The Salute Wargames Show 2015. Part One.

Well I'm back from Salute 2015, tired, emotional and very skint.
 Its fair to say the show was the most expensive wargames show that I have ever attended, not even  counting the train fare.
 I will attempt to give a fair and detailed, well for me account of the show to all that may be interested.I will also attempt to provide as much information that I can so that you can make up your minds as to whether you would want to make a trip to the show.
 Salute invariably is staged the same weekend as the London Marathon, and all the runners have to register at the Excel on the Saturday morning. It makes for a very interesting contrast as one brushes past thousands of gym bunnies. This year was even more interesting as the Excel also staged Sherlocked, a convention for fans of Sherlock Holmes the television and literary hero.
 Well I thought some wargamers were strange, but these people brought a whole new meaning to the term. I somehow feel that the Sherlock fans were rejects from the old Dungeons and Dragons groups of the 1970's and 80's. Still they were pretty harmless and somehow added some respectability to the Salute crowd. The Sherlock fans definitely won the hygiene stakes, as the afternoon was very warm in Salute, and the niff factor did rise somewhat.
 Why is that so?
Anyway I digress....
 Although I was up early on the morning of the show, and got to the Excel for just after 09.00, the queue buster queue was already quite long. [ There's an irony there, one of several during the day]

  A view from the queue buster queue, circa 09.00.
 I reckon there was about 200 in front of me, including the North Yorkshire posse led by Jim Sweeney.
 Still I was actually in the show just a couple of minutes after 10.00 so really that was pretty good.
 The Warlords have changed the entrances around and the queue busters get in away from the other queues, so it does pay to buy one of their tickets.
 To give you an idea of the vastness of the Arena, I took this photograph from the seating area at about 11.00. I dont think it does justice to the size of the place.

This year, I had a plan, and actually listed where I wanted to be first, and which trade I wanted to buy from before the main crowds arrived. This really does work, because as the day wears on the traders do run out of stock. Plus it allowed me to then check out all of the traders to see what was of interest to me.I did the same with the games, but that's later.
 Because Wargames Illustrated were doing a couple of special figures if you subscribed to the magazine, I went straight to their stand and signed up for a years worth of magazines. Not only did that entitle me to 14 months worth of their magazines, it also got me a Simon de Montfort figure, and a mounted Edward first figure, both are beautiful one offs. I also got a box of Warlord plastics thrown in. So that must have been worth about £30.00, a good start.
 From there I went to the Ken Trotman stand, where I bought the new Dr Summerfield release, The Hanoverian Army, and the new Charles Grant wargames book.
 Dr Summerfield was at the stand and kindly signed my book. We also had a chat about his next book.
 You can sense why I managed to spend a lot of cash by now cant you.
 Anyway determined to do most of my shopping quickly so I could then enjoy the show, it was off to the Crann Tara stand to collect my order of their new officers coach, some of their light infantry and some French cavalry. I know Graham had a very busy and profitable day, because when I went back later to buy a Cumberland figure he was sold out. I should have stuck to my plan.
  Bicorne Miniatures exhibited this year at Salute, so my next port of call was to check out the old Connoisseur range. The lady who was running the stall had cast up some of the Italian Wars Spanish for me, and I thought it would be very rude not to buy all the castings she had made. So 60 plus figures later my shopping was getting a tad heavy. The time was just short of 11.00am.
 I was determined to savour this years Salute, last year I really wasn't very well and didn't enjoy the show. The year before the show just overwhelmed me. So on to the Perry's stand, where I collected some of their new plastic light cavalry. These are first rate utility figures.
 The twins had some new 3 ups to show, I think they were colonial British but I couldn't get near them for the crush.
 The company, Wayland Games have a very large stall, well actually its like a large shop, but there are some good bargains to be had there, and this year they had brought their excellent P3 paint range. This is first rate acrylic paint, and whilst usually you have to buy a set of 3 colours a la Foundry, Wayland had separate colours. They also had a buy 7 get them a tenner deal. Paint is not cheap, and as I traveled around other stalls some new ranges were £2.75 and above for one small tube.
 Normally I dont use Front Rank figures, its purely a subjective thing, but I had been given a number of Willie horses, and I knew Front Rank cavalry figures would fit these horses.
 So I bought a unit of their French SYW Gendarmes of the Guard, their ranges are very popular, but in this case it was needs must for me.
 By 12.00 I needed to pause for breath, and let my wallet cool down somewhat. I had managed to buy a number of new brushes, and for luck Id also raided the discount paint on sale from Gateshead Gaming, who were offering another decent paint deal.

 After a quick sandwich I was determined to enjoy the show and walk amongst the trade taking in what was of interest.
 What struck me was the large number of Sci Fi, Fantasy Steam Punk type of trade stands. All were busy all the time I was there. The stand out trade stand for this was Forgeworld. A queue of a minimum of 20 was stood waiting to buy from their stall all day, it never got any shorter and was normally much longer. I've never witnessed this before and I've been to dozens of shows.
Forgeworld were part of Games Workshop until that company went a new road. I think Forgeworld may have become their natural successor and I think its another nail in the Games Workshop coffin.
 Forgeworld produce some amazing figures and characters, at very amazing prices.
In fact most of these stall had some amazing models for sale, the standard of sculpting is top draw, but the prices are also excessive. Well at least in my cheapskate eyes. Still an interesting observation, well at least I thought it was.
Another thing that was noticeable was the large number of attendees younger that 40, and also a lot more women, who were clearly there to buy and play games. No doubt the majority were there for Steam Punk etc, but still a good sight.
 So after raiding Warbases, buying a new set of brushes, and a new set of dice I thought I should wander around the show seeing what was what.
 For some reason the Warlords opted to celebrate the anniversary of Agincourt as opposed to Waterloo. I cant decide if this was to emphasize the difference between the Warlords and other wargames clubs, somehow I would rather have seen a large game of Waterloo but hell what do I know.I counted four Agincourt refights, all had something to say abount the battle, my favourite was Simon Chicks representation.
I wish I had taken more photographs of the game, but it was hard to get around the table. The painting of the figures was first rate, I particularly loved the tower at the edge of table.
 I will deal with the games in part two of my post.

Salute wouldnt be Salute without Star Wars being on show somewhere at the event. I assume this game was put on by the Warlords, but I could be wrong. It was very popular with a lot of the public who could take part, and although its difficult to see from my photograph, there was some great modelling of the base under attack, led lights and all. One thing I noticed was that snow was popular with various games throughout the hall, some were done better than others.

Wargames Illustrated were running what was described as a hobby university organised by a Heather Bush. Basically there were tutorials on painting techniques, plastic figure making and suchlike, it looked very good, and when I was watching it was very popular. I loved the portable daylight lamps, and I wish Id asked where they were from. Definitely an idea to push at other shows.

The painting competition is always of great interest to me and one day I may re enter the thing.
This year there were about six entries in the historical unit section, Perhaps wargamers have been put off by successive years of entries by professional painters?
 Certainly the two stand out entries were from Bill Gaskin and I think Saxon Dog.
Its difficult to match this standard of work. I never stayed to find out who won, but I assume because both these enteries were being photographed prior to judging that one of them would have won.

 
In the fantasy, sci fi sections there was no shortage of entries, and all appeared of a very high standard but due to the dreadful lighting I didnt even try to photograph them. I did however take some of this wonderful building that was an entry? Sorry about the poor quality photographs.

 In part two of my post I will talk about the games and such like and basically what I thought of Salute 2015.

A Bit of Nostalgia [ well for me it is ]

I was sifting through some stuff last night and came across my old wargame photograph collection of games that I had put on over the years. I thought Id start with a couple from my re fight of the Battle of Blenheim, which was fought in 6mm and featured in Practical Wargamer many years ago.
Also because it was Colin Ashton's birthday yesterday [happy birthday again Colin] I thought he might like to see what he looked like way back.

                                     Charlie Wesencraft acting as Eugene, starting his attack.

Sorry about the lopsided image, my scanner is crap. Anyway me talking to members of the Imperiale Garde Band in the 1980's at a Napoleonic show at Lumley Castle. The battle I put on was the Battle of Hanau in 25mm. The show was a huge success over two days, with several thousand people attending to watch the band and other re enactors. The show was also the only time I had a group of painted figures stolen. 

 I think this was the first ever game that we ever put on, and was the Durham Wargames Show in the early 1980's although I would need John to consult his war diary to get the exact date.
The guy sat down looking pensive was Jim Hargreave, a former member of the group.The battle was a Renaissance Italian wars game.

This badly taken photograph was the refight of Aspern Essling in 6mm, there's John standing looking like he's going to make a really good move. The guy sitting is Steve, a wargamer who decided to leave the hobby overnight.  

These images were from my refight of Wagram, again in 6mm. I still have all the terrain from this battle, and I have managed to not sell the armies either. In fact I expanded the armies in order to re fight Leipzig, but never made the terrain. 

                         These two were our refight of the Battle of Eylau, again in 6mm. [1998]

Me in a dodgy shirt [it was my Magnum PI days] with everyone who attended a refight of the Battle of Austerlitz. Dave Jarvis, looking decidedly dodgy in a white sports shirt. The year was 1987!

A close up of the Austerlitz set up.

Part of the set up for my refight of the Battle of Waterloo. [1999]

So anyway, a fair dollop of self indulgent nostalgia, which are only a very small part of the refights that I have been involved with. My favourite?, I think Austerlitz was the most interesting to fight.

Nothing Controversial to say.........

I have put off posting recently, because I was hoping that I would come up with an original series of thought provoking observations about wargaming, and then kick off some discussion.
 Well clearly I'm not that deep a thinker, and can only say that all appears good in my wargaming world. Salute is on the horizon, I am as well as I can be considering and there are lots of things that I want to buy due for release, so whats not to be happy about.
 I have been re reading for the umpteenth time my collection of Battle magazines, for inspiration and generally because I'm a saddo sentimentalist. One thing has struck me how things have improved from those days is the sheer variety of products, figures, books services etc, the only thing not yet available is some nubile girl to move the figures around my table,[ may be one day]
 My present for my birthday from my wife was a number of buildings from Tabletop World in Croatia which produce some fabulous 28mm buildings. Now how great is that, in that I can order some class models and receive them in a matter of days.
 Anyway, I have managed to paint the 'well' which is as start but hardly a lot of progress. Still a great piece for any 28mm wargamer. Check out their site.

 The models are made from a light plastic/resin combination which allows fine detail, definately a great find.

 Some people may dislike the colour scheme but as I've got older, I am drawn to different colour combinations, its an age thing.

On the painting front I have returned to my box of pre painted vintage figures and repainted a couple of Austrian SYW units. The figures are still in my mind amongst the best, although I found that some of the carbines on the cavalry were very femur due to age. Still they re painted well, and are a great way to crack off a unit or two. I hope to next complete an Austrian cuirassier regiment next from this box.

Salute stands to be a very expensive day out for me due to a shopping list that has grown exponentially as new products have emerged to be released at the show. What with the new Perry light cavalry for the European wars, the return of Bicorne Miniatures to the show, Crann Tara attending amongst others things, will hit the wallet hard. Then Ken Trotman is releasing not one but two new books on the SYW that I have to have [ child] Book 11 in the Charles Grant series, and Dr Summerfield's Hanoverian Army of the Seven Years War not much change from a tenner I fear

 [ I wish], Christmas has come very early this year. 

Returning to how things are much better for wargamers, I was reading my copy of George Gush's Renaissance Armies the other night, checking on a couple of things.I bought this book when it first came out in the 1980's, it retailed at the sum of £8.75p. I didnt have the cash to pay for the book, but Derek Sharman who ran the Wargamers Den in Durham City where I bought the book, allowed me to pay for it weekly. Would that happen now I wonder? Perhaps, dependent on how well one knows the seller, but somehow I dont think so. What it did show me was that wargame enthusiasts have always wanted to help other wargamers and that act of kindness has always stuck with me.

[ Mind Derek was a pretty shit businessman and went out of business soon after.]

 Anyway onwards and upwards................     

Reichenberg.

Now that Colin, has posted the battle of Reichenberg on his blog 'Carry on up the Dale', I can post some photographs from the battle that we fought at the weekend. What was in Charles Grants book quite a small affair, became quite a big affair. I wont go into the niceties of the actual battle, Colin has done it far better. But effectively the battle was the encounter before the large battle of Prague.

 The Austrians were in a prepared position, facing the majority of the Prussian army. In reality the Prussians quickly out outmaneuvered the Austrians, turned their flank and gave them a bit of a beating.
 On Saturday, I think its fair to say Colin and I, as the Austrian C in C changed history.
 Using Black Powder rules is a bit like Marmite, you either love them or hate them. Me I really didnt like them, but as I continued playing with the rules, I have really come to enjoy the cut and thrust of them. My advice to anyone not liking the rules, is to stick with it, and hopefully you will see the light as it were.

There are always episodes in a wargames battle, that greatly effect a game. The photograph below of the Austrian Carabineers charging the flank of the Prussians was one.
 Ignoring the rules of commonsense, and offering my flank as a target to the Prussian grand battery, I managed to charge home unscathed into the Prussians. It shouldnt have been able to happen, as four guns target you, but it did. I think it was as big as a surprise to me, as to John who was leading the Prussian attack. The Follow Me rule in Black Powder can be a game changer, and although I was to inevitabley lose the commander after the charge, it was worth the risk. The Prussian attacks began to falter after the melee, and although the attack wasnt as effective as I had hoped, it turned what appeared a Prussian victory into an Austrian one.

 Of course there is always a down side to showing superior wargames generalship, especially when Neil, decided to lead his Prussian cavalry against the flank of my Hungarian Grenadiers, except his attack was nowhere as successful as mine and the grenadiers saw the charge off.
 All in all a very nice way to spend a Saturday.