Hi all
First of all, my apologies for a lack of post this Wednesday. I'm sure you have noticed a downward trend in the number of posts I'm managing to put out there at the moment, from 3 posts a week to now just about 1! It's not that my enthusiasm is diminished in any way, just my opportunity... Real life has a way of interfering and the new job role is a bit all consuming at the mo. By the same token please don't think my lack of comment on your own blogs is a personal slight. I normally manage to catch up with my faves during call outs and night shifts but have little time to leave even small comments, rest assured I am continuing to read and be inspired by your individual journeys through our awesome hobby.
Does this mean I'm not getting any hobby time at all? Not at all, thank goodness!! I'm actually gaming as much as I can, shifts permitting. I try to get at least one board gaming session a week, sometimes two. I'm still cracking on with my Stuffed Fables commission, albeit a little slowly. I'm also currently designing and building a miniatures based board game which I hope to show you guys really soon.
Anyway, this weekend I managed to crack a little time in the schedule to make my now annual pilgrimage to Salute. Sadly I was lacking one of my favourite nerds (Nerd 4 Life), but still this year was my favorite in some time, this was for two reasons and it might fly in the face of popular opinion. The first was I only spent about £70. This is a lot less than I normally spend and I did have a reasonable budget of about £250 but, and here's the real reason I loved this year - I played a lot more games! Yes there we have it! I played some actual games rather than go on a big shopping spree. This wasn't because there wasn't the usual array of shiny stuff pulling my attention (Mierce Miniatures, I'm looking at you!), although there were a lot less traders, or so it seemed. But instead there were a lot more demo and participation games and that to me made the day really special. On that subject I played Darklands and boy oh boy is that a nice game, really gorgeous minis and a great mechanic, with loads of dice rolling...
Second reason, I bought me a dragon! Oh yeah I bloody well did. That total git and all round really lovely guy Dave Stone sculpts literally the nicest dragons and every year I just about manage to walk away without a dragon and a ton of regret. Not this time, this time I broke, this time I walked away with this bad boy...
I very nearly broke again and got the new Wyvern, that he's sculpted, which is absolutely stonking, I kid you not, it is beautiful. But I had to go Oriental Dragon, well I think you know why...
Anyway here are some of the games I saw, not even a third of what was there, as always I've no recollection of who made them.
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| ACW - look at that Ironclad!! |
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| nope, no idea but what a board! |
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| Jess plays "Swiss Family Robinson" we tried to storm the beach with our pirate crews! |
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| Band of Brothers, this was just a beautiful board |
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| Fallout! the game, not bad but I wasn't sold on the game |
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| Darklands, beautiful board and minis |
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| more Darklands, I played the massive Brute, wiping the floor with the werewovles |
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| Jess mourns the splatting of her halfling wrestler |
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| Rumbleslam |
All in all a good day, my only regret was not spending more time with Dave and Jez and getting in a game or two of Death Match! but when I managed to get over to them they were busy. I hope they had as good a day as I did!
hope you enjoy
dGG
I started my blog intending to post twice a week - and for a while I managed that, too. But real life is more important; once a week (or even less) is more realistic for most people, I think.
ReplyDeleteIs something up with the photos in this article? I'm just seeing blank frames with a grey "stop" sign for those in the first third of the page.
I can see the pics mate, I don't know what's going on.
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DeleteI'm having the same issue as Colgar6 has.
DeleteWas great to see you Andy, and would have been great to have a game with you, hope your enjoying the dragon, and email me if you need any help or advice mate. ( also can't see the pictures on the first third)
ReplyDeletemany thanks for my pressie too mate, as ever I'm very grateful
DeleteYou are most welcome bud
DeleteWonderful pictures (except the first ones!), love the ruined temple, so impressive!
ReplyDeletecheers dude. The ruined Temple was my fave too
DeleteThose "nope, no idea but what a board!" pics are of the "Wild West Exodus" set-up which 'forced' me to buy my alien minis, Andy. So glad it caught your eye too :-)
ReplyDeleteah yeah! it was right by the stall, makes sense now....
DeleteThose first five 'mystery photos' are a bit of a tease Andy - especially when the associated text refers to more "Stuffed Fables" painting, gaming, and a Dragon! ;-)
ReplyDeleteExcellent pic's from Salute, and a virtual reality glimpse of the show for us poor souls who couldn't attend for whatever reason - many thanks :-)
As for the number of posts, don't worry mate, we ALL know that 'real life' takes priority and we all just blog when we can. I can assure you that your own posts are gratefully received at whatever frequency!
hahaha they were all Stuffed Fables and some of my best work if I do say so myself....sorry Greg
DeleteOh well I guess I don't need to mention the first pic's issue then, at least it's nopt just me :-)
ReplyDeleteLooks like you had a blast at Salute, which is a pity as I hoped you would all have a rubbish time, to make me feel better about not going!! ;-)
As usual there were some stunning games there by the looks of it.
Cheers Roger.
Salute was really good Roger, sorry... ;-P
DeleteSadly I can't see the first photographs Andy. Somehow I missed the fact that you were attending this year, sorry to have missed you.
ReplyDeletesorry Michael, I didn't make the Blogger meet either..
DeleteIt's a sad fact that real life takes precedence over our hobby time but you're still here so that's good enough for me.
ReplyDeleteI am still here Bryan, reading my faves as always
DeleteSome great games by the look of it, it's good to have a few roving reporters go there to let us know what we missed.
ReplyDeleteCheers
I played some really fun games Jon, great efforts by the demonstrators this year
DeleteGood games. I to have the photo issues mostly at the top. I think the no idea game was WWX a weird west type game.
ReplyDeleteExodus as it turns out ;-P
DeleteDon't you just hate it when real-life gets in the way of more important hobby related activities?
ReplyDeleteSounds like you had a good day out at Salute (seems views on this year's Salute varied greatly) and the quality of games hasn't diminished.
I wouldn't worry about your blogging output either, I can't keep up with the dozen or so blogs I comment on when they're posting more than once a week and bloggers all know that keeping to a strict timetable of posts is difficult even given the best of circumstances.
cheers Joe, just finding it difficult to keep up with my own blogging. The new job role is very demanding
DeleteI have to agree that there were so very nice display and demonstration tables on show this year, most of which I only got the briefest look at.
ReplyDeleteI know Crooked Dice were running a 7TV turtles game, which I'm surprised you didn't take part in and I thought 20th 'zombies invade Salute" game looked a lot of fun.
The display/demo board of TT Combat's Venetian kits was also eye-catching and I was tempted by their tower, as it would make an ideal 'Dark Tower' for Blackwell, although it would have dominated my table!
The boards for the new skirmish game 'The Drowned Earth' were also very nice, as were the models, but slightly out of my price bracket.
Cool pics, although some I can't see. Looks like you had a great day!
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