Salute Post 2 (Delayed)

Well, it's been a while since Salute, and I completely forgot to post up a picture of my haul...

From the top, I got Ticket to Ride for Mrs Walker as part of her Birthday present.  It's a lovely, simple, yet elegant game that's loads of fun - if you've watched Wil Wheaton's TableTop show on YouTube, it's featured in an episode.  Very highly recommended (both the game and the show)!

The first row of blisters are all from Micro Art Studios.  Two packs of resin bases (which will appear in posts soon I hope), and Moist Von Lipwig and Adora Belle from their Discworld range.

The next row starts with Guillermo, Kaylee and some leather shields from Hasslefree.  Next is a rather stunning miniature from Origen Miniatures, and "Live by the Axe...Zombie Hunter" from Ax Faction.  I got to chat to these guys for a bit which was very cool - I find it more interesting to talk to the small companies, they seem to have more time for people.  You'll also see the Orange special Salute 2013 dice in that row too.

Along the bottom is the Salute 2013 model (which is rather nice actually), and then a couple of Demonic Familiars, Sebastien the Apprentice Mage, and a Wood Elf Sorceress from Heresy Miniatures.

Now, my cunning plan (OK, it's not cunning, and it's barely a plan...), is to get all the miniatures you see here painted before Salute 2014.  Now that doesn't seem much of a challenge, but as you may be aware, I am easily distracted by new things, and my haul from Salute 2012 is probably only 25% completed, so I have work to do, and focus to keep.

There are 11 miniatures in the picture, so I plan to do one a month (with one month off for good behaviour), interspersed among my other projects.

Wish me luck...

Salute 2013

I have to say I had an absolute blast at Salute this year, and I think it was a much better event than last year.  The stands were better laid out and I was able to see much more, talk to people, and it didn't feel quite so manic, even though there seemed to be more people this year.

Obviously the big highlight was the bloggers meet-up, where I finally got to meet the third corner of the Tale of Painters triangle, Mr Michael Awdry from 28mm Victorian Warfare, plus some new people I didn't know before (and new blogs to follow) and meeting up with some previously known reprobates (that'll be you Fran...and Mike...and Ray...).  It was really good to talk games, painting and blogging in general, comparing lead mountains and painting backlogs, and the joy of Oldhammer.

I'll give a run down of my purchases tomorrow (I spent quite a bit to be fair), but for now, here are a few demonstration/participation games that caught my eye.

Like a muppet, I didn't take note of who was running these games, so I'll have to take a look at the event programme when I get the chance and try and work out who was who, and what was what.  I do however know that this one was the Wolsung participation game, run by the lovely people at Micro Art Studio.  There was so much detail on what was quite a small board, it just blew me away.

I'm pretty sure this is terrain produced by Warmill, it's very "Starship Troopers" and would look good for games of Infinity.

These two were lovely Japanese themed boards - a few of our gaming group have Bushido warbands, so I may be tempted to give this style of architecture a go at some point (yeah I know, yet another potential project which will get listed and never see the light of day...).

Last but not least was this rather fantastic Dungeons and Dragons terrain piece.  There seemed to be unpainted D&D miniatures available to buy (I think they were called "Collectors" or something, I don't know, I haven't had much sleep the last week...), which I hadn't seen before.  The purple light was provided by LEDs, which was really effective.

Fran told me I had to post more (he gave me "the look" as he said it), so this is my attempt at posting more.  Hopefully tomorrow you'll see my addition to the lead mountain, with a few comments on retailers and stands and then I'll try posting something I've actually painted recently...

As always, comments welcome!

After the Lord Mayor's Show...

...or Salute as everyone insists on calling it - OK I was stuck for a name for this post and this was the best I could do.  

I'm not going to do a review of Salute as many people have done a fantastic job of this already.  I had a great day out with some of the Ancible team (Kenny, Mr B, Si), spent a fair amount of money, saw the Frontline Gamer from afar, and caught the Angry Lurker and Ray at the end.    I forgot my camera, so no pictures I'm afraid.  The venue itself was pretty good, but it was a bit of a pain having to get across London to get there - but good for the South East and European visitors I imagine.

Purchase wise, I came away with the following list:

• Feldherr carry case (small) purchased from Wayland Games, Si had a good old chat with one of the Feldherr chaps as he'd reviewed a case for the Ancible in a previous issue
• Azumi by Studio McVey - quite frankly Studio McVey blew me away, the miniatures look fantastic on the website, but those pictures do nothing to prepare you for how wonderful they look up close. O...M...G...  I didn't know which one to get (I limited myself to one), so it was a bit of a random pick, but the pose of Azumi just grabbed me for some reason
• Mizuchi from GCT Bushido - A dragon, for Bushido - 'nuff said
• Big Boris Mk2 from Heresy - Armoured Boris was sold out, but this was my second choice
• Hasslefree: Wolf, Ferrus and Valaska Syn
• MicroArt Studios:  Rincewind, Twoflower and the Luggage, and some forest bases for my stalled  and about to be restarted "Wood Eldar" 40K army
• Plus some other stuff that I can't remember off the top of my head

There were a couple of free miniatures too - A Wayland the Smith miniature because I spent over £20 at Wayland Games (quite appropriate as I live not too far away from Wayland's Smithy), and the Salute 2012 miniature, which I wasn't sold on, but it was free, so didn't need to be...

Now for some painted stuff:

Pretty much the same colour scheme as for the Lawyer.  The coat was the usual Charadon Granite basecoat, for that greenish-brown tone.  I was surprised and rather happy to find a pot of unopened Charadon Granite on a shelf - that should keep me going until I've finished everything I need it for.  A word of warning - despite the GW conversion chart, Stormvermin Fur is NOT a good match for Charadon Granite.  As far as I can tell there really isn't one now, so it's time for me to drop the crutch (let's face it, I use Charadon Granite a lot) and look at some alternatives.

The gold trim was a pain, I really didn't enjoy painting it - I can see now that I've missed bits and it's not as neatly painted as I'd hoped. For the rest of the models I think I might do the trim before I paint the coat.  The gun and axe blade were painted normally, but then I added some Charadon Granite and P3 Cryx Base as extra shading which works quite well I think (feel free to disagree!).

The base is another Malcontent Sewer base - painted in a similar way to the base for the Lawyer, I used some Chestnut Ink for rust on the metal and some Thraka Green on the stonework to change the colour in places.  To be honest I'm as pleased with the base as I am with any other part of the model.

Up next will be some more characters for Get the Girl, Kill the Baddies, a Freebooter's Fate Assassin and the millstone that hangs heavily around my neck at the moment...

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Salute!

There seems to be something of a trend amongst us sad old bloggers that we need to declare we're going to Salute, display a picture so other bloggers will recognise us and then list the things we're really excited about.  I'm fully embracing the herd mentality and doing my bit.  :)

Here is the obligatory mugshot:

This is my happy face

Yes, my glasses are wonky.  Now you've all come out from behind your desk chair/sofa, here's my list of things that are getting me excited:

• GCT Studios/Bushido - I'm going to get the rest of the Prefecture models to complete my warband.  The rest of the Ancible team have known these chaps for ages, so we'll probably be there for a while.
• Hasslefree - Barbarians and loads of other cool stuff, definite purchases from here
• Heresy - As for Hasslefree
• Maxmini - Polish resin stuff that's good for conversions, hopefully the Kromlech stuff will be there too
• Microart - As for Maxmini
• Privateer - Warmachine stuff, probably some Hordes stuff too

Let's face it I'm going to be excited about a lot of stuff, I'll be roaming the halls with the rest of the Ancible team, trying to keep a lid on my spending and failing miserably.  I need to fill this:

ThinkGeek's "Bag of Holding"

...and all my pockets.