Last Sunday the first edition of PolderCon went of with a big and joyous bang! With this, we aimed for a (almost entirely) pre-booked games- and workshop event. A wargaming show concept uncommon for Europe.
So on Sunday, February 8th, 2015 some 90 players were welcomed by over 20 game hosts, workshop leaders and a few traders at our fledgeling Dutch wargaming convention to experience new and hitherto untried aspects of their wargaming hobby. They came from all over the Netherlands, Great Britain and Belgium to Utrecht NL to participate in games, workshops, good food and that thing wargamers like most right after playing: talking about wargaming!
Below an impression (and no more than that!) of the day:
Early morning, dragging in the many trappings of a wargaming convention.
Building the many magnificent tables. All hosts were volunteers and had worked their pants off to present a great show, some even painting figures right up to the evening before!
A glimpse of the table that would win a shared Price For Most Beautiful Demo: Ypenburg by Murphy's Heroes (Chain of Command)
Henrik making pictures of his extremely popular Batman table, incidently winning the Prize for Most Enjoyable Demo
Poised for the start.
Karwansaray Publishing, one of the show's sponsors, was also present.
Our foreign delegation discussing the pros and cons of PolderCon
The start of any game: it works like this.....
And let the games begin!
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Below Henrik is playing his winning Batman game. As you can see, some players needed eyes in their back to survive this game!
Elsewhere Shifting Lands gave a workshop in his fantastic terrain making skills. See his lovely stuff here to the right.
In the meantime, behind the screens, our tireless volunteers packed the Goodiebags all visitors and hosts would receive on leaving. Filled with generous gifts from Subcultures from Utrecht, Scenery Workshop, Warlord Games, Sally 4th, Statuesque Miniatures and Karwansaray Publishing it would prove to be a fitting end of the day.
And that was not all there was to say about the organisation. All day long, our camera crew went around saving PolderCon for generations to come! Or at least for the promotion of the next edition....
More volunteers received the visitors, directed them to their games and workshops, collected entrance fees and -last but not least- handed out the much coveted lunch tokens!
With all this going on, yours truly tried to convey his scratch-building skills on innocent bystanders, exposing them to razor sharp knives and dribbling glue guns, all so they would make little houses out of junk. No blood was shed, no animals were hurt and only a few fingers were scorched by hot glue in the making of this workshop!
Above little Joshua builds his 10mm skyscraper, despite being -according to himself- clumsy and un-creative. He propelled straight to the Prize For The Bravest Wargamer!
The Great Too Fat Lardie himself, mr Richard Clarke, explained how to play Chain of Command to a throng of people and gave a workshop on that thing he does so well: hosting demos! Yes, that thing.
Halfway the day we broke for lunch and everybody got together in the restaurant to get stuffed with food and chat!
At the end there is always that humiliating moment that people who have done their best all day get called out in front for their troubles and get festooned with gifts because they Have Won A Prize. To avoid this, most refused to come to the ceremony mumbling something about "having to clean up" or something and hoped it would all blow over.
So I of course took all people to them, climbed on a chair and gave a rousing speech, dispensing praise, prizes and gratitude to all who had contributed to this fantastic day.
Above the bravest of them all: Three demos And the Scenery building workshop!
Above Seb's winning Bolt Action table. Below a detail of the likewise winning Ypenburg table.
Then I got to clean up, eat, drag myself home and fall over on the couch. What A Great Day!
NB: a mini video documentary made by Matthijs Diederiks
