Tarleton's Quarter

Monday, 8 April 2019

Salute 2019

Having failed to post about Salute 2018, here's a summary of this year's show. It was the second time I'd taken Hugo - one's experience and view of a show like this changes a lot with a little one in two. As with last year, I spent much more time looking at the sci-fi/fantasy stuff and less time shopping. Hugo seemed a bit overawed by the scale and size of it - even after a 30 minute coke (the drink) and chips break he seemed to tire quickly, although he perked up when we found an X-Wing game and then, even better, a participation Warhammer 40K game. The latter at least gave me and mate Malcolm (who'd come over from Spain) 20 minutes to potter around kid-free. When we left at 3pm Hugo announced that he'd loved every minute of it, despite moaning for at least an hour previously that he wanted to go home - that's kids for you.

My overall impressions are below. These are simply my own views and I'm not trying to be controversial for controversy's own sake. As I say each year, I have nothing but respect and thanks for the Warlords and everyone who turns up with a game, and I appreciate the hard work that goes into them.

- It was the year of the terrain mat and the mousemat dice tray. Many of the games were played on the former and it felt like every game had at least one of the latter. [As the owner now of a fairly large collection of mats, from a variety of sources, I can attest to their excellence; one key advantage is easy customization of design.]

- It felt like the show was devoid of large-scale, grand-manner historical games. A group of them suddenly appeared at the far end of the hall, but there seemed fewer than usual (and by a long way). I couldn't see any ACW, which was a first.

- The show now seems dominated by high-concept 25mm (or above) skirmish games, largely sci-fi/fantasy but with more historical games going this route.

- You'd think the market would be saturated by said high-concept sci-fi/fantasy skirmish games, but new ones keep coming out. There were a large number of trader/advert/demo games of this sort and now pretty much every tv and film franchise seems to have it's own "board-game with miniatures" system.

- The impression I had overall on the games is that it's hard not to conclude that historical wargaming is stagnating somewhat - sure, there were still very impressive games, but by-and-large they don't really look any different to the games I saw 10-20 years ago. It's the sci-fi and fantasy games that are always innovating (often in hand with ever more elaborate mdf terrain). Of course, this may well be inevitable: one can't "innovate" with historical battles, as they are what they are and, for example, one large ECW game will always look much like another. New figure lines won't deviate from what historical soldiers looked like, and so historical games from the same period will always look a bit samey for that reason too. That said, I thought the Tonkin game set new standards in terrain design and there were others (see below) that also had excellent terrain.

- I couldn't see various traders that you'd expect at a show like this - no Dave Thomas for second year running, and I couldn't see Front Rank and a few other historical "big beasts".

- I know taking credit cards is not as easy as shoppers think and, yes, there are cash-points at Excel, but this is 2019 and it's not helpful for traders to only take cash. My emergency cash float was wiped out by the second trader I visited and Malc had to bail me out.

- Once you start shopping for sci-fi/fantasy stuff you begin to appreciate just how many traders there are selling products for this market; and some of their products are amazing.

- Wayland Games and other emporiums: you need more aisle space in your shop areas. I literally got stuck a couple of times, the first time with a bloke with a truly enormous rucksack (on his back) who wouldn't stop trying to push his way past me even though he was at risk of knocking over an entire shelf of products (and, frankly, people who don't take their rucksacks off in the shopping areas should be asked to leave, IMHO).

- A special thanks to: (i) Sons of Simon de Montfort for their Warhammer 40K game and looking after Hugo so well; and (ii) Mantic Games for their "lucky dip", which saw Hugo come away with a free Hellboy figure.

Shopping? A Harry Potter Miniatures Game pack of figures for Hugo and some GW Necrons for Monty; Frostgrave stuff from North Star; resin terrain from Ainsty, Coritani and [ ]. This was the first time I've ever been to a show and bought neither historical figures nor books (although I did pick up a set of Warlord plastic Napoleonic Hanoverians free with a WI voucher).

Here are the photos, with the standard apology to those I inadvertently missed out.

10mm North West Frontier action from Real Time Wargames; lovely terrain:

Romans v Boudicca courtesy of "To the Strongest":

Crooked Dice's "7TV Apocalypse" game:

Wargames Association of Reading's "Mammoth Hunt":

Dalauppror's terrific "Battle of Danholm 1807":

Wings of Glory:

Crewe and Nantwich's "Battle of Aughrim 1691":

South London Warlords' Romans v Macedonians game (I have a similar "arid green" cloth mat from Tiny Wargames):

South London Warlords' "The Moon: 2039" game:

Wargamer Poland's Muskovites v Ottomans; a a very colourful, underrated period:

A "Back to the Future" game from Bexley Reapers; there were light shows, apparently (I saw the lightnight strike a couple of times):

Whitehall Warlords' British Army in Helmand game; very nice terrain and painted vehicles:

Scimitar Wargames Group "6 Day War" Jerusalem game; spectacular terrain and a "boutique" feel:

This was an interesting one. Some chaps from the University of Edinburgh had built a replica model of a Crusader castle (or bits of it) and ran a skirmish game through the various floors of the keep:

Outstanding terrain and scenics on this Ancient Greeks skirmish game:

Stingray! Stingray!:

Hugo admires the Lego Flash Gordon set-up from the Jersey Privateers; this was pretty amazing and won "best in show", I think:

Another fun-looking Apocalypse/zombie/anything you like skirmish game, with impressive scenery:

Peninsular War action from Old Guard:

The Too Fat Lardies' superb WW2 in the far east game:

This was a "what-if" Battle of Rossbach from Raphael Fonseca and friends:

Hugo finally found an X-Wing game (albeit second edition - we play first edition)....

…..before joining his very first Salute participation game, as commander of a squad of Space Marines in 40K:

The Tonkin game from Gringo40s was superb - my personal favourite:

"Batman: The Miniatures Game" had an outing thanks to Thor's Hammer Gaming Club:

More W40K action, not sure by whom; seemed to be "blue on blue" Salamanders v Ultramarines:

Peterborough Wargames Club's "Bloody Omaha" continued the run of excellent terrain shown in the larger historical games:

Loughton Strike Force had one of their Napoleonic slug-fests, "Ligny 1815":

Was this "Dead Man's Hand"? Not sure, but the Western town set-up was ace:

Maidstone Wargames Society alighted on the "100 hour War" of 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras; again, superb terrain that had a real "this isn't Europe" feel to it:

The Battle of Lutzen 1632 from Friends of General Haig; classic "grand manner" historical gaming and another personal favourite; also, a rare example in this show of the "teddy-fur" terrain of yore:

Hornchurch Wargames Group's "Beyond the Beaches" 20mm WW2 game:

A sci-fi/fantasy skirmish game; not sure what, I'm afraid:

Wyvern Wargames Battle of Mohi 1241, a Mongol invasion game:

Finally, Simon Chick's typically sublime Battle of Bauge 1421; sculpted terrain and painted figures don't come much better than this (I said to Malc that there's almost a Perry/Chick "house style" which is immediately recognisable):

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Apologia

So what happened? To be honest, various things. First, and most importantly, the boys found an interest in fantasy and sci-fi games. I thought that they might like skirmish games set in pirate and fantasy settings, but this spiralled into Frostgrave, X-Wing and a couple of other things (in the queue, and at the moment not even out of the box, are "Blood Red Skies" and "7TV", which Hugo picked up at Salute last year; and, I fear, the new "Harry Potter Miniatures Game" has cough Hugo's attention). That meant that I sent most of last year painting figures for various fantasy/pirate games which I felt I couldn't really post on TQ. That was a bit daft really, as pirates count as "historical". Anyway, I really enjoyed working through my Foundry pirates leadpile, adding to the collection with some sculpts from Musketeer Miniatures (now Footsore, I believe) and North Star. This all expanded into "Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago" - I bought the books and "Nickstarter" stuff, painted up a fair few of the official figures, and even dug out some unpainted/half-painted old Citadel Amazon and Slaan figures that I've had sitting around for 30 years. Visiting the local pet shop to acquire scenery with the boys was fun, as was making my own palm trees and ruins scenery pieces. This was all good stuff and I was getting close to a stage where we could start playing F:GA when the second thing happened...

Last November, Hugo (who is 9) came home from school saying that he was really enjoying "Warhammer Club". I assumed this was some sort of computer game club, particularly given that he said it was all about robots in helicopters fighting spacemen or something like that. A couple of conversations later I realised he was playing Warhammer 40K, albeit in a very basic way. I dug out a large box of un- and semi-painted Space Marines from my youth and, yes, this was indeed Hugo's new obsession (I had to explain what a Space Marine was - he really did think they were robots; I never worked out the "helicopter" bit). So since then I’ve been painting GW stuff round the clock - Space Marines and Necrons mostly. And buying relevant gaming mats. And building 4Ground sci-fi scenery. And spending too much time (and money) at GW Chelmsford and on the Element Games website. Again, I didn't think that all this GW tomfoolery was worth posting about; although I realise now that the story of how an historical wargamer pivoted to paint power armour, lightning swords, "Doom Scythes" and worked towards what became his "Warhammer birthday party" in early January with 11 of his friends might have made an interesting series of posts.

The Hawk Lords - Hugo's chosen Space Marine chapter

Thirdly, there have been some practical issues. Something's wrong with my camera and/or pc and it's proving very difficult to upload photos for posting. Work and the routine of family life have seemed much busier, which has eaten into my painting time; but the reality, if I'm honest, is that I just lost the habit of blogging towards the end of last year and I realised that I wasn't really missing it. I found myself taking a rest not just from this blog but from forums and other places I used to visit quite regularly as I felt I'd almost changed hobby. I think at the back of my mind was a feeling, as noted above, that TQ has always been about horses and muskets, and that fantasy and sci-fi skirmish games wouldn't sit well here. But I didn't realise how long I'd spent away from historicals, and I can see very little but 40K and Frostgrave for the forseeable future, to be honest. The reason is simply the chance to do something miniatures-related with the boys; and also because chances for historical games are very rare these days, and at least if I paint figures the boys will actually play with then I feel that what I'm doing has a practical purpose. Let's face it - most of the historical stuff I've painted over the past 15 years has largely remained in unopened boxes...

My Christmas project - 4Ground sci-fi scenery and 25-year old (at least) Mordian Iron Guard figures.

One of the games at Hugo's birthday party - "Space Marines of the Caribbean". One of my aims at Hugo's birthday was to show the boys what "real" scenery and terrain looks like. There were quite a few "wows" and parents asking where the mats come from.

The other main game was "Assault on Precinct 4P" (that being Hugo's form name). Necrons v Imperial forces.

So I've actually been very busy since my last post. Maybe I'll post some photos of the current status of Hugo's "Hawk Lords", Monty's Necrons and, err, my Cadian "Blue Helmets". Maybe I'll post pics of Foundry's pirates range, pack by pack, if anyone's interested in this sort of stuff. Maybe I'll even post about the Continental Light Dragoons I painted at the same time as these militia, and then completely forgot about. And did someone say that the Perries had released some more AWI? Nah, that can't be right.

I've been making lots of palm tree scenic bases too.

A collection of North Star's Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago metal figures.

I've really enjoyed painting all these old Foundry pirate figures.

Close encounters in the Ghost Archipelago.

There is no feeling like discovering a use for stuff that's been in the leadpile for what must be almost 30 years. Citadel Amazons from the mid-1980s, sculpted by a certain Alan and Michael Perry (whatever happened to them?)