Crisis 2024 – Part 2

Now that we have finished the traders in part 1 of our CRISIS 2024 coverage, let us move on towards the clubs and gaming systems.

A very special guest at the show was Tuomas Pirinen with Trench Crusade. I follow this system for a while now, as they have a very active facebook group, with various conversions and I was excited to see the miniatures at show.

The setup was a bit spontaneous, as Tuomas had little time to prepare much more, as he basically finished his regular work day as Game Designer for Sony Playstation and directly jumped into a plane towards Belgium, grabbing just the few items that fit into the luggage.

Beside the display of the official miniatures, you could give the game a go.

And I simply had to use the chance to take a picture with him and have him sign my Mordheim rulebook.

My favourite gaming table at the show was this Mordheim setup by Golden Goblin (who are very active on Owlhammer), using the classic Citadel Realm of Battle board styled in a very neat retro way, even incorperating a small dwarven town, that used strong inspiration from the Grudge of Drong campaign set.

Team Belgium FOW hosted a table as well, not only offering Flames of War but show casing a few of their armies as well. Team Belgium succesfully hosted their ETC tournament both in 2022 and 2023.

One of the few sci-fi tables that caught my eye, was this one featuring a huge Gundam marching through a city by Replay Spellenclub Kortrijk.

While Studio Tomahawk dropped out of their booking last minute, their recently released world war 2 game, V for Victory was presented by the Red Barons. As you might notice, the streets are actually the 15mm Flames of War terrain by Gale Force Nine, but work very well with 28mm.

And just those Battlefield in a Box terrain sets were used for even more world war 2 gaming, as seen at this table by Conect'r Team, who hosted a game of Battlegroup Pacific in 15mm, featuring US Marines vs. Japanese.

Yet another world war 2 table, covering a scenario in a dutch town, was hosted by Bello Ludi, using the same name for their own WW2 skirmish.

The Heavy Brigade hosted a huge American Civil War game in 28mm, using With Hot Lead and Cold Steel by Osprey as a rule set.

With this battle, called Chaos in the Netherlands, 1573 - Opening of the 80 years war, the Alde Garde hosted another large table, and I really like the different segments, with the bit of beach on one end, the town and cathedral on the other.

But it is not all fun and games, but there are actually two trophies to win at Crisis for the clubs who host games, the Most Innovative and Best of Show award, and these were announced by the Tinsoldiers but handed over by the mayor of Sint Niklaas, Lieven Dehandschutter (Best of Show), as well as the first alderman, Wout De Meester (Most Innovative).

The award of Most Innovative, was won by Peter and Petra of Murphy's Heroes, for their application of the Blood & Valour ruleset upon the Dastardly and Muttley cartoons, as you had to shoot down Dick Dastardly before he is able to stop the pigeon.

The League of Augsburg had two tables at the show, one covering a Thirty Year War scenario on a compact table.

But they got their Best of Show award for their Mad for War table, Raid on the Medway, recreating a painting as a scenario.

Congratulations to both teams for winning their awards - well deserved!

What can I say? I am very happy that their back. The tickets are fairly priced and you can enjoy the hospitality of the hosts, as the catering is reasonable and you have a good choice of beverages and food items, along with a proper area to consume them. And that is such a huge bonus in addition, that they simply know what they do. The tables and trade stands were arranged in a proper way, everything is well organized, you have broad passages inbetween the rows, which really encourages you to sit down at a table and have a game, without constantly people rubbing against you.

The traders offered a broad variety of miniatures. Obviously not on the same scale as it used to be, and I am not sure we will get back to that without trade deal as the whole trader / distributor situation within wargaming and on the European continent is a little bit different. But beyond that, I am sure the show will grow after the positive return this year, as we saw a lot Belgian and Dutch traders, but mostly Polish and German manufacturers.

Same goes for the tables / hosted games. The majority of the clubs came from Belgium and the Netherlands, but with Antwerp being that close to the German border, I can see some clubs from North Rhine-Westphalia or Lower Saxony join in the future.

CRISIS 2024 was hosted by Tinsoldiers of Antwerp and HQ Gaming Club