had run out of Battlegroup Barbarossa... and I still have this project idea for the Brigade Piron in Normandy stuck in my head.

Before we get to the new miniatures, there's some Soviet decals, paints, a uniform book and bases from Fenris Games for my Space Hulk* and soonish to arrive Aliens vs Predators figures.

The regular retail priced II

I had decided that this year I was not going to buy lots of figures, just a bag or two of ancients to finish off some DBA armies* and some scenery items. And one or two totally useless items, just nice to have things. No new periods, armies or any of that kind of thing.
The ancients figures weren't available, so I'll have to order them one day... DBA isn't the priority project (at this date anyway). Somehow I didn't get around to buying as much terrain as I had expected, just two 4Ground buildings.
At the Plastic Soldier Company I also picked up a couple of Zvezda 15mm vehicles. The BA-10 will fill another slot in my Bolt Action force while the Pz 38t, well he's bit of an orphan for now. I was toying with the idea of picking up a box of the new early war German infantry but decided against it (no new armies, like I had decided*).
So in the end, I walked out of Crisis with pretty much only those "useless but nice to have" figures I promised myself as a kind of treat. So at the moment I'm waiting for the filler to dry on the bases of my Hasslefree  not Scooby and the gang figures and Crooked Dice's Blake's 7 set is my current mold line removal project.

So even though by the end of the day my wallet was a lot heavier (all the paper money gone and heavy coins as change will do that) I must have set a new personal record for buying the least figures on a wargames show ever... I need to make up for all those way overdue Kickstarters that are about to arrive any day now somehow :-)

Happy painting and gaming!


*All things I really should write another article for...