Salute - the final haul

Not counting the three boxes of Last Valley scenery, or the freebies from Stafford Games.

Should keep me out of mischief painting-wise for a while :D

Back from Salute

...and my feet are killing me!

28 mm Waterloo, or a very large chunk thereof. More a
display than a game, but very very very pretty.

Made it to the ExCel by about 0945 (with Grahame, Rob and Jonathan from the club), and in the show (via the long advance queue) by about 1010, bumping into Henry from Miniature Wargames almost as I walked in. The plan, which actually worked quite well, was to hit everywhere for the shopping list first, and then I could slow down and admire various games etc. I managed to pick up everything on my wish list, as well as a couple of spare cans of Army Painter primer, some AP warpaints (plus a freebie warpaint and Insane Detail brush in my Stafford Games goody bag) and some Napoleon at War British Heavy Dragoons and French Cuirassiers. While at Stafford Games I got to say hi to Walt from Commission Figurines, who is, I gather eagerly looking forward to his new laser cutter from the Kickstarter arriving on Thursday!

Also managed to say hi to the Fireforge guys (and run into Neil Shuck, who I've chatted with online, so was glad to finally meet!), pick up some of their lovely Templars and drool a lot over their Mongol horse three-up greens. 

I also discovered Agema Miniatures, at their first show - in fact, in their first month of being 'open', pretty much - with some very nice 28mm Punic Wars era Roman Velites. I'll have some photos and a review up of those tomorrow.

The Dux Bellorum game.

As planned, we then met up at 1100 at the Last Valley stand (literally the Last Valley, too - tucked away in the far corner at stand TA30), and picked up the three large boxes of the club's scenery order. Andy Worsley has had (and I'm sure he'd be the first to admit, sadly deserved) bad press in the past for reasons that I hope are long behind him - either way, the man makes awesome scenery, and we've been very happy with the service we've had.

Having picked that lot up, we went and locked it in the car, and, now much less encumbered, went to enjoy ourselves.

The two games I really wanted to check out were Andy, Scrivs, Tom, James Morris et al playing Dux Bellorum, and the Lardies Chain of Command demo.

The former looked awesome, some lovely reworked TSS terrain tiles and some of Andy's (and others') fantastic painting. I understand they deservedly won Best Painted Game.

Chain of Command

The latter seemed to have a two deep crowd round it most of the day, and appeared to be going very well. To my considerable delight, I also finally got to meet Adam aka Sidney Roundwood, and have a good natter, as well as pick up a hard copy of I Ain't Been Shot Mum (to go with my online iPad edition). Also good to catch up there with Tim (a friend of long-standing from Uni), and Roger B-W, one of my more regular recent commenters and a friend of almost as long standing, with whom I had a very interesting and thought-provoking chat about some meta-concepts in gaming... which may well inspire parts of the next podcast (soon, I promise!

The blogger's meetup was amazingly well attended - I think I counted well over 20 people there, many of whom I know, many I didn't or didn't get chance to catch names of. Next time, we're probably going to have to book a room or something, or at least all wear badges with our name and blog on it!

One downside? I went with a vague intent of picking up a Dreadball team and maybe a Kings of War army from Mantic. Large stand, lots of staff, loads of stuff, two fetching young ladies in Dreadball cheerleader outfits... And not enough budget for a credit card machine?!?!?! Guys! Really? I can understand it of a small limited run figure manufacturer, but... really?!

Pondering pending projects - a priority problem

See, it's like this...

...and then I need to tidy this. Again.

No matter how hard I try and produce a list of things to do at the start of the year, it doesn't take me (any more than I suspect it does anyone else) long to get an attack of the 'oooh, shiny' and add things to it. Not helped by not always knowing at the start of the year what the theme might be for upcoming WAB tourneys etc.

So. With that in mind, how'm I doing?

From the list of things to paint:

• lots of 15mm WW2 US, German and British (in that order)
• lots of 18mm Napoleonics
• lots of terrain!
• A longboat

Hrn. Ok. So.

• Lots of US infantry done, lots of Shermans waiting on a can of US Olive Drab. Lots of Germans bought, so I'll probably make a start on those soon.
• 18mm Napoleonics... *whistles*. Be right back to you on that.
• Terrain. Well, I made two more woods last week, and Tim is really honestly going to get me the hardboard I asked for Real Soon Now.... I also have the bits for some 15mm bocage.
• The longboat is waiting on a piece for the masthead, which I'm going to knock up in work's new 3D printer :D

On top of that:

• Built an entire Parthian army for the WAB GT. This will also double as Palmyran for Rushden's Axes 2013 tournament, though I may add some Middle Imperial Roman allies - I've already picked up a very nice figure for Queen Zenobia.
• Added to my Christian Spanish/Norman/Crusades army for WABGT 2013 (and also possibly at least one other event this year). I have half a box of Conquest Norman foot to paint to add to that, as it's somewhat infantry-light for the Crusades, and I would like to add a box of the lovely Fireforge Templars. Also Foundry's current eBay sale is tempting me greatly to add some more foot, both spearmen and archers.
• Painted a bunch of Judges for the club campaign
• I need another section of Germans to play Chain of Command. (Sorry, Op: Squad. It's not you, it's ... actually, it's you :D)
• I need to make some time to go through everything I have, fix broken spears etc, clean up bases, figure out better storage (our butcher just delivered me a huge pile of stout cardboard boxes that are roughly 10" x 18" by 2" deep....)

Still...

...I won't be bored. I want to try and get into a regular habit of painting, even if it's only an hour a day while James is doing his homework. I can manage it for blogging, so...

28mm German Panzergrenadiers

Finally!

Finished these a while back for the Analogue Hobbies painting contest, but there was a minor domestic over the whereabouts of my camera charger ("You said you'd looked there!" "I had." "So what's THIS?" "Erm, that's not where you asked if I'd looked." "Yes it is." "Isn't."...) which meant these took a while to get photographed.

But, anyway - herewith a squad of 11 Warlord 28mm plastic Wehrmacht Panzergrenadiers, based for Operation: Squad (well, based for pretty much anything, actually, since Op: Squad isn't that fussy - most of them are Renedra round 25mm bases, one is a UK 2p coin, which is almost dead on the right size and cheaper!). Army Painter Uniform Grey spray primer, Tamiya Field Grey uniforms, Army Painter Strong Tone dip - which latter seems to have worked very well on the uniforms. Basing is my usual (Tamiya Dark Earth Diorama paint, Javis moorland scatter and spring static grass, some GF9 medium basing grit), and then an overall coat of Army Painter Anti-Shine (JUST before it rained!).

Taken with a Canon EOS 300D and a Tamron 25-70 f2.8 zoom on a tripod, adjusted in iPhoto.

The plan for 2012

Inspired by a similar post on Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog I thought I'd set down my aims for 2012 and onwards... Since I changed jobs, I now have an hour or two every evening between me getting home and James finishing his homework, which has proved surprisingly productive - for example I managed to get a dozen Red Devils from undercoated to ready to dip in two hours the other Friday, setting something of a record for me - from just-bought to on-the-wargames-table in four days. As motivation, I'm entering two painting contests: Curt at Analogue Hobbies' winter challenge, and the La Bricolage forum contest. There - no escape now, I've said it in public.

Completing existing armies:

• Add a couple more cohorts and another unit of cavalry to my 28mm EIR
• Add another two warbands, some more cavalry, fanatics and chariots to my 28mm Brigantes
• Add another squad with support weapons to my 28mm Wehrmacht (for Operation: Squad)
• Add another regiment of pike and shot to my 28mm Royalists

New armies:

• Napoleon At War 18mm French - at least two infantry brigades plus cavalry plus artillery
• 28mm Parthians (largely Wargames Factory Persian light cavalry plus A&A cataphracts). Waiting on Armies of Antiquity 2 to see what else I need.
• Some 28mm Gladiators for Warhammer Historical's ruleset
• 28mm British Commandos for Op: Squad
• 28mm Russians ditto
• 28mm Normans - for SAGA and a possible club campaign

Scenery

• I should buy some so I can game at home
• Paint up/flock the Citadal modular hill I have
• Try constructing some 28mm buildings 
• Ditto bocage for Operation: Squad

Rulesets to acquire/check out

• Buy 
• Operation: Squad - Vehicles (and Reinforcements when it's out)
• Hail Caesar
• Test
• Napoleon At War
• Gladiator

Other stuff

• Get the *deleted* workshop organized so I can keep track of all this stuff!
• Sort out some means of spraying indoors while it's cold!
• Wargamers Pledge. Watch this space!