Salute 2019

The more or less annual pilgrimage to Salute yesterday. Overall impressions were that big games were (as ever) fewer on the ground - struck me that there were few tables bigger than Nick and I could put on (although a lot better terrain and figures) and no real stand-out set pieces. Also quite a few empty tables (no shows?), and bored looking wargamers by static tables with no information (WHY?!) That said a few tables did turn to chat if I looked for more than a few seconds which was great to see. Trying to get close to retailers before lunch was impossible, to tempted next year to do games first and buying in the afternoon (instead of recce first then buying, and no time to game). My mistake was to have a big shopping list, some of which I could (should) have pre-ordered, so I could spend more time just hunting out oddities for clutter which was my real aim.

Games

Game-wise, these are the tables that caught my eye - attribution where I remember to note it or could work it out from the guide, apologies if any are wrong.

A nice Lace Wars game

Detail from above

Nice Japanese paddy fields - Ardhammer 1937 2nd Sino-Japanese

Nice urban game with good use of a terrain mat

Stunning Moonbase/Moongrunt game, complete with UFO Interceptors

The game was by South London Warlords themselves

The terrain mat was apparently a Mars mat recast in grey

Nicely done "empty" battlefield, think this was the BGCIV game

Really big (6") hex mat, with oversize hills. C&C I think, looked a mess.

Nice 10mm game (I think)

Ligny using General d'Armee. At least this game was being fought. Loughton Strike Force.

Battle of Bauge, 1421 by Lance & Longbow Society

Lutzen 1632 by the Friends of General Haig

Mmm, nice mass of guys about to get hit by airpower, but the aircraft stands were over-bearing

One of the few nice (coastal) set-pieces, Gringo 40's Mexicans

Lovely Burrows and Badgers game - shows Critters don't just to have to be in space!

Detail from Burrows and Badgers

A Brexit themed game!

Weird looking but nice animal aliens battle  - Dark Sphere, Mushroom to Play!

Hornchurch Wargames Club - BGC4 demo game, nice chat with the guys

Battle of Mohi, 1241 Wyvern/12mm Kallistra - always looks good

Nice Skirmish Sangin game

Good looking ISO containers in the same game

Another view of the Skirmish Sangin game

Things to Buy Later

Things  I spotted but didn't buy now but may get in the future:

Lovely 28mm modern Brits from White Dragon/Courage in Contact - will buy once Ultracombat arrives

More of the same, and a Foxhound in the background

Nice Hesco blocks, oil drums, pipes and other industrial clutter from Tablescapes

Cheap 4 pack of ISO Containers from MicroArtStudios

Affordable dropship/VTOL from Brigade Models

Warbases cracking coke-can conversion kit for industrial silos!

Think Sgts Mess or Reiver Castings also had some nice 28mm industrial ground level pipe networks.

Purchases

Hexon - another full box of hexes and some A1 and C1 slopes. Plain green as I want to turn a lot of these into fields, oblong, straddling two hex units, so as to break up the hex look a bit more. Had a brief chat with Sally about borrowing/hiring some hexes for the big Waterloo game in 2021 - we'll see.

Tumbling Dice -  Units of WOTR handgunners, levy bow and Currors for my next WOTR painting batch.

Timecast - First of the new era/scale/theatre tracks with roughly a platoon of 10mm 1984 BAOR and Soviets, plus a BMP and Scimitar. These are meant to just be a test purchase to see if a I like the scale, which as I think I've mooted here before could be my new scale of choice for some games. Whilst 6mm is great for big mechanised battles the infantry is too small to make out, so if doing combined arms at Coy-Bn-Bde level then 10mm could be just right. The display models looked ace, can't wait to get them on the table and try them out with CWO. Also got the Sabre Squadron rules, heard  lot about them and the Timecast guys like them. Doubt I'll prefer them over CWO but always good to see what's out there.

GZG/Brigade - I loved the Moongrunt figures when I saw them last year, so this year I succombed and bought about a section each of US and Chinese. Although the Brits are meant to be "Gerry Anderson" style I like the bigger backpacks of the US figures - makes them far more "now" rather than just regular SF.

Picked up a couple of domes to go with them from Brigade. Aim to pick up a small moon mat at Games Expo, and realise now I should have picked up some craters - but should be able to do those with DAS. Doubt I can reach the heights of the Moonbase game above though.

Sally 4th/Albedo -  The APCs look better in the flesh than in the photos, but for now contented myself with some otter/beret Confed Homeguard. Looking forward to the Boarding Action Kickstart in the Autumn to get some bunnies in spacesuits!

Roads/Rivers - I'm still trying to find the best road/river option. My felt roads work tolerably well for 6mm. The Hexon roads/rivers need a bit of roughing up and whilst the rivers are good for unfordable ones they are no good for streams/linear obstacles. And most of my rules ignore battlefield roads for pre-mech so don't really need the hex format. Spent some time (not enough) looking at what other people were using. For roads just MDF/ply with DAS surface, painted brown with flocked edges seemed common and did the trick, so ought to do those myself. Rivers need to be a bit more irregular. Adrian gave me some latex ones ages ago which were about right, but a bit too curvy for hex, but turns out Timecast does a nice range, all fairly straight with a variety of sizes, curves and fords, and only £5 for 2 foot. So picked up a set to play with. Could be ideal. Might get some of their latex fields too.

Then its on to all the clutter that was meant to be the focus of the buying:

6mm - Some mine markers from The Square (already have some, wanted more but didn't realise it was The Square they came from! Some "barbed wire" from Northumbrian Painting Services /Reiver Castings (£1 for 1m!). Three "Barrack Huts" in MDF from Blotz, which can also do duty as farm/industrial buildings (see undersize for 6mm but that's fine by me).

15mm - 3-4 more desert houses from The Square. Just love the stuff those guys go, cheap but great designs. Pity they didn't have any more walls though, time for more foamboard and DAS!

20mm - A field water trough and some dead cows (!) from Sgts Mess (Napoleonic memoires seem always full of dead cows). A smart town stone water trough and set of gabions from The Square (again). A "thing" - looks more like sandbags piled in a circle around a heap of dirt, but should paint up as a nice stone "thing".

28mm -  A vertical wind turbine thing and a skip from Blotz (my monthly 28mm clutter purchase). Four pylony "things" (they were in the mishapes!) from  Zantric (?) which should look great in orange, and two bags from the same people of what look like big breeze blocks (again mishapes) - £3 for the 3 bags!

Final bits were some round MDF bases to put some of this stuff on, some smaller ones as a way to the markers for CWO and other games (can never find the combination I need for pre-printed ones), some yellow grass tufts to decorate bases, and some blank red and green D6s for my new "DM" dice - more later.

So a pretty big haul for me, but lots at just £1-3 a time. Now on to the painting!