I earlier reported about the importance of The Tin Soldier for Belgian wargaming, a shop started by Rudi Geudens almost 4 decades ago. A full story of the shop can be read here. I also have written many posts about some of the Gedemco buildings, made and distributed by the same shop.
I rummaged through my archives and found an old flyer of The Tin Soldier (in Dutch), dated 1989, shown below. Nostalgia!
Last week (November 11) Rudi Geudens passed away.
Although I didn't know Rudi very well personally, I always had a chat with him during our many encounters at the various wargaming conventions in Belgium when we met each other.
Rudi's influence on the wargaming hobby in Belgium was very significant. The story of how he started wargaming, and the founding of his wargaming shop "The Tin Soldier" in Sint-Niklaas is nicely detailed on his webpages he wrote many years ago.
It is because of The Tin Soldier I first came into contact with wargaming as a hobby. It must have been in 1980 or 1981 when I saw a large display of games of the wargaming club in Sint-Niklaas held in the local shopping mall. It piqued my interest immediately, and when I came back home, I tried to recreate my own wargame using cheap plastic toy soldiers and some components from war-themed boardgames I had lying around.
The shop in Sint-Niklaas was a mecca for me. Living in Leuven (my grandparents lived in Sint-Niklaas), I didn't belong to the local club, but I tried to visit the shop as often as I could. I bought several board wargames there, I bought my first miniatures there, I bought my first miniature ruleset there (Warhammer 1st edition, no less), my first polyhedral dice, and so many more things. As a teenager, I even once made the trip from Leuven to Sint-Niklaas (50 km one way) by bicycle, so money for the train ticket could be saved for buying wargame stuff.
Later on, during the late 90s, when my Leuven wargaming group became regular visitors and game organizers of the CRISIS wargames show in Antwerp, I bumped into Rudi again. It was always inspiring to have a chat with him, about wargaming, life, the universe.
During our last chat (before Corona), he told me he was ill, but he was positive and told me prospects were good. We didn't meet again due to the Corona crisis.
Rudi showed the way for many wargamers in Belgium. He really was the godfather of Belgian wargaming. We will miss him.
