Salute 52

 hi all,

This weekend me and Rich (my gaming buddy who has featured on the blog before) went to Salute 52, the largest wargaming show in the UK (as far as i know). This is the first time I've been to this massive show, held at the Excel centre in London, since Covid and I was super excited about it. I did take a load of pics but for the life of me I can't remember who did what, and to be fair other blogs will be better placed to do so. Suffice to say, the standard of the demo games was excellent. I managed to get a demo game of Carnevale, which was so useful as I've started to paint the models for this game that I got at xmas - more of that to come soon. 

Rich and I in the queue before the gates opened

just a small part of the queue

Sadly, I missed the bloggers meet up, held at 1pm as I was absolutely knackered and faded out. However, I did manage to get the new edition of Burrows and Badgers after getting into the queue for the Oathsworn stall. It was arguably the most popular stand with a queue that went out of the hall, and I'm so happy for Michael and Jo Lovejoy for their successful launch. I'm really looking forward to doing a narrative campaign using the system soon. I also managed to snag a cheap Bolt Action 3rd ed book, as well as a Deep Cut Studio Malifaux gaming mat, which has the deployment zones marked on it.

hope you enjoy

dGG

Apologies and Post Salute

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. 

ACW - look at that Ironclad!!

nope, no idea but what a board!

Jess plays "Swiss Family Robinson" we tried to storm the beach with our pirate crews!

Band of Brothers, this was just a beautiful board

Fallout! the game, not bad but I wasn't sold on the game

Darklands, beautiful board and minis

more Darklands, I played the massive Brute, wiping the floor with the werewovles

Jess mourns the splatting of her halfling wrestler

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

Yuuki and co

hi all

more purchases from Salute! for you today.  These guys were on the shopping list and are most likely going to be straight into my Temple warband for next year's Masters.  Yes that's right, despite my mediocre performance in the last tourney i'm going to put my name forward to compete in the national competition next year.  Determined to give myself the best chance I'm going to take my beloved Temple of Ro-Kan faction and I'm going to be trying out loads of different combos in order to find the right synergy, a future post will go through other potential choices and my reasoning behind them .  Yuuki will certainly be in contention, with the kami a possibility.  To the miniatures then...

Yuuki’s quickly found the name of the wind, where others hear only whistle and whisper. Yuuki hears the chatter of excited and boundless Kami. She is an able warrior and much like her element; rarely still, in play she is light and airy like a summer breeze but when called upon in battle she is a direct and relentless howling gale. Her vitality is endless and her speed astounding, her body a blur of motion as she unleashes blow after blow, an unstoppable storm of Rokan’s fury personified.

Yuuki is a lovely cheap(ish) monk who can fulfill quite a few roles in the warband.

First up, she's quick! yes her move is the basic 4 but she is "light footed" meaning she is unaffected by terrain.  She has "jump up" meaning she won't stay prone and most importantly she as an extra 1" move at the beginning of the turn meaning she can flit out of melee if it's going a bit south or get closer to an idol etc...  The main reason for getting her however is the "Vitality" Ki feat, getting that extra activation is absolutely vital at times.

modelling wise I decided to add a resin tortoise to her base courtesy of Ben Calvert-Lee's Master Crafted Miniatures, I think it just adds something fun to the mini.

base colours with the Kami too

shading

finished

you'll notice (i'm sure) that I didn't follow the painting from the website, in that I haven't tried to depict her foot moving so swiftly and channeling the wind.  Firstly I haven't got the painting skill and it would look really poor if I attempted it.  Secondly, I just don't like it!

Next is the second model from Salute! The Kami of Reflection....

The Kami of Reflection is a beautiful if alien spirit. The icy tendrils that form its mortal realisation are hard as diamond but brittle as glass. As it moves the light from Amaratsu flows through its body, deflecting the energy of friend or enemy to prevent rituals and prayers alike.

not only can I use this model for the Temple faction but also for the Jung and Tengu too! I think this is kami of the void, one of the 6 elements of Japanese mythology. This has not been confirmed by GCT so is just a guess on my part.

Use wise, this creature should be fairly handy to have knocking around.  Unlike the other Kami he doesn't provide boosts to friendly models stats but instead protects them from psychic intrusion/attack, albeit at the expense of itself.  Seeing as I often have a member of my warband under psychic domination when I face warbands like the Savage Wave, this could prove to be pivotal.

Paintwise, its probably not apparent from my awful photography, but I used Gloss Varnish for the first time in years to bring a bit of shine to the crystalline body of the Kami.

hope you enjoy

dGG

Post Salute post

Hi all

I'm writing this post at a first aid station lining the London Marathon route (as a first aider I assure you) and it's a bit of an extra post today as I plan on posting as normal tomorrow.  As most of you will know the biggest wargames show in the UK was hosted yesterday by the South London Warlords Gaming Group - Salute! 2017.  This massive endeavour is a highlight in the Nerding year for me as I get to speak to loads of like minded people - traders, enthusiasts, demonstrators and this year to add to the fun - bloggers!!

Yes, to my utter delight I met some of the writers of some of my favourite blogs! Jez from carrion crow buffet stalked me through the gates....lol. I'm glad he did though as we had a lovely chat and he was the able to introduce me to some of the other bloggers at the 1pm meet. Michael from 28mm Victorian Warfare and Simon from Fantorical were snagged into a photo with yours truly by Jez and they put me to shame with their fancy waistcoats, although we did sport similar hairstyles........

To the obligatory pics then, first Rich "N4L" Gates stole my iPad and took a selfie....

next up the proper pic of the Nerd herd in the queue.  from L-R Rich "N4L" Gates, Alex "Lexie" Nash, Andy "da Gobbo" Nash, Connor (rear), Damon "Rulez" Carlton and Chris "Naps" Thorne.

So to the demos then, i'm not sure of them all as I was in a bit of a daze, trying to fit them all in.

not sure what this was, i think French Indian Wars?

28mm modern conflict?

The Walking Dead demo

Frostgrave

Jurassic Park, just lovely

Infinity the game - this board was imho the best of the lot!

So to my swag then!  First up I hit the GCT stand for a shopping list load of Bushido minis that are show exclusive and/or brand new to bolster my many factions as well as purchasing a whole new faction which I will be showcasing once I get started on them (in 6 months.....).  I also picked up my copy of the GCT resources board game - The Pioneer Project.  Recently released following a successful KS programme, i'm looking forward to a romp in the post apocalyptic world.  I may have blown the budget in the first ten minutes....

Next up was some Reaper Bones models to help populate my new D&D project - some Kobolds and a couple of Heroes.  Then over to Ben at Master Crafted Miniatures to patronise his growing establishment :-).  Ben is doing some astonishingly good work designing new minis for upcoming ranges, for Bushido and for his own line of terrain and other stuff!  I got some tortoises (yes that's right!) which will populate either terrain or my Temple of Ro-Kan bases, some flying birds and toads. After that I sought out Dave Stone of Wargames Terrain Workshop where I picked up some amazing pieces which you have to see (when I paint them) to believe them.  In the flesh they are brilliant, although Dave will say himself that his photos on his website don't do the models justice (this is true, his models are outstanding!).  After that I picked up a cheap copy of the Walking Dead Starter game as well as a bargain Team Yankee armoured strike force and some amazing Hasslefree minis.  the photo below shows the extent of the haul, what it doesn't show is the distressed state of my wallet, which has declared itself a disaster zone....

anyway I'll leave it there and you'll see the close ups of the swag as and when it is table ready.  A cracking day had by all, see you next year!

dGG