IMPACT review

Hoi,

Yesterday Arthur and myself visited the IMPACT convention in Eindhoven; we had a blast! It's only a short train-ride to Eindhoven and we like using the train since it gives you time to see a lot and play games during travel. Anyway we arrived a little early but the doors were open and we went in immediately. I met a lot of familiar faces and had to catch up with them and talking with grown-ups about boring stuff is not something that allures to a 5  year-old, so I gave Arthur my camera and off he went to make pictures. These did not all work out for the best but I'll include some here for good measure.

IMPACT is not the largest event one could visit but one of the most enjoyable and laid-back ones I know. There was a fair amount of dealers, who supplied a great deal of different games and stuff but also a lot of bargains at that. The demo games are all of very good quality and quite a lot of those were also on show at Poldercon. After circling the room about 3 times and buying all the items on my (rather short) list, we went to Jan-Willem for a chat and a drink and on we went again. After checking out the tournament hall and the Bring and Buy we met up with Johan and enjoyed a good beer (no Arthur just had an Ice-tea) and looked at each others loot and chatted for a bit. Inspired by Johan's buys I went back for a quick check of two stalls while Johan watched Arthur and apparently gossiped about me...  oh well.

After that the two of us went into town and got the boy a toy-truck and some presents for his mum and brother. We had some great fun together and some real quality-time, the experience will keep me going for quite some time yet. 

On to some pictures!

A WW2 battle, probably FOW.

Arthur loves trains, even armoured ones...

A look into the hall, as we arrived early some people were still setting up.

The shady figure in this picture is  Jan-Willem, who's trying to wave.

Pirates are always great and Arthur was quite intrigued.

He liked this house and was rather disappointed I did not want our house to painted this red...

I have no idea what game was in progress here but the brightly coloured units attracted the lad enormously.

Arthur likes the landscaping aspect of the tables more than the actual miniatures and so he made this picture.

This Golden Hall of Meduseld was actually taken over by Russian Civil War troops duking it out!

A rather splendid Alexandrian Successors battle in progress.

This table, by Alde Garde, was great to but Arthur did not get the pictures too sharp and I forgot to take better ones.

 

I met up and had a chat with Sander van der Ster from May 40 miniatures. His line of 1940's 28mm figures is really good. To be honest there is some flash and mouldlines to take care of, but when you do you have some really amazing figures which are absolutely historically accurate!

Mister Ludwig's Arnhem diorama never stops to amaze with all the buildings immaculately researched, 3d designed and printed before painting and placing in the proper spot.  

Our drink at Jan-Willem's table, the soda was rather peculiar but it tasted fine.

 A post-apoc skirmish battle was taking place here, I think it was at Poldercon too, but I forgot what ruleset. The terrain however is superb and the flickering lights attract youngsters by the droves ;-)

Mister Bazelmans wins the table of the day-award as far as Arthur is concerned since "he had those pretty trees all lined up and stuff."

His representation of the German invasion of Zeeland in 1940 and the French trying to help us Dutchies out, is really nice and accurate down to the traffic signs of the day itself.

Now what I turned up with regarding loot? Well this bunch:

Some paint, a brush (Kolinsky Rotmarder), scenics from TTCombat, some flock, bases from Renedra, May40 miniatures (officers and stretcher bearers) and a German Armoured Car to support them in May 1940 invading the region I live in... hmmm sounds ominous. The other stuff is part of the goodie-bag we got upon entering. While Johan got a sprue of Warlord US Marines I got some more Early Roman legionaries, great I now have 6, because I got two in the Poldercon bag.  
Thanks to Jan-Willem I also got a nice jungle. Okay to be fair it still needs some work to be a jungle, but the start is there!

Cheers Sander

Impact here we come!

Hoi,

Tomorrow both me and the Lad will be visiting the IMPACT! convention in Eindhoven. It is a great event with lots to see and do. We do hope to see you there!

Link

Cheers Sander

IMPACT! 2016

Hoi,

Yesterday I was able to visit the IMPACT games convention in Eindhoven and it was a blast! Last year's event was cancelled due to the venue not being available and so a different, bigger and easier to reach location was found. The Hired Guns from Uden made a sterling effort in creating what I think is a very good all round wargames convention. Sadly I forgot to put a SD card in my camera so have only a few pictures but luckily more can be found on the IMPACT Facebook page and on Johan's blog. I arrived at 10.00u sharp and found the hall already busy with gamers doing demo's, playing tournaments and trading stuff.

The centre of the hall was filled with gaming tables while around them the traders were placed. All tables, yes absolutely all of them, looked very good. Some were real gems, like Ludwigs Arnhem table with scenery 3D printed by himself.

After doing two rounds I met up with Johan and JW and in the end we found ourselves in the bar with Rikh and Britt chatting away the time about just about anything more or less hobby related.

Finally we did another round or two and around 16.00 o clock we had to accept that time to say goodbye had come and we left for home.

Some of the pictures I did take with my cell phone:

 The guys from De Alde Garde were there as well with a very nice table.

 The guy in the background in the grey shirt with the goatee is Rikh

A view of the hall with a very good Sudan game in progress in the foreground

Some of the games

JW talking to Paul demonstrating his Valhalla Viking skirmish rules

A really bad image of Paul's great table

As an afterthought, the trader in the background of the picture above had some Warhammer Historical books in his assortment, some of these I own myself like Shieldwall, Legends of the Old West and so on; they went for about €60,-! Man I did not know they were that hot on the market!

The swag I bought was pretty much this:
- A box of Wargames Factory's Saxon Thegns
- some resin scenery pieces of furniture etc
- a new brush and some Valejo Paints

Not worth a picture I am afraid but I have enough to paint anyway...

So a very nice day indeed with nice weather, meeting old- and making new friends!

Cheers Sander

IMPACT part II

Hoi,

Here it is; the much awaited sequel to my IMPACT convention coverage. I'll try an attempt to report the battle JW and yours truly fought on the day. We'd decided early on that we would be doing an 7YW game. JW proposed to do an Imaginations game: meaning we would not be playing actual real life historical armies but ones made up by ourselves, I knew I was going to bring my Austrians whatever army he put in the field. In the end we settled for a compromise: my Imperial Army containing Austrian and Reichsarmee elements was to defend a bridge against JW's unlikely alliance of Hessians, Brits and French...

The objective for me was to blow up the bridge dividing Kronstad Fortress from the idyllic village of Lower Kronstad, extracting my troops would be a bonus but not mandatory. Easy enough I hear you say, well not entirely. To destroy the bridge it would take my sappers a dice-decided amount of turns to prep the bridge with explosives. Knowing my luck I rolled two D6's, guess what? I rolled a 10, so I had to fend off the numerically superior enemy forces for the blooming sappers to do their work.Now the scenario gave me the opportunity to deploy several units in hiding, I decided to make the most of it and try to lure JW in a deep strike on my left and then hit his left flank with my heavy cavalry brigade. Still my hopes were at a low point since I usually loose these kind of scenario's. Unknown to both me and JW invisible forces were at work to ensure I'd win this match. Perhaps my huge amount of lost games have urged the Lady to pity me and let me win.

The forces I had at my disposal were as follows: I had a brigade of Grenadier battalions supported by a Freikorps and some Hussars which I placed in hiding on my left flank in the village of Kleines Schweinstein, when revealed, they would be the lure for JW's advancing troops.
My regular Austrian and Reichsarmée brigades were positioned in prepared earthworks directly in front of Lower Kronstad and the bridge. Entirely on my right wing there was a wooded hill which I used to hide my Heavy cavalry brigade. Last but certainly not least I had two batteries of field-artillery. The first I deployed in the middle of the defences where it had the best field of fire. The other one I hid with the units of my left flank.
Here comes the first of my lucky breaks. I had mailed JW the exact list of units I intended to use, but seeing we always play in a gentlemanly and casual manner he had not actually read it, therefore he did not know about the second battery...mwuhahahahaha!

Above is the picture of the deployed battlefield seen from JW's position. The French contingent is on the right, his Brits are in the middle and the Hessians on the left.
In turn one I decided to remain put with all my forces and tried some ranging shots with my battery. Needless to say nothing much happened. JW started to move his forces down the table towards my positions, yet here comes my second break: he started and kept on rolling the most abominable scores on the dice. This meant his whole French division stayed where they were probably out for croissants or something. The Brits didn't fare much better but at least advanced in my general direction. No offensive action was possible at this point.

So below you can see JW, moving his huge army,

Turn two remained more or less the same: I shot some cannonballs towards the oncoming Alliance and the French refused to do anything sensible while the redcoats advanced a bit. Yet in turn 3 things started to heat up. JW sent an unit of Hussars to scout out the hamlet of Schweinstein and they flushed out my hussars, grenadiers and the Freikorps, see the picture below.

 With my units revealed but still in column I was a bit vulnerable so I charged my hussars into JW's, being cavalry he counter-charged and  we met in the middle. Unfortunately my unit was defeated and routed thoroughly off the field.Their demise had given me time to deploy my grenadiers and they now shot up the hussars who used their sweeping advance move to retreat to safety.

Turn 4 saw me advancing the Reichsarmée brigade to straighten up the line on the right in order to prevent JW from guessing where my cavalry brigade was hiding out. In the end this was not necessary since he totally overlooked the only sensible spot they could have been hid. 

 The Brits in JW's centre had some luck and moved up to 3 moves and almost where able to charge my thin white line, almost being not enough, I replied with massed cannon and musket fire and shot up one unit badly and disordered another forcing them back a full move. JW's French finally decided to come out and play, their oncoming masses scared the heebyjeebies out of me for sure!

The French hussars flushed out my last hidden battery and this led JW to state "Damn, I should have read your armylist!" His artillery was still on the move or refused to deploy due to bad dicerolls so was pretty much ineffective. My grenadiers proved their worth in destroying [!] the French Hussars and then remaining in place to steady my left flank. This left flank and the centre formed a sort of funnel in which the french were trying to poor troops and so they came under musket fire from two sides, supported by the battery of guns. So far the plan was working out.
Turn 5 came and JW engaged my line with two units of British skirmishers which I despatched easily and then his French Cavalry rode up right to my centre which was very thinly held.

 I was almost going to soil myself when he made a big BooBoo and so came up my 3rd lucky break!  On my "disregarded" right flank a lone unit of Hessian Dragoons rode through the woods and discovered my cavalry brigade. Due to travelling through woods they were unable to engage my troops and I ended up charging them with a full 3 moves. Needless to say that just one unit of dragoons is no match for a brigade of one cuirassier and two more dragoon units in support. They clove through the Hessians like a hot knife through butter and sweeping advanced into another brigade of JW's troops: the British infantry lines were taken in the flank! Textbook manoeuvre here I come!

At this time I lost track of what turn we were in since things started to escalate real quick. JW advanced his French even further, but his Cavalry brigade failed to reach my troops with their charge and were annihilated, I don't know another word for it by my guns at close range and the musketry of several infantry battalions. The supporting Infantry got a similar treat and had some units disordered. On the right flank my cavalry supported by the Reichsarmée infantry kept on rolling up JW's left flank and in the end I had disordered or broken so many of his brigades that he had no other option then give in. This being turn 8 or 9 I was really well off the turn I had to blow the damn bridge, but now it ended in me winning the field with minimal losses, I only lost one squadron of hussars and one unit of infantry, whereas half JW's army was in the dead-pile. Therefore the sappers could undo the work they had painstakingly been carrying on while my troops kept off the enemy.

A brilliant battle indeed. I really thought I'd had it when I rolled the 10 for the moment of detonation and again when the French tried to charge my meagre line. Luckily my luck kept and JW's failed him time and again. Almost all the rolls for combat-resolution he did were on a 3 or on a 5 with modifiers which put him back to a 3 meaning his units were destroyed rather then fleeing. 


As far as I'm concerned that's the conclusion of the battle played at the immensely enjoyed IMPACT convention, next year we'll be something different but I am not sure yet what it will be.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Overture 1812"  composed by  Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

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!

IMPACT 2012, part 2

Hoi,

As promised here's part 2 of my Impact showreport. Why two showreports, while I usually do just one on any show I attend? Well this one rather had more involvement on my part then others do. First off is the fact I participated in the demo game for Black Powder organised bij Jan-Willem, second I participated in a painting contest for the first time in my life and last but not least this is the only convention of this kind in the Netherlands I know of and I want to see it succeed and grow over the following years.

Let's start with some more pictures from our Black Powder demogame:

Jan Willem and me dicing off:

some close ups of the action taking place:

Some of the other fun going on is next.

The SAGA demo in full swing:

An Urban War demo:

The Scrapheap challenge which proved immensely popular:

The Militia Brabantia guys doing an Ancients demo (sorry I forgot which ruleset they used but the mini's looked awesome!)

The painting contest:

This dragon was painted by a guy who eventually took home two prizes, one for best fantasy monster and one for the best battlescene. You guessed it: I forgot his name too...shame on me!

In the historical single figure category only two models were entered, mine and this Octavia by Josse. Upon seeing it I really thought I'd had it because come on, who doesn't like this mini?

In the end, as told in the first part of this show report, it was decided I won due to the level of detail on my base and the fact I was able to give a 20mm figure a facial expression.More close ups of my figure will follow soon in a separate blog-post.

Koen giving away the prizes:

Talking about the prizes, Scibor miniatures, who could sadly not be present, had offered some excellent mini's and conversion packs. Each winner was allowed to choose a mini from the offered sets, I chose this Celtic sf warrior.
Most of these pictures were made by others so here's a big thank you to Jan Willem and Bert. A few pics came from this Dutch newspaper article and here's a movie Koen made as impression of the Impact convention.

Hope you'll be inspired to come along next year!

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Alternative 4" by Anathema