Salute 2026

 

Having missed last year's Salute due to being on tour with the boys' rugby teams, it was good to be back. Both boys tagged along again; Monty is now genuinely interested in gaming and modelling, whilst I think Hugo just wanted a break from his GCSE revision, even if that meant hanging out with his dad and loads of fellow geeks. Salute this year came at the end of two weeks' (much-needed) holiday over Easter. I didn't go anywhere, but did manage a fair amount of painting as well as thinking about this blog and why I'm struggling to update it. Anyway, hopefully things will move along a bit more quickly now.

The Salute experience never really changes. We arrived around 10.45am, by which time the queues had all gone but we were still in time for bags with the free Hannibal plastic figure. It was very busy - the best time to look around is after midday when it thins out for lunch. We had a good lunch at the tapas restaurant outside the Excel Centre, but I realised that going back in after a relatively leisurely (and, in my case, 2 beers) lunch can be a mistake - by 2.30pm we were all starting to flag. With all shopping done by 2.50pm we left shortly thereafter. As noted in previous reports, I would have stayed much longer if I'd been by myself; but it's always worth taking the boys along. Monty shocked me by announcing that he'd seen Pokemon cards for sale - and, sure enough, there were a couple of traders who sold them. These traders were, of course, at the more "fantasy" end of the hobby, and one of them said to me that they wouldn't have bothered with Pokemon cards 5 years ago, but now it seemed a natural fit for the show. Monty was delighted with the "very rare" boxed set he picked up for £50. Salute usually coincides with my birthday, so I pushed the boat out a bit in terms of shopping - lots of Foundry paints, some rules and books from Helion and Caliver, a Wargames Illustrated sub (which I'd let lapse), Crooked Dice's new King Kong figure (see photo below), pretty much everything on my Perry list from Dave Thomas, and a load of Artmaster brushes (I barely use anything else nowadays - these are superb).  I'll talk about the Perry purchase in a couple of days when I do a blog catch-up. Basically, over the past few months I've been working through my lead-pile by period and this has resulted in a number of half-finished units; so I needed a lot of random packs to deal with these.

Overall impressions? Another solid year, I thought. The mix of games seems to have settled down to: a handful of large, 25mm/20mm historical "mega-games", with WW2 being the clear favourite; a larger number of mid-size historical games; a majority of 4x4-ish skirmish games of all periods and genres; and then "advert" games, some of which don't seem to have changed much since pre-Covid. As always, the terrain is what makes games stand out. The Pokemon story illustrates how the show has broadened out to encompass pretty much anything you might consider a "game". Personally, I think that's probably a good thing, and my boys have certainly appreciated it; I know others might disagree. The shopping experience remains excellent - the only people I noticed were missing were Tablescape, who I sadly see have ceased trading, and the Perries (so no 3-up reveals etc). All the traders seemed very busy; you could barely move in the Caliver and Helion stands. The lady at Helion said that the "Gaslands" rulebook was their bestseller (see the amazing futuristic Gaslands game below).

Anyway, here are my photos (which I appreciate are a bit analogue now, given the preponderance of videos of the show), in no particular order. As always, apologies to those who I missed and whose games I can't now identify. Some of the larger games were so busy it was difficult to take many photos, but I did my best!  Many thanks to the Warlords, their president Martin, and everyone who put in so much effort to make this such an enjoyable day.

The Continental Ward Society had a wonderful Franco-Prussian War games in 28mm, "The Combat at Le Bourget":

One of the highlight's and I think a trophy winner, was Milton Hundreds Wargames Club's sensational Sword Beach game:

 

Cornwall Wargames Association's "The Battle of Lizard Point", 1637 - wow!

Kingston Games Group had this "Battle of Hoth" game:

I think this was the Society of Ancients' "Issus" game:

Dave Brown had another ancients game, which I think was Hellenistics:

Hornchurch Wargames Club had an eye-catching Little Bighorn game (one of two at the show - see below for the second one). I was somewhat surprised that neither of my boys had heard of "Custer's Last Stand". We discussed it over lunch and returned to this game a couple of times to see how Custer was getting on - not well, it turned out. I thought this showed an excellent use of hex terrain: 

"A Few Brits and the Hobby" had another trophy-winning (I think) game, simply called "Italy 1944". There's clearly something about WW2 that brings out terrain-modellers' best work:

Ken "Yarkshire Gamer" Reilly's"Relief of Forli 1499" was another spectacular game. Those who follow Ken on social media will have seen the units emerge as they were produced and the end result more than lived up to expectations:

Rubicon Models had two amazing platoon level games, with terrain that was pretty jaw-dropping. You could almost feel the humidity of the Vietnam table, and the foliage actually looked "wet": 

"To the Strongest!" had a fictional, but pretty spectacular, 25mm War of the Spanish Succession game:

I didn't catch who hosted this game, I think it was part of the "Lard Zone". I loved this, as it matches an idea I have for a 7TV game:

  

More Lardies WW2 action was this "Battle of Montcornet, 1940" game:

Footsore Miniatures were demonstrating their "Mortal Gods" skirmish rules. I loved the terrain here:

I keep trying to get on the Crooked Dice 7TV demo games at Salute shows, but it's always packed. Here Scooby Doo and friends take on King Kong. I liked this so much I bought the 3D-prints of Kong himself and the kids' Mystery Machine (which is going to be a total b&stard to paint...):

Brecon Wargames Club's "Simply Sudan"; there were quite a few desert games this year:

More desert action, this time WW2; I think Essex Warriors "What a Hussar" game: 

Hugo's Heroes "Siege of Straslund, 1628" was another highlight:

Here are various other games which caught my eye and give a flavour of the rest of the show:

Finally, 1/32 Wargames had a nostalgic-looking WW2 Pacific War game using plastic Airfix figures:

        

Nizam-i-Cedid (1)

 

This is the first unit of Ottoman infantry I painted - a unit of "boustangee" musketeers from the Nizam-i-Cedid army.  This was a corps of infantry trained in more modern, European methods that was developed in the wake of the Ottoman Empire's defeat in the Russo-Turkish War of 1787-92: the name means "new order".  The aim of Sultan Selim III was to develop a modern army that could hold it's own against its enemies, given that the Janissaries were beginning to show their age as a fighting force.  By 1806 the Nizam-i-Cedid numbered about 25,000 men.  However, Janissaries saw the corps as a rival rather than an ally.  When Selim III was deposed in 1807, the ensuing political strife saw the disbanding of the Nizam-i-Cedid, many units of which were attacked by the "old" army and their soldiers killed by vengeful Janissaries.

All that said, I'm not entirely sure whether what I've painted here is an proper Nizam-i-Cedid unit.  This rather fetching pink and grey uniform is that of the "imperial gardeners" regiment, which was part of the Sultan's household guard.  Accordingly to Flaherty, "they were responsible for the maintenance, policing and defence of some 70 imperial estates as well as the coasts around Constantinople."  This description also seems to include guarding the imperial seraglio.  Flaherty suggests that troops from this regiment, or at least some of them, were recruited into the Nizan-i-Cedid, but it may well be the case that the regiment itself never took the field.  But the uniform is so good I just couldn't resist painting it up!

A note on the paints used, for those who are interested.  The tunics were painted with the Foundry palette 16 "Nipple Pink" and the trousers with palette 31 "Granite". For the soldiers' flesh, I wanted a middle-eastern, rather than European, look and used the Foundry palette 123 "Near Eastern Flesh".  It took me a while to finish this unit.  I ran out of figures a couple of times and then couldn't decide on the flag.  There isn't that much information on flags for regiments other than the Janissaries, but plain green and red ones seemed to be used, so I painted up one of the former.    

36 figures. Painted May 2023 to June 2024.    

Ottoman Artillery (1)

I mentioned that I've been working on Ottomans for my Napoleon in Egypt project.  I finally managed to get my camera out at the weekend, so I'll have a series of posts this week to get up to date.  I thought I'd work backwards and start off with my Ottoman "grand battery". This consists of three of the Perry Miniatures "heavy artillery" packs with large field pieces (catalogue number OT36 - so not the super-massive piece just released. As seems standard now with Perry ranges, the crews come in boxes of 6 figures and the guns are purchased separately.  I extracted a few of the figures and added a standard bearer from the irregular infantry command pack (OT13) to make up a couple of battery command stands.  The guns and crews are based on Renedra plastic 65mm x 90mm bases.  Even with these larger bases, I find the guy with the ramrod in loading crews invariably needs to be based separately, as there just isn't enough space.

The colour schemes for the gunners is taken from Chris Flaherty's "The Napoleonic Ottoman Army".  Published by Caliver, this book is essential if you want to build an Ottoman Army. In broad terms, there was the standard distinction between "heavy" and "light" guns. The type of heavy field gun shown in this unit was called a "kolunburna" and appears to have changed very little over the past century or two. It probably equated to a 19.5 pounder in European money. The crew themselves are a mix of figures in standard Ottoman irregular dress and then a rather fancy yellow uniform which seems to have been used for heavy guns crews and another unit called the "humbaraci", which operated mortars and howitzers.   The flag is taken from an illustration in the Flaherty book.  It may or may not be correct for this type of unit, but who cares - with a brass gun barrel on a red field it does at least look the part.    

I wanted to create a bit of an emplacement, as Ottoman heavy artillery seems to have to have been entrenched during battle, and so used Renedra's plastic gabions. These are relatively easy to put together, but the top is simply a plastic disc so you need to add your own "earth".  I painted the gabions themselves with GW Citadel paints - a base of "Rhinox Hide" then drybrushed highlights of "Gorthor Brown" and "Baneblade Brown".

I have two further guns and crews already painted, and will post those up when I've finished a third.

19 figures and 3 guns. Painted December 2024 to February 2025.    

AWI Plans

I completely missed the 250th anniversary of the "short heard around the world" on 19th April.  I saw excellent posts on Facebook from Jim Purky and Steve Jones, who must have more experience of AWI wargaming than most people.  My own contribution to the 250th festivities is to spend much more time this year on filling gaps in my AWI collection; so I thought I might just post a couple of wip shots and set out what those plans are.  Posts have continued to be delayed by a severe dose of "real life", I'm afraid.  

Last month I bought a large movable storage tower in which I've placed all my AWI British line infantry.  These were in a number of different boxes previously and it's good to have them all in one place.  The Saratoga campaign units and the Marines are in the top drawer, and everything is then ordered by regimental number.  So what I plan to do is work my way down the British orbat list and paint up what's missing.  I've already started on the 3rd Foot (the "Buffs") and the 54th Foot - a pic of the former is below.  Those regiments aside, there are 5 others that I don't have at all: 22nd, 26th, 37th, 64th and 80th (the 37th and 64th are useful units to have as they appear in a number of scenarios; the others are mostly "one hit wonders").  Then there are existing units which I need to increase to bring them up to strength for scenarios that were published after I'd finished them - the last time I undertook this exercise was in 2016!  That largely dealt with units in full warrant dress; the next batch of reinforcements will be in cut-down coats and slouch hats, although first on the list is to finish off the King's Royal Regiment of New York.  This is one of those units that is split into "wings" for the relevant scenario (like the Buffs at Eutaw Springs and the 76th Foot at Petersburg).  I also found some random figures from various packs that I can use for the South Carolina Loyalists (see pic at the top of this post).

The Buffs

I'm not sure I'll be able to get all of this done by the end of the year, but I'm very much feeling the AWI vibe again and so it's seem worth a try.  A bit of sprucing up is probably in order as well - I noticed a lot of my GMB flags have faded badly.  However, as I go along I will include earlier regiments that I never blogged about and I might get each batch of regiments out for a parade.  

Finally, I've just taken delivery of another large order from Brigade Games; this includes Hessian jaegers, both mounted and on foot, and some Continentals and militia.  I'll try to get those done this year as well.  I've also been meaning to post about de Lancey's brigade, which I am (very slowly) painting for my US friend Bill Nevins using his own King's Mountain Miniatures.  I'll post about this shortly, as some family research that my father and I did last year suggested that one branch of the Allison family in New England consisted of loyalists, at least one of whom may have fought with de Lancey's.  Some finished figures are in the photo below.

I've been delayed by the fact the kitchen is being redone and I've been banned from doing an "soldier stuff" for the past 5 weeks; and the reality is I don't have anywhere else to spread out to do my basing. Anyway, I might post about some more fantasy stuff before getting back into the historicals.      

Sir George de Lacy Evans

George de Lacy Evans (1787-1870) was born in Ireland and was educated at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich (i.e. the training school for the Royal Artillery, the Royal Engineers and other technical corps) before heading off to India to join the army of the East India Company.  In 1806 he transferred to the British Army and secured a position in the 3rd Light Dragoons which enables him to serve in the Peninsular War.  Like a lot of British Auxiliary Legion officers, he was then transferred to America, where he served as quartermaster-general to General Robert Ross, who commanded the British troops in the US until his death in September 1814.  He appears to have been a staff officer at Waterloo, supposedly being the person who relayed to order to the Union Brigade to charge.

He then entered politics, and was a sitting MP for Rye when he was given command of the BAL.  His political career was resumed after the war ended, but he seems to have lost and regained his seat on numerous occasions.  In 1846 he was promoted to Major-General and then Lieutenant-General in 1854.  In that latter rank he participated in the Crimean War as the initial commander of the 2nd Division; however, he fell sick and had to relinquish command.  His political career continued - he was MP for Westminster from 1846-65 (Evans was a Radical) and consistently argued for reform of the Army, in particular the abolition of the purchase system.

His political career, especially as a Radical, no doubt contributed to the hostile treatment he and the BAL received in certain sections of the British press.  As I've noted elsewhere, the BAL fought under difficult conditions, often badly supplied and ignored by the British government. Evans seems to have been a thoughtful, competent officer, always fighting the authorities on behalf of his men; one sense the BAL could have done a lot worse in their commander.     

These figures are from two Perry packs - the Evans personality figure is from ISA2 and the foot figures are the rest of ISA37 (the mounted elements of which are here).  This command stand finishes off my most recent Carlist War stuff, save for a regiment of Isabelino cavalry, for which I need to get the correct lance pennants.     

3 figures. Painted August 2021.

Update

The past few weeks have flown past - too much work, lots of family birthdays, trying to manage without a kitchen (as it's being replaced), rushing the boys around to rugby games, cricket practice, martial arts (Hugo's trying for his black belt this summer); client dinners etc.  Hence the lack of posts, for which I'm sorry - I certainly hadn't intended the blog to go "dark" again. Happily, I have been painting in the meantime, and some wip shots are below.  But I wanted to add that for Christmas I treated myself to the newish "Two Thin Coats" paints designed by former GW "'Eaevy Metal" painting supremo.  I'm not quite sure when they came out - certainly in three "waves", funded by Kickstarters (which had all kinds of cool freebies, like a MDF holder for your mobile phone, presumably so you can watch Duncan's "how to" videos while you paint).  I love playing around with new paints, but gave into temptation when I saw that Sarissa sold the complete sets with a bespoke paint rack for each wave - see here).  

So above is a photo of my re-vamped painting set up.  I also invested in a couple of other MDF paint racks that I found on ebay, which has created a lot more space on my desk and helped me re-introduce a few paints that had been festering in drawers.  My paints are arranged by manufacturer, so: Citadel paints are on the racks at the back of my desk; Foundry paints are largely in drawers but also in the rack to the right of my desk (which also contains my small number of Vallejo paints); Army Painter are in their own small rack to the right and on the side table); and Two Thin Coats take up the rest of the side table.

To try out the Two Thin Coats range, I turned my attention some the Perry Napoleonic Ottomans that I was given for Christmas, as they didn't tie me to repetitive uniforms.  For the same reason, when I got bored of the Ottomans I turned to some North Star "Frostgrave" plastic figures.  Thoughts on the paints?  I'm not really used to dropper bottles and find that I am wasting a fair amount of paint once it's out on the palette.  But so far I've only had one of those "squeeze too hard and half the bottle pours out" moments.  The paints have two small ball bearings in them, which I guess helps keep the paint together.  Certainly the texture of the paint is excellent, and the coverage is very good - the reds and yellows usually provide full coverage in one go.  It's a triad-based system and I've found the 3 colours go well together - none of the extreme contracts that you can find in some Foundry palettes.  I haven't tried the washes, glazes, metals or "brights" yet.  Overall, I really like these paints.  Some of the names are a bit weird (e.g. what is "fury green") and other too easily reveal their GW/Citadel alternative (e.g. "warmaster green").  Buying these was a bit of an indulgence, but hey - you can never have too many paints.     

Below are some wip shots.  Since my return to AWI with the Hessian command figures last year, I've been building up my Napoleonic Ottoman force with infantry, a heavy artillery battery, and a first Mameluke unit.  I've also started on more AWI British infantry (and revisited an AWI loyalist "commission" for Bill Nevins); painted a pack of 20 Eureka Miniatures Maori warriors; and then a number of "Frostgrave" figures, both metal and plastics.  All these will have their own posts very shortly.  Finally, I've very sad to say that there will be no Salute report this year - I haven't missed the show for a good run of years (I reckon since this blog started), but this weekend I'm in sunny Hunstanton on the Norfolk coast for the boys' Chelmsford RFC annual tour - two days of rugby, silly games and the humiliation of parents.  I'd much rather be at Salute!       

And here are some "Frostgrave" wizards and knights, together with some Eureka Maori: