Schild&Vriend Crisis Games 1997-2013

As some of you know, our little gaming group Schild & Vriend runs a demo/participation game every year at the annual Crisis wargame convention, held in Antwerp. We started doing this in 1997, although we had run some games at other conventions before that. That makes 17 wargames total. During four of these years, we have won a trophy for either 'Best game of Show', 'Best participation game' or 'Most innovative game'.

With our 18th game at CRISIS coming up, I felt it was time for a quick overview ...

1997: Wild West Gunfights

We were in our "Wild West" phase during those years. We played the "Shootist" rules, a small leaflet I picked up during one of the Fantasy World conventions held in Antwerp years previously. I even had written a small C-program that generated random gunfighters. These were collected in a big listing with 1000 entries, which we called the "Shootist-O-Matic" (roll a D1000 and a random shootist came out). I still have it lying around somewhere ...

So, no surprise we staged a Shootist game that year during Crisis.

Shootist game using Geohex terrain. All figures from Wargames Foundry. Gathered around the table (left to right: Frank Vleugels, Bart Vetters, Dominique Coene, Maarten Logghe, and unknown.)

Some more pictures of Crisis 97 can be found here.

1998: "For a Few Tusks More"

This was the period in which Foundry released a large number of Darkest Africa figures. Some very nice jungle scenery was constructed (still in our possession), along with special desert terrain tiles.

For a Few Tusks More. Maarten Logghe is at the far left.

More pictures and report of the game can be found here. The scratch-built fort and the jungle scenery were later re-used in our "Attack on Fort Stanley" game in 2008.

1999: "Mons Badonicus"

This game featured an Arthurian battle on custom-made terrain. Sadly, no pictures were recovered, and the terrain itself has also been liquidated.

This game was awarded "Best of Show"  by the show organizers.

2000: ACW game

A large American Civil War game, featuring mostly Foundry 25mm figures. Alas, we have no photographs to back things up, but the figures and most of the scenery are still in our possession.

Update October 2014: recovered pictures!

2001: "Raid on Zeebrugge"

We decided to stage a Belgian battle, and after some rummaging through one of the books written by military historian Luc De Vos ("Veldslagen in de Lage Landen"), we ended up with the Raid on Zeebrugge. This raid was set during WW1, and involved British troops storming the mole at Zeebrugge harbour. We made the gaming boards in the garage of Bart Dils' parental house during several weekends.

The Raid on Zeebrugge setup.

I recall we spent quite a lot of cash on this game. All model houses, railways, etc. were all bought from toy stores. This was also the time at which the standard of wargames at CRISIS was not yet terribly high, and thus a game like this was a real showstopper. This resulted in a 2nd place for 'Best Game of Show', nicknamed 'Best Scenery' - which was quite a disappointment for us at the time. We got a gift voucher for roughly 30 euros, if I recall correctly, to be used at one of the trade stands.

More pictures of the game can be seen here. The scenery of this game was re-used for our Crisis 2004 game "Operation Shield Friendly", and also made an appearance at one of the Red Barons shows.

2002: Wild West meets Indians meets ACW

For this game, we re-used a lot of material from the ACW and Wild West games we ran a few years earlier. We also used the Shootist rules again, playing out some small inter-linked scenarios on a huge gaming table.

Sadly, I cannot find any photographs of this game.

2003: "Legionnaires in the Desert"

This was a very special game, made completely out of wood - and that includes the figures! When I was living in the US, I became a big fan of the Woodens range of flat wargaming figures. The idea for this game revolved around creating a wooden landscape out of MDF-wood. It produced a nice visual look, and got a lot of attention during the convention.

All figures are Woodens, scenery elements in resin.

Some more information about this game and the figures can be found on the Woodens page

2004: "Operation Shield Friendly"

2004 was another year in which we apparently did not have much inspiration, since we re-used the Zeebrugge gaming table from a years before, but now we staged a WW2 landing operation. Again, no pictures of this game, we still do have the flyer.

2005: "Arnhem"

In 2005 we organized a Kriegspiel-like setup. Based on the 1944 operations around Arnhem, we staged a 6mm game that allowed participants to contribute a micro-move to the game.

This was one of the first convention game we designed around getting as much participants involved as possible. The idea was that the umpire would act as narrator, and provide decisions to onlookers. Every decision to be made revolved around some particular unit, and involved at least some dice rolling. Here's a blogpost describing the game in more detail.

This game also resulted in an article (our first!) we wrote for Wargames Illustrated.

This game was also appreciated by the organizers, since we were awarded with the "Best Participation Game" trophy.

2006: "Dogfights over Flanders"

After the efforts we had put in the Arnhem game, we decided to stage something lighter in 2006. We ran a hexified version of the WW1 dogfight rules "Wings of War". This provided some short, 15 minute games. IIRC, this was also the start of our love for Kallistra hex-tiles.

Some planes are visible in the background in this WW1 dogfighting game.

2007: "The Blue Lotus"

This was a game based on the famous TinTin story "The Blue Lotus". My original idea was to run a pulp-game set in 1930's China, more or less based on the adventures in the comic book. The modeling of the town was done pretty well, if I can say so myself, but the big drawback was we actually did not have a game to run ;-) All time had crept into painting and modeling - literally up to a few hours before everything had to be packed in the car. I still have all the scenery and figures, so at some time, we should run an actual game using this setup.

1930s Shanghai modeled after a Tintin comic.

2008: "Attack on Fort Stanley"

This game was again an effort in getting as much participants involved as possible. The game was set in Darkest Africa, and recycled scenery and figures from our 1998 convention game. Fort Stanley was positioned in the middle of the jungle, and was attacked from all sides by natives.

The game design itself revolved around large action cards, which were made available for everyone to see. Any bystander could pick one of the action cards, and execute the order listed on the card. This mechanism consolidated some of my thinking w.r.t. mass participation games, something that would prove useful a few years later.

Fort Stanley, still in our possession. Also notice the wildlife.

2009: "AquaZone"

In 2009 we staged a game that I had been thinking about for quite a few years. I always wanted to do a scuba-diving game of underwater combat, and so over the years I collected plastic fish, plastic scuba divers, etc. The game itself featured our time-tested system of each figure having a number of action points, and combat resolution was resolved using opposite dice.

Notice the whale in the middle of the gaming table. From left to right: Eddy Sterckx, Bart Vetters, Phil Dutré.

2010: "Poltava"

Bart's obsession with the Great Northern War produced this excellent game featuring the battle of Poltava. Again, we wanted a game that targeted audience participation. A card-driven system drove the battle forwards, with each card offering some choices for the players.

2011: "Papierslag"

In our quest for providing some original game settings, I stumbled upon the paper armies from Billy Bones' Workshop. We spent quite a few evenings cutting and glueing together these excellent 2D figures and scenery, and built an entire ECW battlefield.

The new look-and-feel charmed many players, including the organizers, who awarded us with the "Most Original Game" trophy.

2012: "An Der Schönen Blauen Donau"

The Danube was featured prominently in our 2012 game. Instead of moving troops, players would control the currents in the Danube to make sure various flotsam and jetsam was bumped into French pontoon bridges, such that the battle of Asspern-Essling would be won by the Austrians. A fun and original game, and we also published in article about this game in Miniature Wargames with Battle Games.

2013: "Red vs Blue"

My lingering ideas of running a mass-participation wargame finally came all together in our Red vs Blue game. We printed several thousand participation cards, handed these out in the convention hall, and inviting players to come to our table to participate for a few minutes. The game ran continuously in real-time. At the end of the day, we clocked over 250 participants. This game gave us the "Most Original Game" award. An article about this game is currently in the pipeline ...

2014: ??? 

Our drive for setting up games during CRISIS is still burning strong, so watch for our game this year!

Crisis 2004 - my thoughts

Another year, another [Crisis](http://users.skynet.be/tinsoldiers/html/crisis04_titelblad.htm) has passed. First off - thanks to everyone at [TSA](http://www.tsoa.be) involved in the organisation for putting up this great show (and, more importantly, suffering our presence each year :). Great work guys!

On to the personal bit. [We](/snv) took a rehash of our [Zeebrugge](/snv/zeebrugge/zeebrugge.html) game, using the same terrain but setting it during a fictional [Operation SHIELD FRIENDLY](/snv/documents/osf_web.pdf) in August 1944. The game was well received (although I think we spent less effort this year evangelicising it) but, as predicted, did not win any prizes (I would have been quite amazed had it done so). As to the result, the Germans easily beat off the British assault, leading to the safe escape of the submarine prototype.

Personally, I had entered this figure in the painting competition, in the single historical miniature category:


I thought the paintjob on this figure to be pretty good (considering I only spent around 4 hours on it, base included), but my hopes flagged when I went to check out the competition. Luckily, it did not turn out that bad at all, as I got two bronze medals (one in category, one for Celtic figures -- although there probably only were three Celtic figures :) ) for it. According to Willie, this year's scoring of the competition was very tough (there were only two gold medals in the entire competition), so I'm quite chuffed with this achievement. The figure will make a perfect general for my Celtic army for our upcoming WAB escalation campaign.

Purchase wise, I got four sets of [Foundry](http://www.wargamesfoundry.com) [Paint System](http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/paint/index.asp): the black and white, some reds, some yellows and some greens. I'm quite curious as to whether I'll like painting with these (I know the paints themselves will be pretty good, given that they are produced by the same firm that produces the Coat d' Arms series as well as the old [GW](http://uk.games-workshop.com) paints, and that the Foundry apparently has had them put in quite a lot of pigment), and I'll report my findings here once I have painted up a few figures with them. My second purchase was in the bring & buy, where I picked up almost 100 of the now out of production Goedendag Miniatures Flemish Communal infantry. They do seem to be a bit of a bother to assemble, as they consist of seperate torsos, arms, weapons and heads, but knowing my current style of building units, I'd probably have converted most of them anyway (head swaps etc), so this will give me more freedom to do so (famous last words). They will form the infantry arm (about four units or so) of a future Flemish 14th Century army.

Now on to the rest of the convention. My general impression was that the overall level of the convention was better than last year. There was certainly more lighting, the catering problems had been cleverly solved by providing discount tickets for the nearby [Quick](http://www.quick.be) (although there apparently was quite a spectacle to be seen in a competing sandwichbar) and attendance seemed to be up. I did feel that the general level of the games presented had levelled off a bit (to some fault of our own of course, as we were taking an 'old' game). Over the last couple of years, the number of 'wow' games has risen steadily, but I thought that this year, that number has stabilised a bit (at least not risen anymore).

That said, there were some beautiful games around. TSA had done a rendition of the assault of the Evil forces on Osgiliath, built entirely in Hirst's Arts blocks, that was pretty popular with visitors throughout the day. Peter & Petra Schulein of [Murphy's Heroes](http://www.murphysheroes.nl) presented _A hot day in June_, a beautiful 6mm version of a 1967 or so battle in the Egyptian / Israeli desert. Going right along, the [Dortmund Amateur Wargamers](http://www.multimania.com/daw) presented an exquisitely done game on Operation Felix, the planned but never executed German assault on Gibraltar in 1941. This game featured their trademark well crafted and finely detailed terrain and troops, and deservedly won Best Presented Wargame (again).

On a side note, this might say something about the state of wargaming in Belgium: on Belgium's premier wargames show, only two Belgian clubs have ever won Best Presented Wargame, all of the other awards going to German or Dutch clubs. Should we be worried about this? Comments, please. It was heart warming, though, to see [Stipsiczs Hussars](http://www.wargames-central.com) win the new prize for Best Participation Game, after years of staying under the radar. Well done, Fons & Marcel!

Les Chemins de Feu presented a well modelled game on the Russo-Finnish winter war, featuring some very realistic icy lakes and snow. This game excelled in the surrounding paraphernalia as well, having a few (original?) period weapons along, and continually displaying a Norwegian-Finnish DVD on the war, among other things.

Finally, [THS](http://www.ths-wargames.de/), a German club, presented Phil's dream -- a full size 25mm game on the Boxer Rebellion, featuring the city wall and what looked like most or all of the Legation Quarter in Beijing.

That's about it for this installment. I'll put up some photos of the convention fairly soon(ish).

Crisis preparations

It's that time of year again -- [Crisis 2004](http://users.skynet.be/tinsoldiers/html/crisis04_titelblad.htm) is just over a week away, and I'm in full convention preparation mode.

Since [1997](http://www.nirya.be/snv/GALLERY/crisis97.html) we have presented a participation game at every Crisis, so that makes this year's game our eighth big Crisis game. Until a few years ago, each year saw extensive preparations for these games, usually starting with several Saturdays' worth of terrain creation over at BD's parents.

The last time we did this kind of all out preparation, in effect creating an entirely new terrain set, was in 2001, with our [Zeebrugge](http://www.nirya.be/snv/zeebrugge/zeebrugge.html) game. This game was very well received, winning the Best Terrain prize (which we still have to claim :) ), but very narrowly missing out on the Best Presented Wargame trophy (although many people, not in the least ourselves :), thought we really deserved it). Possibly partly because of this, but mostly through lack of time and real life developments taking place (most of us had by then moved on from a comfortable responsibility-light student existence to various next stages in life) the games after this, including this year's, have seen less extensive and time consuming preparation.

In 2002 we staged a recap of our 2000 ACW game, on a bigger terrain, and 2003 saw the shortest preparation ever: our [Woodens](http://www.nirya.be/snv/woodens/woodens.html) [in the desert](http://www.nirya.be/snv/woodens/woodendesert.html) game took literally only two hours of preparation. Admittedly, those two hours were spent in Phil's kitchen sawing MDF boards to shape for the terrain; I did not stick around for the vacuum cleaning afterwards, so Phil might have a different idea on the time involved :).

This year, we (mostly Phil and myself, but there was a flurry of activity on the [mailing list](http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/int_brigade) after the initial announcement) had big plans for constructing a totally new type of game to take to Crisis. Unfortunately, building a house and having a daughter born has taken some toll on my free time, and we decided to postpone this to next year.

So, this year will see another recap of one our our old favourites: Zeebrugge, only this time, it will be set in 1944. Preparation has limited itself to painting up some new figures and terrain items (hence the appearance of British paras on the sidebar), along with coming up with some fringe paraphernalia such as handouts, posters to hang up on the backdrop plus some new stuff that will remain a surprise for now (don't get too excited, though).

Even though we're taking a recycled game (again), we still hope to be noticed at Crisis and will try to uphold the standard that people have come to expect of us (that last one can, of course, be interpreted in two ways :) ). The game will be full participation, so if anyone is reading this and is interested in joining in on the day, you are more than welcome to do so. See you all at Crisis!