24 February 2014

TACTICA Hamburg 2014

After a weekend full of hobby goodness at TACTICA in Hamburg I'm back at home. For all of you not beeing familiar with TACTICA it's the biggest wargames convention here in Germany. With its 1602 visitors it's maybe not as big as SALUTE in London or CRISIS in Antwerp but the atmosphere is fantastic.
Plenty of fantastic gaming tables and figures as well as lots of dealers. Unfortunately this year Comitatus didn't show up so I couldn't buy all the Gripping Beast and Musketeer stuff I had in my mind for expanding my Frankish and Late Roman armies. I of course found some other ways to spend my hard earned cash and bought loads of goodness from Wargames Foundry and quite some terrain pieces from Stronghold Terrain and a great Roman Temple in 28mm from Lasermodellbau.

This year also saw me on the gaming tables having lots of fun. Both games were based on the very enjoyable Triumph & Tragedy rules. The first game was hosted by Jan (aka Lt. Hazel) of "At the Mountains of Lead" fame and his friends. Me and my dear friend Chris (aka Axebreaker) pitted Jans masterfully painted Romans and Goths against each other. As always I fielded the might of Rome. My mission was to bring a cart full of riches into safety while Chris had to stop me. As always I lost the game in the end but it was big fun and we both had a great time. Therefore many thanks to Jan and friends.

The other game took place on sunday morning and I had the pleasure to play with Björn the author of T&T. In remembrance of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the great war he hosted virtually two games. The one was a game set in the very first days when the Germans attacked France.  Beautifully painted Germans were crossing the borders and were greeted by colorful French using their Hotchkiss LMG's to maximum advantage. The table in my opinion was great and really captured the feel of the early war of movement.
For his other game (the one I played) he turned on the wheels of time to a point when trench warfare had all the western front in his grip. Again the figures were painted absolutely to my liking and the trench tiles really made me think to start working on my own again. I played the Germans while Björn took command of the not so contemptible little (british) army. My objective was to break into his trenches and search for goods of value in two hidden dugouts. Exceptionally I won the game when my troops almost wiped out all his troops and by sheer look found the barrels full of valuable oil in the very first dugout they entered.

I took quite some pics and wasn't able to decide which ones to show here so I hope you don't mind to click through them all.

The WW1 trench warfare game I played

















The WW1 war of mevement game I unfortunately didn't play



















Triumphus et Tragoedia game

















Force on Force "Operation Ursa" game presented by the 'Wardogs Hannover'











SAGA village raid by Stronghold Terrain







"White Death" Scenario hosted by THS on actually !!!TWO!!! tables


The Perrys really seemed to enjoy the game














Walking Dead by Peter Birger









Reanimated by Malte Schulz























I really loved this figure... I really have to get me one with my next order.

Bolt Action "The battle of Tilly-sur-Seulles" presented by Tabletop-Club Rhein-Main



Behind Omaha Scenario



Victory Decision "The cannons of Saint Marcouff" by Thomas Nalizinski aka Rusus




"In clouds of glory" by 3TH Tabletop Club and the designers themselves


Field of Glory Renaissance "Lützen 1632" presented by Kurpfalz Feldherren




Quatre Bras "Liebertolkwitz 1813" by Frankfurter Partisanen


By Fire& Sword presented by Wargamer Company


Impetus "Lord of the Rings" by Frankfurter Spieltrieb


Field of Glory "The battle of Marathon" by Matthias & Thomas Richter (Thanks for the nice chat btw.)






9 comments:

  1. Great looking stuff! This is making me regret not going there with some of the other fellas from my club. Great looking WWI games! Amazing Zombie(?) table too.

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  2. I could not have had better company and enjoyed myself immensely! Thank you! A shed load of great tables and Jan's game looked superb and his hospitality was first rate! As you know I liked those WWI figures so much I've decided to collect my own Early War Germans.:-) Really looking forward to our next trip!

    Christopher

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  3. Wow, just wow. What a wonderful event and thanks so much for posting your photos of your visit. So much eyecandy. What to say... My favourites were the WWI, Saga and White Death tables but they all seemed so good. I with Tactica was not in the middle of winter otherwise I'd consider the flight...

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  4. Triple wow! I don't get out to big events so THANKS for sharing. I've often thought that Germany has more than their share of great painters and this post just proves my point. Amazing tables all around!

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  5. Great pics. Thanks for sharing. I really like the look of the Stronghold buildings.

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  6. Thank you very much for sharing all the pictures, much of inspiration !!!

    Best regards Michael

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  7. Awesome looking tables and fantastic figures! Thanks for sharing your photos!

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  8. What an amazing looking event, those tables are just superb!

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