Salute 2012

Another month, another post...

Mid April saw me head up to London and Salute, probably the biggest wargames show in Europe.   As a one day show it's more of a shopping and networking thing than the chance to play, and with my hearing aid I find the general level of background 'white noise" such that it would be fairly uncomfortable to play games.    This year things were made even harder by my bad back from the week previously.  Fortunately my nice chum Andy took one look at me on the Friday and decided that he would drive to Salute on Saturday rather than use public transport, which meant no German beer for him in the evening...

I had an OK show - saw and chatted with a couple of friends.  The demo/participation games failed to make much of an impression on me for the most part, possibly because the best ones seemed to be repeats.  Notable exception must go the VBCW boys from the Gentleman wargames parlour.

For photo blog reports then Joe Dever does it much better than me.  

http://ilovewargameing.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=4000

And what did I come home with from Salute:

From the nice man at the relaunched Ainsty Castings the temple dogs and some cemetary gates (essentially pillars with brass gates).  Scots dice for SAGA from Gripping Beast along with Harold Godwinson, and some Jomsvikings.   Measuring sticks (for SAGA essentially) from Products for wargamers although having used them on the Sunday I'm now thinking if i should have bought the slightly more expensive "patterned" finish ones, rather than the smooth ones as they might provide a better grip.  

Next up is a MDF Viking wooden tent from Warbases and a MDF Roman Ox Cart from 4Ground.  Lots of MDF scenery on show from various people, and I've seen some other stuff later in Exeter.   Samurai Bunnies from Eureka miniatures and some plastic Ashigaru spearmen from Wargames Factory although I think mine were bought off the Gripping Beast stand. 

Last item was a copy of Flashing Steel from Ganesha Games although mine came from the Ainsty Stand.  I'm a long time 3 Musketeers fan so this was not a hard sell, and I'd been meaning to investigate Ganesha games because of their Arthurian Song of blades and heroes.   I've read through it a couple of times now and it seems a reasonably solid Skirmish with RPG elements (e.g. skills) type game, even if I was disappointed that the stats within the book are for Pirates rather than the Musketeers.  A post on the forum is to the effect that this is to avoid stifling creativity but I still feel that some benchmarks and ideas would be nice, especially given the title.   

On the Sunday I got out to Berkhamsted castle - again without camera but with stick.  Textbook motte and bailey castle that history seems to pass by after the the 14th century, although it lingers on into the 15th as a bit of sideshow.  English heritage also have a site.  

Chris  

Pirates

Firstly there is an arcane art in getting good photos of miniatures, and one at which I need to do some work.  The short answer comes down to getting out the tripod and setting a focal distance to give a good depth of field (and slower shutter speed, which means the tripod is necessary).  These are all handheld shots.  So apologies for quality but I wanted to post sooner rather than later.

Until a while ago I would never have bought pre-painted figures.  A combination of circumstances, time vs money, lack of skill and a need for quality models for demo purposes have altered that.  These were all painted by my chum John Csonka in Hungary - some were commissioned and some were presents.  The deal is normally modelling goods, figures, paints etc in return for painted figures as John can't just nip out and buy stuff in Hungary, or get much stuff at shows or mail order it easily.   As always I understand that Games Workshop is all pervasive.   John also has that skill of producing figures that "look good" when viewed - possibly its colour choice, possibly its painting technique.

The story behind these figures is that I wanted Pirate Captains (with a view to running Legend of the High Seas, although Cutlass has now also come onto the market) at the local club and I wanted different colours - so a yellow captain, red captain etc...

All the Pirate Captains

Top row in detail

Bottom row in detail

Here comes the Navy

Pirate Girls

Milady and some scurvy scum

Specialists

It's here and its good...

It arrived on Saturday morning and on the quick read through so far its very good value and an excellent addition.  Four new boards, which are all very different, and which are also very different from the first four.  Lots of spice and more different play styles.  

From the Gripping beast pages... 

SAGA Northern Fury
"They came from the North spreading terror before them and leaving desolation in their path"
Studio Tomahawk and Gripping Beast Publications are proud to announce a new supplement for SAGA!

Due 1st quarter of 2012, Northern Fury will give you 4 new factions to lead into battle, and contains the Battleboards and rules needed to play these warbands. It also has new Heroes of Viking Age for these factions plus a specially designed multi player scenario which will allow you to form allegiances and vanquish your enemies.

The new factions in the Northern Fury supplement are:-
The Bretons - These warriors fought on horseback using javelins and hit and run tactics to disrupt their enemies before dealing that killer blow
The Jomsvikings - Pagan warriors who's wrath and ferocity was legendry, historians still argue about their existence, but now you can field them in your games
The Scots - Descendants of the Irish migrants established on the western coasts of Caledonia, the Scots whose spears invited death to all who came near
The Anglo-Saxons - Sons of Ælfred the Great, they were known for courage and tenacity in battle, the Vikings feared them and rightly so, at the Battle of Brunanburh the seeds of England were sown

Alongside this publication we will be releasing new ranges of Bretons and Jomsvikings miniatures as well as a host of new "Heroes of the Viking age" to complement the factions to date.

Robots for £1

No point having a blog if I don't post the bargains I've found on it...

Today's bargains from Poundland were some Robots..  I'm not a Warhammer 40K gamer, but do hanker after SF and Cyberpunk RPG, and have got a couple of Science Fiction Miniatures skirmish sets.   Faction Wars from Fire and Forget games, which desperately needs some rules for vehicles, the free Chain Reaction 3 from two hour wargames, Void (aka Urban War) from Urban Mammoth and had been thinking of Tomorrow’s War from Osprey.   I'm much more a Total Recall, Bladerunner, Battlestar Galactica, and Firefly movie fan than Space Marines and Starship Troopers.  

A large box from the Walle movie of some years ago, and then some "Androidyz" which might be American aimed at the Italianmarket which arrive to Poundland via Russia... The Walle box was hard to see what you actually got aside from a picture and a description, whilst the Androydz were fairly easy.  

Close up of an Androidyz in packaging.  Per the flyer that comes with them then there were 24 different models.  Mixture of ones with weapons, to buzz saws etc.   I got "Night Shield" which has a stick, shield and gun - so can be some sort of security robot, and "Scuba Miner" which has a drill and claw for use as an industrial robot.   

Out of the box with some Games Workshop figures for scale comparison.   The Walle stuff as one might expect from a disney licensed product is the most sturdy and is part of a playset - the blue robot has a winching crane hook activated by turning the arms.  The Androydz have a metal wheeled chassis, plastic uppers and arms that move  at the shoulders.   All likely to benefit from a respray and repaint.   The mining robot is probably my favourite at the moment - might see about getting another one or two of the "engineering' style so that I can stencil numbers on them for a consistent workforce theme after the respray.  

The Dutch in 1940

Every so often I will come across a topic about which I know very little and use the power of the internet to research the answers.

Some of January disappeared in one such item – namely the Dutch in 1940.  My Dutch chum Jan had talked of the Black devils and paratroops and Holland wasn’t the walkover its lack of mention or time would suggest.  My knowledge on this was very poor – at least with Belgium I knew about the landings on Eben-Emael and the deployment of Brandenburgers (and how wearing an enemy uniform over your own but removing it before firing was within ‘acceptable” rules of war, dating back to Napoleonic periods and ships flying various nations flags…) but Holland ?  Nada, except that the Dutch resistance HQ in London was at De Hems which is one of my favourite drinking holes in the capital. 

The internet of course is your friend here..

http://www.waroverholland.nl/

Black devils is a reference to Dutch Marines at Rotterdam:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_Marine_Corps

http://www.dutchmarines.com/History.html  

Re-enactor pictures here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/battle14/with/4609568630/

And was Holland the straw that broke the camel’s back ? 

http://www.waroverholland.nl/index.php?page=had-it-been-worth-the-sacrifices

Which then set me thinking about making Dutch Tram for use here, as well as in VBCW which has been on the back burner for a while.  

One ebay purchase later and we have some inspiration. 

I think if I take the roof off, remove the stairs, and give it a new roof and a repaint then it will do as a stand in for a single decker tram in 28mm scale.  

SAGA - dice

One set of rules that I have recently taken a shine to is SAGA from Gripping Beast which is miniatures plus dice on a battleboard.   Starter armies (4pts) are perhaps 30-35 figures, whilst the full 6 pts will put it up to 50-60 figures probably, so not an impossible task to paint.  Plus I can reuse my existing armies as well.
The game as sold uses special dice (although ordinary d6 can be substituted) with symbols on each face.    At £12 a set though its a fairly expensive option but the nice boys at Gripping Beast have made the symbols available so you can print your own and stick them onto blank dice.   So, a favour from a chum and I've got them onto laser label (self adhesive) sheets to give that a try.  Results as below.

This is the labels as they came out.  The square design soon proved difficult to fit on the dice that I had because of rounded corners and I resorted after the first dice to trimming the corners on the labels.  

This is a set of my dice - bottom white (Anglo Danish) contrasted with official dice from Gripping Beast (Vikings at top, Normans in the middle).  So far the idea seems good.  

The white dice worked OK, but the Green and Blue dice were going to be too dark for the black design.   Trimming off all the corners was starting to get to me as well - better to ask for another sheet from my chum with say octagon borders rather than squares and slight smaller, and in say a brighter colour - yellow or pink.   A web search came up with another supplier of blank dice without the same style of rounded corner and in brighter colours.  So, Purple (will still need yellow but seems appropriate for say Byzantines), Pink, Yellow and Lime Green.  

Original Beast dice contrasted in size with the new ones in detail.  

Fitting them onto a battle board.  The bigger dice do take up more space but not so much as to totally hide all the text.  

 

In the beginning

So, no painting done for a couple of days but I unwrapped and set up the portable/folding studio that will be the basis for taking pictures of bits and pieces and possibly even photos to sell some stuff (unpainted and unopened GW blisters or promo figures) on Ebay.