sho3box

I went to Salute yesterday. In between resisting the urge to add to the lead mountain and simply adding to the lead mountain I took some pictures, shown below.

I didnt have time to document which games were run by what groups and the like, but I took photos of the ones that interested me in particular.  I also missed a few that I wanted to photograph but managed not to see them on the second pass through with the camera (the first and third passes through the hall being reserved for shopping and drooling).

The standard of the shots isnt great, but they should give a feel for some of the games being played.

I think that the players were playing Infinity on the table above.  I have always liked the idea of a set of snow terrain, but never made anyway because it doesnt really mix with any of my existing stuff.  It would be like a brand new scale or project all of its own.  Cool looking though.

I dont know what was being played on the table shown above, but it looked great the rocky (cork?) mesas made for a very nice looking table.  I love the high flying aircraft.  A lot of games at the show had flyers mounted quite high.  It looks great, but strikes me as being impractical for people who play at home (plus the usual problems with storing that sort of thing).  I could be wrong though.  A lovely looking game.

Judging by the sign at the top of the above photo I suspect that this was the table showing the Gripping Beast historical plastic kits.  Shedloads of nice and (to my eyes at least) authentic looking figures.

Another nice looking historical table.  The amount of love and attention individually paid to so many figures in a single big hall can be a bit overwhelming.  If this display was at some of the other shows that I have been too I would have pored over it for ages.  At Salute there was so much to look at that I only got to take a quick look and snap.

I loved this table.  Its from Taban Miniatures showing off their large 30mm post apoc game, Eden.  The table is an abandoned fairground complete with roller coaster, bumper cars and merry-go-round, all exquisitely rendered and very evocative.  The Eden figures are absoultely beautifully sculpted and the display paint jobs are so good as to make me want to give up my feeble attempts.

I didnt buy any Eden figures though as the 30mm scale is just a bit too big for my tastes and existing figure collection, plus the figures are not cheap.  I may buy one of their samurai exo-suits/robots at a later date, assuming that some get-rich-quick scheme eventually has me rolling in dough.  Until then though…

I am on a bit of a Judge Dredd kick at the moment, with some Mega City One stuff in the project pipeline (I bought a few Judges, Holocaust suits and the Angel Gang from Mongoose yesterday).  As a result the table from Antenocitis Workshop was 100% up my street.  Its brilliant to see a 28mm sci-fi city that isnt 1) gothic, 2) ruined, 3) a small town or 4) shitty looking.

AW make some lovely stuff but it tends to be expensive.  I had to avoid their display of sci-fi street furniture after seeing it early on show yesterday.  I knew if I went back that I would buy stuff that I just cant currently afford.  Ho hum.

Another shot of the boner-inducing Antenocitis Workshop G.O.T. table…

…and another…

…and the last one.  As you can probably tell this was one of my favourite tables.  Its not realistic for me to ever think that I will have a table as nice as that at home, but it is inspiring all the same.  I can just imagine all of the Judge Dredd, Bladerunner, Star Trek etc games that could be played on something like that.

Thank Christ I dont play 15mm sci-fi, I have enough figures unpainted already.  If I had my time over again though I would consider ditching both the 6mm (Epic) stuff and the 28mm (everything else) and just stick to 15mm sci-fi.  Its a great scale for tanks, mecha are totally feasible and the infantry is super cheap in comparison with 28mm.  I dont know who was responsible for this cool looking table, but I wish that they were my neighbours.

Modern stuff here from an unknown party.  Another table that was improved a lot by being able to see the helicopters above it from a distance.  In the context of a gaming hall it looks fantastic.  At home I think that its too hard to get that sort of perspective going (unless your game room is as big as a basketball court or something, in which case I am jealous).

I *think* that this table was hosting some Car Wars style game.  I liked the base boards ( I think that they are laser cut prefab bits form somewhere that I saw a few years ago, but I could be wrong).

More cool helicopters on a dramatic board.

The table above was very realistic looking to me.  So realistic in fact that the realistically camouflaged miniatures blended in almost perfectly.

I honestly mean no disrespect to the guys who put this really impressive table together, but I think that most of their hard work couldnt be seen, which is a pity.  My own tastes prefer that the figures stand out a little, being the heroes of the little narratives that are developing (even though that can end up gaudy and horrible really easily too).

The above shot was from a simple (by the standards of the show at least) display of  what I *think* was Flames of War.  I took the photo because the table made me hum Ride of the Valkyries.

An impressive Stalingrad sort of game (at least, thats what it looked like to me).  The more that I looked at this the better it got.  Ten different kinds of awesome smothered in rich creamery butter it was.

More Eastern front cool-ness.

A not great shot of a cute looking game above.  The game is “Twilight” (note: not the horseshit about vampires who look like diamonds when the sunrays trickle through their obscenely overworked hairdos and glistens on their tennis court sized foreheads.  Its a different, Brian Froud-y, Dark Crystal-y “Twilight”).

Cute figures for this, but being fantasy I doubt that I will ever get into it.  They do have little guys with mechanical exo-suit looking legs that remind me a bit of “sligs” from Abes Odyssey on PS1.  I could see myself picking up two or three of those for gaming AE bounty or similar sometime.

More exquisitely painted, beautifully sculpted expensive figures on display here.  Freebooters Fate is about pirates, but features goblins and the like.  A really cute table for their display games I thought.

A very impressive hu-u-ge game here.  It looked like VSF flying dreadnoughts to me.  Another game that really wouldnt be practical to run domestically and therefore ideal for a show like Salute.

More lovely 15mm sci-fi.

Even more 15mm (maybe 10mm?), this time playing in the snow again.  I suppose it must be vast exposure to The Empire Strikes Back that makes wargaming giant robot walkers on a snowy planet so appealing.  Whatever the reason, it floats my boat.

An impressive post apoc or simply bombed out warzone here.  This table grabbed me with the little bits of ruined furniture etc in the buildings.  Very much lived-in structures rather than bombed out shells. Lovely.

A close up from the table above.

This was a table for showing the  7TV rules.  Having watched the tables construction evolve on the LAF forum over the last few months it was nice to see in in the flesh.  Obviously its is a James Bond type game set in a underground lair, complete with rocket and associated paraphenalia, “Little Nelly” style gyrocopter and cells from which incarcerated interloper can easily escape via the modeled in ventilation shafts.  Nice.

Another beautiful historical table.  I thought that the poppys were a nice touch.

This was the table AKULA (of AR:SE fame) has been documenting on LAF (and Frothers I suspect).  Its a cool table based on the Battlefield Bad Company Xbox game.  As I was rushing to make a flight at this stage I unfortunately didnt have time to say hi and thank him in person for the use of his rules.  Next time.

More of the above game again.

I think that this was the Frothers Cthulhu/Cluedo game, but as I was rushing at this stage I cant be sure.  It looked cute though and like something that would be a lot of fun to play.

I used the opportunity to meet up with fellow miniatures blogger and commenter TheAngryLurker yesterday too.  At an early point in the day we met to say hi and to press the flesh.  Thats TheAngryLurker on the rear left with me on the rear right.  In front (and behind the camera) are three of the “Rejects”, TALs gaming buddies.  It was cool to meet up with the lot of them for a few minutes and it added an extra element to what was already a fun day.

Filed under: Games in Progress, Miniatures, Terrain | Tagged: 2011, Salute | 8 Comments »