Salute 2019

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.

Hammerhead 2016

Down the M6 and across the A50 to Newark for Hammerhead 2016. A new show to me, but it has a bit of history and one of the bigger ones on the circuit, I think. The venue is a large exhibition hall on the Newark Showground, so vast amounts of parking all around. The building is suited to the event, not surprisingly as a purpose-built exhibition hall, so plenty of space and light, though you wouldn't say it has a lot of character. The food was supplied by the "Bistro" in the building, but "Caff" would have been a better name - chips with pasties, burgers and sausage rolls, and bacon baps. Fine by me, as it happens, but not a lot of choice if that's not to your taste.
As for the show itself, all the games were designated as participation-based, and as far as I could see they were mostly busy, though a few at the far ends seemed quiet. There was a good variety, from witch racing through WW1 to sci-fi with 3D printed models. There seemed to be quite a few aerial games - Wings of Glory, at least one jet combat game, and a nice looking one with Japanese planes attacking a US AA destroyer in 1943. The ship model in that one was quite large, but not as big as the one in another game using the third dimension. This featured an underwater frogman attack on a ship which only appeared in the form of the bottom of the hull, which formed the "roof" of the playing area. The divers moved up and down below this, presumably trying to attach limpet mines.
There was also a good selection of traders, all around the outside of the space. Personally I was slightly disappointed because there was no 6mm WW2 - Wargames Emporium and Magister Militum weren't there, and Baccus did not have any of their new WW2 infantry (I have a couple of these on order and due to arrive soon). I was also hoping to find one of the printed battle mats - Cigar Box or something like that, but there were none on show - just some plain coloured blankets. Still I managed to collect a fair amount of booty, on show in the picture below.

Centre rear is some stuff for the airbrush - a stand and some primers in various shades. To the right is some other paints - Basetex for the bases on my 6mm infantry, and a couple of metals for the bigger models. In front of those are two items from Ainsty for my Pulp games, and a Renedra Arab/Adobe house ditto. Then three terrain items in 6mm, fields and town bases, from The Baggagetrain. To their left are two packs of Pulp Figures, sailors for the ship I painted last month.
On the extreme left are the new rulesets which I always wind up buying at a show. I have finally cracked and bought General Quarters 3 (WW2 naval). For decades GQ1/2 has been pretty much the default ruleset for 20th century naval wargames, certainly for me. The new rules, which were a long time coming, are supposed to be much more detailed, which is not necessarily a good thing, in my view. Anyway, now I will get a chance to judge for myself.
The other rules are Lion Rampant from Osprey - Medieval skirmish/small battles. I've been thinking about these for some time, and I was persuaded by my other purchase, a box of Teutonic infantry from Deus Vult. - plastic and lots of mix and match heads and arms. I am looking forward to making and painting those, and they gave me an excuse to buy the rules, and vice versa. So there's 2-3 different genres there, plus the WW2 6mm, and I'm not sure which one will run away with me in the near future.

Ancient Arch

At Fiasco I picked up a model by Renedra, an old stone arch, a plastic model and just £5 as I recall. It went together neatly and painted up well, good detail to take various shades of grey. But the reason I bought it and the fun part was adding all sorts of moss and lichen with the Lifecolor sets. All good stuff, and I added a couple of hanging creepers with thread soaked in glue.

Ramshackle Barn

One of my purchases from Fiasco last week, the Ramshackle Barn from Renedra, 28mm scale. The kit is fine, nothing dramatic, a basic barn with a lean-to shed beside it, and a few bits of clutter - ladders, pitchforks and an old cartwheel. I did the basic paint job with a variety of browns from Foundry, but the fun was adding the overgrowing vegetation. Most of this is from Lifecolor, using two of their sets - Lichens and Moss, which provides more substantial clumps of greenery, and Algae, which gives you finer layers. I also added some real bits of lichen, and other foliage clumps, to give the impression of nature taking back control.

 

Fiasco 2015

Slightly late, a report on my trip over to Leeds for Fiasco, a show held at the Royal Armoury in the centre of the city. This is a nice middle-sized show, good for a couple of hours or so browsing around the traders and looking at a few of the games being demonstrated. There didn't seem to be a strong common theme this year, so there was a good variety of games to choose from. In terms of traders the show seemed to be well attended - I did not have a particular aim in going around the stands, just looking for various bits and pieces as always. Leven were there with their lovely 6mm castings, and I bought one as usual, even though I am not actively gaming this scale right now. What I am doing is building up a 28mm city collection for Pulp and similar encounters, so I picked up an mdf Tenement building from Warbases, which will fill some space nicely. I also picked up a plastic Ramshackle Barn from Renedra - it won't quite fit into my city but I fancied covering it with weathering and plant growth, and it will serve in quite a few scenarios, Pulp and also Old West. Other than that a few paints and bits and pieces of scenery. A nice quiet day out.