Sunday 19 May 2019

Gedemco "The Keep"

This weekend, in between sessions of working in the garden, I started putting together one of the Gedemco sets I reported on before.

Assembling a resin kit from the 80sis quite a challenge compare to the MDF plug-and-play sets of today. Nevertheless, the discerning wargamer is not put back by a few hindrances along the way.

Step 1: straightening out the pieces. Some of the wall sections were warped. Since they are made of resin, put them in hot water, straighten them again, and leave them to dry on the kitchen sink. Ignore the cries of horror of other carbon-based humanoid lifeforms in the house. The pieces below are from the Tower set, but the idea is the same.


Step 2: Start glueing together the kit. These old kits are not, shall we say, made to fit. Several tries, a lot of cursing, and using various wooden beams to keep everything together, did the job in the end.



Step 3: Admire the final result. Some period figures are shown for scale. The stairs form a seperate piece, I won't attach it permanenly to the keep, so I can still use a ladder in some scenarios.




Step 4: Fill up the cracks and holes with some filler, but this still needs to be done. Painting as well, of course.

Sunday 12 May 2019

Some more Belgian wargaming history

A longtime gaming friend was cleaning up his basement, and asked me whether I was interested in old box of wargaming stuff. I always answer ‘yes’ to such questions, not in the least out of curiosity to see what shows up.

After our regular boardgame night, I loaded the box (unopened) in my car, and only unpacked it when I came home.

Lo and behold - a large treasure of Belgian wargaming history was revealed. A number of boxes of 25mm buildings by Gedemco. I already reported about Gedemco before, but I was pleasantly surprised to see so many boxes suddenly in my possession. That’s why I never say no when someone is offering me old wargaming junk ;-)

The boxes contain the address of the Tin Soldier shop in Sint-Niklaas, one of the first wargaming shops in Belgium, whose history can be read here.