Red Barons

Saturday March 4 the yearly Red Barons convention took place in Gentbrugge. Schild en Vriend took part with a display of our Arnhem game (see other posts in this blog). Although there were some vague plans of actually playing a game we never really got farther than setting up the boards and putting some units in more or less historical positions. Bart and I mostly chatted with various people, browsed the trade stands and had a good time, all without the stress of actually having to run a game.

There were a few good games going on, some being repeats from Crisis (e.g. the Ancient Naval attack on a Fortress run by La Grande Armee). TSA had an Afriboria game featuring characters from the TinTin novels. Quite original.

There was also a Zombie-game with 3D paper scenery, which was also quite good w.r.t. visual appeal.

Other games were more standard in nature, and of course there were various GW games as well.

As for buying, I got the Commands & Colors Ancient game, 2 blisters with fantasy figures from Chiltern and some trees from Woodland Scenics. Not that I really need these last 2 items, but I felt I had to buy at least something to support the industry ;-)

Nevertheless, I really had to scrounge to find some things I wanted to buy. I'm always eager to spend some money at conventions, but I felt the choices this year were very limited. In my opinion, the RB convention is just above the level at which it becomes interesting to attend as a casual visitor (that is, not being involved in any of the club-games) in the hopes of finding some good items. Now, this may be the fate of any small-scale convention, so let's see what next year brings.