Crisis 2011 - Antwerp 5th November 2011

I’m typing this after getting back from the Crisis 2011 show in Antwerp. It was a truly fantastic weekend, and I have to give huge thanks to the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp who made us very welcome indeed and to the many friends, old and new, who dropped by to say hello.

The show was a great success, and we greatly enjoyed putting on the participation game based on the Cherkassy Pocket in February 1944. The snowy terrain produced by my chum Richard Clarke looked impressive under the very bright lighting in the Crisis venue, as we’d hoped it would.

The TooFatLardies team were awarded the Best Participation Game award, which was a great result but also a bit of a surprise given the very high standard of games being staged on the day.

Above all, certainly to me, it was a huge pleasure and a great moment to meet some fellow bloggers. Please take a bow, MiniMike, Rob and Suchet, who travelled down from Noordwijk in The Netherlands to the show and dropped by to say hello in the afternoon. 

It was great to meet up with people whose blogs I get a lot of inspiration from – it certainly made the world seem a much smaller place.

Turning to the game were took to the show, there were two games played during the day. Both turned out to be close-fought actions. 

In both the German defenders in the prepared positions stubbornly held on in the face of the Soviet armour onslaught, taking a heavy toll of both T-60s and T-34s. 

Turn after turn saw the German defenders, machine gunners and PAK crew being whittled down but still able to reply with telling fire. In both games, once the position had finally been taken by the Soviet infantry, the German counter-attacks threatened to dislodge the Soviet toehold. Indeed, in the final game, the platoon of panzer grenadiers were poised to dismount from their Hanomags and storm into the Soviet infantry when the Show Organiser’s PA system went for the end of the show!

Any participation game only works with a great crowd, and for sheer enthusiasm, knowledge and eagerness to play I don’t think we could have found a better crowd of wargamers in the world than in Antwerp this Saturday. Thank you to everyone who joined in.

The Old Town in Antwerp, especially around the Cathedral and Grote Markt is stunningly beautiful. We had some great experiences on both the Friday and Saturday night, sampling the local beers, the fine bars and splendid restaurants in the town.

As before, we chose De Peerdestal on Wijngaardstraat for the traditional Saturday night post-Crisis meal. I can’t think of many restaurants I like more, and on the third year of going it’s starting to feel almost like a home from home.

Finally, after a good night’s sleep, we stopped off at a couple of locations around a very rainy and windswept Calais trace some of the actions fought in 1940. Here’s the TooFatLardies tour in Les Attaques and Orphanage Farm. Observant viewers may be able to grade the hangovers from our expressions ...

I’ll do a blog post of some of the other very fine games at Crisis a little later in the week (I’m travelling for the next couple of days, hence the slight delay). Until then, dear friends ...

German 7.7cm Feldkanone 96 n.A.

One of the projects I started in the summer was a pair of German 7.7cm Feldkanone 96 n.A., together with some German support weapons and a detachment of Stosstruppen. Over the next few days, I thought I’d post up some pictures of how these look now they’re finished, by way of bringing that project to a close.

You might remember that I found building the two German field guns more than a little tricky. The Renegade model was, in particular, difficult to glue together and I ended up pinning it in a couple of places.

However, painting the guns was a lot easier than building them. I opted for a couple of colour schemes inspired by information on World War I German camouflage on the excellent “Landships” website. So, on the left hand side of the photograph below, there’s a slightly futuristic camouflage pattern which is similar to the pattern which seems to have been painted on some German troops’ helmets and artillery in 1918.

On the right hand side, I opted for a more “dappled” camouflage scheme, trying to echo the colours I used in the wooded terrain boards I built in the early summer.

I tried to stay close to the information on the Landships site, but I fully accept that there’s a degree of interpretation about the overall camouflage scheme I used on both field guns. I thought that the final results looked “about right” and, perhaps just as much to the point, both were a lot of fun to paint.

Finally, here’s a picture of one of the field guns occupying the prepared position terrain insert I blogged about a few days back. As you can see, it’s a tight squeeze getting the gun into place, but it does fit. It helps that the gun crew figures nearest the field gun, from Great War Miniatures, are in kneeling positions and so fit inside the low ceiling of the position (which is glued in place).

I also added one of the trench boxes into the position for effect in the photos, although I’m currently working on a German field telephonist to squeeze into the corner!

Crisis 2011 – Crisis in the Kessel

Myself and another seven of my club mates from the St Albans club (a.k.a. TooFatLardies) are making the trip over to Antwerp for the Crisis 2011 show this weekend. It’s always a great show, and I’ve been twice before in 2008 and 2009.

Antwerp has a stunning Old Town, a relaxed but pretty vibrant nightlife, some great restaurants and many awesome bars. So, in a nut-shell, yes I’m looking forward to going!

We’re taking over a participation game which is based on the late February 1944 fighting around the Cherkassy Pocket. The rules we’ll be using are Richard Clarke and Nick Skinner’s new edition of “I Ain’t Been Shot Mum!”, which have just been published. They give a fast moving, fun and authentic game, as well as being very nicely produced. Both Rich and Nick will be at the show – so you can get any questions about the rules answered from the horses mouths (so to speak!).

Anyway, on to the game, which we play-tested for the second time last night. Because of my house being in upheaval at present owing to on-going building works, I didn’t get the chance to make much of the terrain for the game. I produced the forest bases, which were quite fun to do. I simply took the slightly scraggy 15mm scale fir trees which had been kicking around the club terrain cupboard for about two decades, glued them to a foamboard base, and then spread a mixture of PVA white glue, dark brown paint and Polyfilla all over each base before sprinkling liberally with builder’s sharp sand. Being from Yorkshire (and these being times of austerity), I was delighted that there was plenty of builder’s sharp sand around the house to choose from without spending a penny. I then dry-brushed the base a light ochre and dry-brushed the trees white. Last of all, I made some more of the PVA/Polyfilla mix, added some light grey paint and spread that over the forest base, before dry-brushing white when dry. The eleven forest bases took in total about 4 hours from start to finish. It was pretty economical too as the club had the trees already (most of which had been scratch built anyway) and the foamboard was only a couple of pounds.

And that’s all I got chance to do. Everything else on the table was Rich’s handiwork. I’m sure you’ll agree that the rest of the terrain, figures and tanks look absolutely top notch. You could feel the chill driving off the steppe just looking at the table. Either that or Panda had left the fire-door open when he went for a cigarette….

Without revealing the whole of the table, the game features a river where the winter’s ice has just melted, the river now running dark and heavy with slush and ice floes …

…. a small ferry station which the Germans need to defend …

… and a German defensive position into which the German players can deploy a variety of weapons. The one we took last night was a captured Russian 76.2mm anti-tank gun, manned by a German “Ace” gunner, Feldwebel Rudi Schweinsteiger.

As the game progressed, it became pretty clear that Feldwebel Schweinsteiger was indeed a veteran of the Russian campaign, knocking out Soviet tank after tank, irrespective of their positions. I don’t think I’d ever seen dice like it. Surely that can’t be repeated at Crisis?

Unfortunately for the Germans, there was still a lot of Soviet armour to come in the shape of a formidable detachment of T34s …

Feldwebel Schweinsteiger’s crew and supporting infantry platoon were steadily worn down through a hail of high explosive from various Soviet attacks …

We didn’t play through more than the first couple of hours of the game, but suffice to say there’s a lot more to come. And as a sneek preview, here’s some of the other forces which arrive at some point in the game

So, if you’re in Antwerp this weekend, drop by and have a go at the game, or just say hello. I’m really looking forward to it, and I hope to see many of you there. Oh, and this is me, second from the right, taken from our trip to Antwerp in 2009, with Noddy, Nick and Rich (left to right).

What, you thought the profile picture on this blog of the Williamite Gentleman was really me? Dear friends, you may need glasses…

77mm Field Gun Position and Trench paraphernalia

It's been a while since I posted, but I've been doing a fair amount of hobbying in one form or another during the last few weeks despite losing my painting area at home.

I built up an insert for one of the terrain boards in September, and finished painting it earlier this week. I was interested in trying to swap out one of the inserts which is currently a reinforced shell crater for an insert which features a dug-in position for a German 77mm field gun. I came by a few photos of this sort of arrangement on the internet.

Unfortunately, I can't locate the work-in-progress photos of how I went about building the position. However, it was pretty simple to make, involving Styrofoam being cut out and glued to a plywood base as a first step. I measured the Styrofoam before gluing to the plywood base to make sure the new insert would fit into the board. The internal details were then finished and painted before the roof was prepared, the latter being based on a piece of plywood and an assortment of sticks from the garden. Finally, I made some Milliput sandbags and stuck these around the base before the roof was glued on. One the rook was fixed in place, I added some more of the Milliput sandbags and painted anything remaining on the insert which wasn't finished off yet. Here's the finished insert, awaiting the 77mm guns (more of which in the next post!)

I also finished off some trench items. You may remember seeing these earlier in the summer. Generally, I think trenches (and most terrain) looks better with some bits-and-bobs strewn about. They give terrain that lived in look, which helps when you're trying to imagine the battle raging over the table top. There's no magic in these items - the boxes are resin casts from Hovels, the grenades and helmets are from Bolt Action Miniatures and the map's made from a piece of foil from a wine bottle.

I'll post the figures I've finished off over the weekend. Thanks for reading and catch you next time.