This was Salute 53!

Screencap of me in Miniature Adventures Salute 53 video

On Saturday 11 April I attended Salute in London. This is the UK's (and perhaps the world's) largest one-day wargames show and it did not disappoint, although it felt much different than the last Salute I attended way back in 2012. I will explain.

 

As usual Salute was held at the London Excel. This is a huge venue located in the Docklands, one loop of the Thames east of Canary Wharf, so not exactly central. But it's fine because there are lots of decent hotels there. I stayed at the Moxy, a Marriott property, which was an easy walk to Excel, not particularly expensive (for London), and featured a free welcome cocktail and breakfasts. I recommend it highly.

 

The show itself opened at 10am (well, just before 10 in reality) and I got there early to join the queue. It's increasingly important to be on time because there are 5,000 welcome bags but apparently attendance was over 7,500, a record for Salute. The welcome bags contained a variety of goodies but most importantly, a program/guide magazine and the official Salute miniature - an injection-molded 28mm mounted Saladin. Nice! There were also random people handing out flyers in the lineup, one of which was a Forgeworld-style small catalog from Zinge Industries, a bits seller that I ended up buying some stuff from at the show.

On to the games. There were a TON of display and participation games and I've taken pictures of some of the ones that really caught my eye. Above is a Barons' War game, if I recall correctly this was at the Wargames Atlantic stand. That company is super-into Barons' War and is making some great figures for the period.

Moonstone - this one is for Mr. Curt ;-)

This was a big 20mm WW2 game - Warwick Kinrade's I think. Really a fantastic looking table and I think it won an award.

"Paint me like one of your Space Marines" - this cracked me up. Random booth selling brushes. I should've bought that.

This was cool too, a 40K Titan game. Lots of neat models, many with LEDs and plush "mascots" (!) 

Some TTS action here, this was a massive and good-looking ECW game.

One for Conscript Greg here, a Franco-Prussian War game using mostly new 3D-printed figures. Did I get closeups of the models? Of course not! Sorry Greg :-(

This game got talked about a bit and not only for the silly name. It's WW2 naval combat and looked good.

This was cute. I remarked to the people running it that it looked like Formula De and they said yeah, it's Formula De but with witches riding broomsticks. That's fair.

Forbidden Psalm wackos out in force!

Here's one from the Lard Zone, a 16-player What a Tanker! game with some really spectacular terrain. Not sure how well WAT runs with so many players but the table looked amazing.

More from the Lard Zone. The guys put on some fantastic looking games.

Now here's a throwback, 3rd edition 40K, pre-Heresy Death Guard vs. Orks. Makes me feel better about my obsession with 5th edition.

One of the few things I bought at the show was a copy of Battleground HD, a modern skirmish ruleset for Cold War gaming. I'd emailed with Simon before the show and arranged to meet there. Top chap and he plays in a punk band. He told me Topper Headon was a mate of his and a really nice guy. If you know who I'm talking about you're just the kind of person who I welcome as a reader of the blog.

  

Oh here's my buddy Paul Hicks (second from left) on a panel talking about non-combatants in miniature wargames. The two at right are Crooked Dice/7TV maven Karl Pelotton and ex-GW and current Grey-for-Now Games operator Graham Davey. The others are Ben Rose (Apocrypha Now) and Tara Dillenburger-Keenan (Mangling Minis). The panel was pretty good but I had to get the audience participation started with a softball for Paul. The questions picked up after that!

Here's an Aeronautica Imperialis game - the aircraft above and the table below. It looked really good.

Massive D-Day game, this one was really special. Sword Beach, put on by the Milton Hundred Wargames Club.

Here's a small-scale Hoth game that looked nice.

Friend of the Conscripts and Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge participant Ken R (the Yarkshire Gamer) staged a huge Italian Wars game that looked incredible.

He won an award for it too!

There was a painting competition but it was so crowded around the cases that I didn't even get a look.

I was able to meet up with friends of the Conscripts Big Lee and Ray Rousell! Great to catch up with these two.

Here is Paul Hicks (sixth from left) and his entourage :-)

A great bunch of guys, some of us left around lunchtime for a pint and a visit/break from the show. I spent much of the time talking to DOCTOR Matthew Taylor (at left beside me in the picture) - what an interesting chap. Here's the author of Black Redcoats, a fascinating book about the War of 1812 and British recruitment of people who were enslaved by the Americans. These men formed a unit called the Corps of Colonial Marines that was quite active in the southern theatre of the war. Of course the British empire allowed slaveholding at the time as well (mostly on plantations in the Caribbean) but there was a real mix of attitudes among their military leaders, from expedience to outright abolitionism, and the book really goes deep into exploring British and American actions related to black, indigenous, and enslaved people in that theatre of operations. Matthew's view is that the distraction afforded by stoking the Americans' fear of a "slave revolt" helped the British significantly and the White House may not have been burned down without it. Matthew was just awarded his doctorate based on the book, too. Nice!   

So that was Salute. I saw a ton of amazing looking games, met a bunch of interesting new friends, caught up some with old ones, and even bought a couple of things. But there was more to see at the show. Watching Big Lee's review of Salute in his Miniature Adventures YouTube video I found that I'd actually missed two games I wish I'd seen - Hornchurch Wargames Club's "Custer's Last Stand" and Scimitar Games Group's "Battle of Little Bighorn" games! Worse yet, I've come up blank looking for contact information for Hornchurch Wargames Club. So if anyone knows a contact for them I'd be obliged. As readers will know I'm working on my own Little Bighorn project so I'd love to pick their brains. 

Lastly, for those who've stuck it out to the end, I said at the start that this Salute experience was quite different from the one I had in 2012. For one thing, this show seemed waaaay bigger with more people and games. In 2012 it was a doddle to wander around and just run into hobby luminaries and celebrities. "Hey there's Rick Priestley! Rick can we have a chat?" Same with the Perry twins, John Stallard, Paul Sawyer (RIP) and others. Well, Paul Hicks became a friend of mine so it was great to hang around with him during and after the show, but you know what I mean. Also - no Bring & Buy which was disappointing, but understandable given the complexity of running it. But at the end of the day Salute was Salute - would I go back for another one? Oh yes indeed I would!

Final Painting Challenge Submission for AHPC XVI - Some Space Marines!

Siege Breaker Consul and assault marines from the Sons of Horus. Resin figures from GW/Forge World.

The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge wrap-up concludes at last. I wanted to conclude my run in the XVIth edition of the AHPC with something fitting, and I figured some Space Marines from the XVIth Legion Astartes would do the trick. Here we have a Siege Breaker Consul and three assault marines in the fine colours of The Warmaster's own, the Sons of Horus.

Siege Breaker Consul

"So...anyone have anything that needs breaking?"

What does a "Siege Breaker Consul" do? Sounds like a bit of a made-up job...one has the impression he conducts sieges...but job title implies he "breaks" sieges so maybe his job is instead to bust up sieges attempted by opponents. Who knows? But he clearly is out to break things. I mean, look at that hammer. Like they say, when you walk around with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Woe betide the foes of The Warmaster when this chap shows up. 

In addition to the giant hammer, he obviously has a really amazing wireless plan, with unlimited 5G data, great roaming options and no hidden fees!

Love that 5G intergalactic roaming in the year 30k...

I like the little portable data terminal attached to his power armour, with a little projected 3d map, presumably of some target he is about to annihilate via an orbital strike or some other manner of Age of Darkness doom. 

Bright yellow "safety grenades" on the rear of the power pack. This chap has all sorts of grenades.

This is a resin figure from GW's "Age of Darkness" range. I'm not the biggest fan of GW's resin, but thankfully things were not too bendy. Besides, he is wearing the Mark VI "beakie" power armour and, well, I'm a sucker any models wearing that kit! 

Assault Marines

Ready to jump into the action...

These are old, old resin figures - the marines are wearing Mark IV armour. They are resin models from Forge World, circa 2012. I have re-painted them to ensure their green armour matches that of the other Sons of Horus in my collection, part of my ongoing long-term program to placate the OCD hobby monkey in brain. 

Will re-painted figures suffer the same fate as newly-painted figures?

The officer has a comb on his helmet (hilarious) and an extra-large chainsword, for those jobs that need serious two-handed chopping. The other marines are kitted out in the more traditional bolt-pistol-and-chainsword combo common to the Astartes assault troops. With these three finished, I have completed the necessary repainting to put my old squad of 15 of these fellows back into the battle line - with a tone of green armour that will match that of their colleagues and thereby sooth the rampaging OCD hobby monkey in my head.

Love the double-handed chainsword. A silly weapon made even sillier. Brilliant.

And that was it for this most recent edition of the Painting Challenge! One never does get as much stuff painted as hoped-for - much less "planned for" - but some useful progress on various projects and areas of interest was achieved, and that is all one should truly hope for in the end. Sundry ongoing painting shall resume - watch this space! And that's all for now - thanks for reading!

Painting Challenge Submission #13 - Onward to Orleans!

"Forward! God has shown me the way..."

I'm continuing with the AHPC XVI wrap-up posts! We switch from GW settings to a historical one - and my on-again, off-again work on the Hundred Years War in 28mm. I thought the Painting Challenge would be a good chance to work on some more figures for that project, and I did get a few over the line prior to the Challenge wrapping up. 

Jean de Dunois directs the defence of Orleans - while his half-brother sits in England as a captive.

This was inspired mostly by the "Resistance" theme round in Curt's AHPC, for which I painted the wonderful 28mm sculpt of "Joan of Arc" from the Perry Miniatures range. That particular pack includes two other figures: Jean de Dunois, the "Bastard of Orleans", and Étienne de Vignolles, a.k.a. "La Hire". With Joan painted, I thought it would only make sense to paint the two companion figures. Both of The Bastard and La Hire were prominent in French efforts to defend the city of Orleans, which came under siege in late 1428 and was miraculously relieved in 1429 via a series of battles where Joan of Arc played an inspiring role. It was the famous turning point of a famous conflict. 

Sculpted heraldry right on the figure - very, very helpful when it comes to painting!!

When some is referred as "The Bastard", you tend to expect they were unpleasant and/or rough to deal with. I understand that Jean du Dunois was certainly a tough character, but his nickname arose from his semi-legitimate origins as much as from his disposition. When the time came to defend Orleans, the other male family leaders were either dead or captives of the English following the disastrous defeat at Agincourt. He was the only family member left so he had to step up. Dunois led the defence of the city and, following the lifting of the siege, helped see the Dauphin crowned in Reims, taking the fight to the English and their Burgundian allies as the tide in the Hundred Years War turned.

Soldiers of the King of England, you will face the wrath of God!

La Hire (pronounced "La EEeer") was another hard man - in fact, I believe this nickname has some kind of alignment with "the ire" or "the wrath" of God. Sounds like a guy you would not want to confront lightly, especially if he has armour and a sword. La Hire was a prominent figure in Joan of Arc's miraculous run through the historic turning point of the Hundred Years War at Orleans and on to Reims - although he could not save her from the matyrdom which awaited her...

"For the Dauphin!"

The heraldry on these two characters is sculpted right on to the figure - that is something that I really like! I hoped I found the right set of colours for the heraldry for each one but...oh well...he at least they looks like they are in charge. 

Finally, I need to add more mounted knights and men-at-arms for my French, so I thought I would do a couple to accompany these commanders. I...really don't have a lot of confidence that I am taking the right approach to painting these kinds of guys. I'm trying to figure out the right way to represent the full-on knights versus guys who are "only" men-at-arms. On the plus side the multi-part plastic kits for the period from Perry Miniatures give you a LOT of options to work with. So I have tried to represent Knights with more complete armour, lowered visors, chain-mail on the horses etc. while the men-at-arms have less armour, or maybe only a bascinet...

A mounted man-at-arms from the Bastard's retinue.

I thought one of the men-at-arms should come from the Bastard's own retinue, so I tried to hand-paint the coat of arms for Orleans on his small shield. I think I'll try and add a few more, as he likely had many men-at-arms in his retinue.

The Maid of Orleans leads the French to glory! God wills it!

I wanted to crowd all of the Knights I have completed to date into a big group shot, so I have done that here!  I am aiming to play "Never Mind The Billhooks" in this setting, and for that I need to finish probably another 10 or so mounted knights/men-at-arms for the mounted component of me HYW French. Hopefully I can add a few more over the summer, and keep chugging along on this work. 

Thanks for reading - I'm nearly done with the Challenge catch-up, I swear!