Down to London on Friday night, staying in my now usual hotel close to the ExCel centre. The hotel was very good, I was upgraded to an executive suite which was nice, though I didn't feel I could actually make much use of the extensive second room. I had a curry in a local place, that was not so good - no alcohol licence, I was sat my the door in a draft and they took ages to take my order. I declined the offer of a complimentary dessert and had a Cornetto from the Tesco Express.
Things were much better in the morning, and after a good breakfast I headed off to the event. I got there just after ten, perfect timing as the queue had started to move quickly and I was soon in. I had a list of things I wanted to get, and the first took me up to a stall called Clive's Diecasts. Not because I wanted to buy any of the old vehicle he was selling, but because he had samples and was taking orders for some new 1/285 models produced by 2D6 Wargaming Aka Robert Fellowes on YouTube. He has been showing the new models on his channel, and they are very nice indeed, as were the samples in the flesh - I ordered a few of each.
After that I was off to the Pendraken stand. Two years ago they released BlitzKrieg Commander 3, which I bought, but hardly played if at all. It was badly received, with errors and inconsistencies, and they have produced BKC4, offering a free swap to anyone who had bought the previous version. I took my copy, and they exchanged it with no questions.
Next I went to Magister Militum, where I found a copy of the boardgame Pavlov's House. I wanted to get this at Hammerhead, but they had not brought a copy, and I bought Cuba Libre instead. This time they did have it, and at a good price, just £54. After that I started to circulate, looking at various stuff, but before long I found my next target on the Spirit Games stall, the Player's Handbook for D&D 5th Edition. I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to invest the time in going through another new version, but in the end I decided I wanted to see how the game has changed.
M<y final target was Volume 1 of Donald Featherstone's Wargaming Through the Ages - I picked up volumes 2-4 in the auction a couple of weeks ago. I found the book on the same stall where I picked up two of the Tank Battles in Miniature last week. While I was wandering round I spotted a couple of Dark Ages buildings from Renedra, and I picked those up.
By this time my bag was getting pretty heavy, so I went back to the hotel to unload. I had lunch there, and checked out, then returned to the show. I was just mooching around really, looking at various things but not buying much. I got some spray undercoat, but my last purchase of significance was three packs of Empress 28mm moderns - a team of four British soldiers, and two four-packs of insurgents. That was the lot, and I left about four, heading back to the hotel to get my case and set off home.
