Impact part 1

 Hoi,

Last Sunday I attended the Impact games convention in Uden, the Netherlands. This convention has been organised for it's second year now by the Hired Guns wargames club, ably led by my buddy Koen. This event report will be made up of two parts. This, the first part, will concern the event in itself and the second half will be specifically devoted to the Black Powder demo Jan Willem (Pijlie) and me did at the convention. I cannot keep myself from loudly yelling I WON! This is very unique since usually I loose and this time the plan I had envisaged up front actually worked, how often does that happen?

More on that later. Last year the event was a bit smaller so we now had to move into a sporting complex gym hall. Quite roomy yet still very cosy. The sellers were located along the rooms walls while the games stands were put around them. Smack in the middle were the tables used for the ever popular Scrapheap challenge.

I wasn't able to get a picture of the complete hall but a photo-tour can be found here.Unfortunately everybody including my friend Mark is in there except me and J.W...
Anyway the convention housed both a Dystopian Wars and Warmachine tournament and I must say the terrain of both looked incredibly cool!

There was plenty to see demo-wise. There was a Black Powder demo set in 1690 by the Alde Garde.

A demo of Battleground Kursk with insane amounts of 15mm tanks by two very nice gentlemen whose names I forgot to ask, sorry for this omission...

There was a demo of  Tank World, a 1:48 tank battle game and a The Great War by the Hired Guns themselves. And of course the Demo of J.W. and myself on which later more.

J.W. is seen here deploying his French, Hessian and British Imagination alliance, which I completely OBLITERATED, oh yeah I won, I won, I did it, I won... erm yes, well back to some sanity.
During the day J.W. kindly lend me his camera to make some pictures so many thanks to Pijlie   Therefore I made loads of more pictures but quite a lot of them were not publishable so for now this is it picture wise.

There was a painting competition but I made a major booboo. Let's explain: last year I won in the historical category, this year, without really taking notice, I entered a model (the Governor, displayed elsewhere on this blog) and put 'historical' on the slip and entered it. Martin of miniatuurwereld.com, did the same with his French Lancers, only to discover at the announcing of the winners, that the entire category didn't exist this year....DOH!   Oh well, can't have it all; besides I still beat J.W. yeah I won, I won, I did it, I won... erm yes,well another lapse there sorry!

The was very well organised, nice catering on premisses, free parking and meeting up with old friends so I will try and make it next year!

Watch this space for a battle-report for the only battle this year I have actually managed to WIN!

Cheers Sander

P.S. Did I mention the fact that I won?

Listening to: "We are the Champions" by Queen!

Draconis Combine, battletroops

Hoi,

Another small update today. If you frequent Jan-Willem's blog, you will have seen his post regarding te selling of some old school Classic Battletech 28mm figures. These figures, in this scale, are called battletroops and JW (also known as Pijlie) had two large platoons. One DC and one Steiner platoon complete with support weapons. For more diversity in poses he had mixed the Steiner and Combine troops and painted them in about the right colours.

Being enough of a purist at heart, I've sorted them back out so they will be with their friends again. The Draconis Combine troops have been re-based (on lasered bases by Mark)  and have base-coated them. Last week I gave myself some time to do one testfigure. Having finished this I was amazed at how easy they paint up. When I have more time available, always the problem, I will finish the lot.

For now here are some pictures of the testfigure.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Alternative 4" by Anathema.

On my signal unleash hellfire...

Hoi,

Just a small update today. Here are some pictures of white metal, Mysorean rocket troops done up by Uwe Wild and friends. They date from Wellingtons Indian adventure and are pretty nice.

And since this is such a small update I thought I'd do some advertising for the IMPACT convention going down on May 26th in Uden, near Eindhoven. My friend Koen and his gaming club The Hired Guns,  have organised this con for the  second year in row. This is actually the only dedicated wargames convention in the Netherlands. There are some other conventions where wargames are played but these are mainly affairs with a broader scope, also entailing board-, cardgames and even RPG's. So do you live in the Benelux, Germany or elsewhere and want to come along you're welcome!

For me the highlight is always the great Scrapheap challenge: the Hired Guns bring along their left over bitsbox parts and all contestants will try to use them to make a themed creation. Great fun.
Jan Willem and myself will be attending with a Black Powder 7YW demo.

I hope to see you there!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Bleach" by Nirvana

Red squadron, Gold squadron, come in!

Hoi,

You might remember I've bought some pretty nifty Studio Bergstrom Star Wars Rebel Alliance star fighters for my friend Mark and his son Enzo. Well I have finally finished the last quartet of them: two B-wings and two Y-wings.

The bases are made from wire and home-lasered mdf bases by Mark himself. I kinda like them with the B-wing being my favourite, even though .I've spend far more time detailing the Y-wings.

Enjoy!

The Y-wings:

The B-wings:

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Icky Thumb" by the White Stripes

May the 4th!

Hoi,

We have a bit of a conundrum today: it's May 4th as you probably have noticed on the calendar. This means 2 things, here in the Netherlands May 4th is Memorial Day and the 5th is Liberation Day. But it's also May the Forth be with you, Star Wars Day. So what to do?

Why not celebrate or remember both?

So here we go!

My favourite SW fighter:

And to commemorate all people who have put down their lives to secure our freedom:

Cheers Sander

Listening to: my son, nothing better to listen to in the entire world!

Bring Out Your Dead!

Hoi,

Still making casualty counters for Black Powder on and off. This one is supposed to portray a Napoleonic Dutch/ Belgian Hussar killed in the Hundred Days Campaign.

Just a small update today I'm afraid. More is coming though so watch this space.

Cheers

Listening to: "Wheels on fire" by Wheels on Fire

Brothers of the Broken Sword!

Hoi,

An unusual subject for today's update I might say. I have finally found time to paint up some of the GW Deathwing Terminators I have lying around.
Among the terminator mini's awaiting paintjobs are some old white metal Deathwing in need of re-basing, some newer plastic termies with Thunderhammer and shields and even the new Dark Vengeance Terminator squad.

This finished squad has powerclaws and looks quite fearsome, if I say so myself. As always it was a pain to paint the white terminator armour, I think that for the next squad I am going try out the olive-coloured basecoates that are so popular at the moment.

Anyway here they are: For the Emperor and the Lion!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Overture 1812" by Daniel Baremboim