Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Salute 2013

Just one (used without permission from a forum) picture of the show as others already posted hundreds of quality pictures. 

As I'm staring in disbelief at last Saturday's purchases I'm trying to decide what to unpack first and worse, what to start painting next.
We (Rob, Jacco and me) had a great weekend again. A fine show and far busier than other years. Demo games were good overall with some fantastic displays but also a few tables rather poor in quality and presentation.  My feeling is though (can't prove it with stats or anything) that fantasy is taking over very slowly. Each year fantasy traders and games seem to occupy a bit more floor space. Now I can live with a bit of steampunk or an ocassional sci-fi game but all this, warmachine, warhammer, warmahordes, warwhatever is not the thing I'm travelling to London for. Hope I'ts just me or I was walking circles at the wrong area of the venue.
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Is fantasy very slowly taking over? Look at that Dreadball, Kings of War
Traders were off course well represented and it was nice speaking to them and seeing some of their miniatures in the flesh. One of the downsides of the internet really is that there are no surprises anymore at a wargame show. We can now follow the complete miniature birth from sketch to metal, examine 3-ups or bid on one of the 100's of kickstarters and what not. Can be fun at home but it takes away a part of the excitement of visiting the traders.
But that brings me to my first buy of the day. A not yet released (will be very soon) unit of French Dragoons by Offensive Minatures, lovely minis and a great addition to my French collection.
While at the Offensive booth I was so pleased with this surprise that I also bought their US Airborne figures. Not that I already painted a platoon years ago, but they looked awesome and I wanted to be over-prepared for the release of Chain of Command this summer.




my US Airborne calling for reinforcements

















Other cool purchases included the Dead Man's Hand old west rules with their miniatures. The old west is one of my top favorite periods and I've been collecting and painting this for years. I've bought one of the pre-painted old west buildings as well to see if it would fit my collection that's a mix of my own painted buildings and Paul Darnell's work. Judge for yourself.

Paul's Hardware store
Building 1 DMH
My own Saloon
I must say I like the DMH building and if you would use only their buildings they should be very effective in their own style. Think I need to repaint some of it to blend them into my town.  Boardwalks are very nicely done and the picture doesn't do them justice really. They are not that far off my own boardwalks in terms of colour. I've assembled the building in about two hours and I was delighted that all parts just fitted 100%. Never did a laser cut building before but it was easy. Great Escape Games have big plans for this range with 24 buildings, interiors and even wallpapers if you really want to go nuts on these.

Staying in the Old West theme I also bought the train from Redoubt. As I wanted the train to actually get paint on it I've asked Ray and Postie from Battleaxe Painting Service to paint it for me. So you can expect some pictures from the train in the future at Ray's place.

Don't hurry Ray, the guys in the station house have enough entertainment for now

Another highlight of Salute was the blogger meetup at the Big Red Dot. Always good to see digital friends in person. I feel I could easily spend the day just chatting with all of you and order the goodies online later.
We've also had a fantastic time at the pre-Salute drinks @TheFox. While last year we had the privilege to spent the evening with Curt and Dallas from Canada now we had a great time with the guys from 'Club Landwehr'  from Malaga, Spain. There were quite a few of them and we certainly enjoyed the chats, laughter and beers.
Carlos, Francisco: "To your painting award!"

Rob, Carlos, Jacco and Francisco

16 comments:

  1. Nice pics and the Old West is a fun period and one I've been meaning to back to. Really like the Saloon you did!! Hopefully I'll attend one of these days to meet everyone.

    Christopher

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  2. Very nice Salute AAR Michael !

    Impressive Saloon building, extra credit for the name of the joint:)

    Looking forward to hear your thoughts of the new Dead Man's Hand old west rules.

    Best regards Michael

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  3. Super pictures, Mike (and especially the first one!!) It was great to see you and Rob. I like the saloon and the train's going to be excellent, I'm sure! Catch up soon, in Antwerp!!

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  4. Nice Salute pics Mike and great to see you again.

    Old West. Hmmm, must....resist....too....many....projects....already...! ;)

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  5. Very nice, thanks for sharing! The saloon is great!

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  6. The saloon is tops Mike! Great photos, thanks.

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  7. A pleasure as always Mike, a true Reject!

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  8. Glad you enjoyed the blogger meet-up, it was good to put faces to names.

    There were quite a few fantasy games at this years show, but I think most of them were small trader run demo or participation games to promote their products. Most of the larger 'club' games were historical in nature with only a few notable exceptions. This is a totally unscientific judgement based on my gut impression of the day but that's how it seems to me on reflection.

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  9. Lovely to finally have the opportunity to meet up and put a face to the name; can't wait to see some of those lovely goodies be unpacked.

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  10. Lucky bas###d!!!! :-)
    I went last year and it was great, but from the comments that I read in different blogs, Salute 2013 was clearly superior to all. Thanks for sharing trhe comments and photos and hope to see you in 2014 at Excel

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  11. Very nice AAR. A lot of really good people there, I can see.

    Your Old West building collection is very nice. I have also bought DMH, and I think it can be a very good ruleset.

    Cheers!

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  12. Nice one Mike, you did look a little, shall we say tired??? when we saw you at the show, was that Club Lanwher's fault?

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  13. Likewise, looking forward to Chain of Command and bought a few extra American Para's to finish off a platoon.
    Cheers,
    Pat.

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  14. The wild west settings looks very cool. Love that card game scene.
    cheers

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