Saturday 20 April 2013

Salute 2013

Annoyingly, I forgot my camera (for the third year in a row), so no pictures of Salute from me. But, there wasn't a great deal to photograph - not many big, big games but many more small "boutique" tables (nice scenery, nice figures but not much "wow" factor). This year, I wandered around with Giles (of http://gilesallison.blogspot.co.uk/ ) - this was good as we had a nice catch up and I restrained myself from any wild splurging on figures that were totally "off topic".

So, without further ado - my shopping bag for the day:

28mm Perry Miniatures
EA1 Unarmoured Swiss Halberdiers / Pikemen Marching
EA6 Swiss Heads
EA7 European heads

I bought the WotR boxes when they first came out at Salute two or three years ago, have since added the Mounted Men at Arms and "Mercenaries" boxes to my plastic pile and have a general "plan" to do something European - Fornovo perhaps. At the moment this is handicapped by my being rather intimidated by the figures, a lack of knowledge about the period (I've got some Ospreys but nothing in depth) and have had no thoughts on rules.

15mm AB Miniatures
HO1/2 Light Cavalry Horses Charging x4
S14/37 Spanish Light Infantry Command
S23 Spanish Artillery Crew x3
S24 Spanish Generals
IF-06/12 French Elite Company 1806/12 (Greatcoat) x4

This order follows on from my recent interest in the Spanish War of Independence (the Peninsular War to me and you), and the purchase of some figures from eBay. Several packs of the old, old BH blisters that were sold as twelve figures (with cavalry being sold as separate blisters for horses and riders) needed horses so the remount options from Fighting 15s (superb service from Ian Marsh yet again as I pre-ordered these at the very last minute - one of the last orders packed before Ian loaded his car).

15mm Xan Miniatures
NFA01 French Foot Artillerymen
NFA02 French Horse Artillerymen
NFA10 Cannon (6lb &8lber)

Empress sneaked these out just before Salute. I'm not too sure about the gun but the figures are very nice - there are six figures in each pack that look like they will make up a very nice crew. As most people use four crewmen per gun I guess you could buy two packs and three guns and have something workable at the end of it. Apparently the next thing in the pipeline is British Line Infantry - which, with my new found interest in the Peninsula, is great.

15mm Battle Honours
BSP2 Spanish Infantry Advancing
BSP3 Spanish Infantry Defending x2
BSP7 Spanish Heavy Cavalry
BSP8 Spanish Dragoons

Unfortunately some blighter had beaten me to the punch and cleaned Timecast out of BSP1 Spanish Infantry Standing / Firing. My plan is to do a review on each pack with some photos before I add them to the painting list - my first thoughts are that they are packaged really strangely (like someone threw the figures up in the air and just bagged what fell down in a random fashion). My second thought was that while the cavalry are fine sculpts they will need some work - the riders all seem to have their swords on their shoulders "at rest" while the horses are galloping...which will grate on me. If I'd known this before I went shopping for remounts I'd have done some shuffling (use the horses from the BH Spanish with my eBay purchase, and substitute a couple of bags of AB heavy horse at rest for the Spanish heavies).

15mm Old Glory
SPN3 Spanish Volunteer Infantry
SPN5 Spanish Militia

I'd read that the OG Spanish were one of their better ranges and these two packs look pretty good at first look - the volunteer infantry are in top hats and appear to have British packs, while the militia are in a mix of top hats and bicornes and seem to be wearing a smock or overcoat. Both packs are in the energetic high porte pose that OG use so much. The chap at Timecast told me none of the OG Spanish are in march attack, which is a shame.

15mm Blue Moon
15-FE-02 6lb Guns

These look pretty good on the website and just as good in the bag so I'm quite hopeful for these. My plan is to use them with the AB Spanish gun crews (AB charge £3.00 a gun, whereas the Blue Moon pack of six guns is £12.00 so I've saved a few pennies there).

My only other purchases were a copy of "The Spanish Army In the Peninsular War" by Charles Esdaile from Caliver Books (despite blanching slightly at the price), and a tin of Army Painter "Strong Tone" (I believe this tone is more brown than the dark tone so I wanted to experiment a little bit). I also bought the new Miniature Wargames magazine now edited by Henry Hyde - there were some comely young ladies around the hall selling these and it seemed rude to disappoint them. I was really pleased with this buy - MW has been, frankly, pretty rubbish for the last 20 years or so in my opinion, so I was really happy to see that Henry has produced a Battlegames reverse takeover. The style, artwork and pretty much everything else has been lifted from its previous execrable levels. I may well subscribe now.

Extremely restrained by my standards. I was sorely tempted by the Perry and Renedra American range of buildings - I've no idea what I'd do with them once built but I covet them. Apart from that, not much else grabbed me - I was tempted by Anteociti's 28mm sci-fi interior detailing sets but have nothing to use them with. I didn't buy the new Dark Age Warriors box from GB (which was on my "probable" list of purchases) but will probably get some if I see them on eBay at a good price.

So, a good fun day. Now to do some reviews of the BH and OG Spanish, and a 15mm French gun comparison between AB, BM and Xan - and show my first battalion of AB Spanish off (just waiting on flags from, appropriately enough, Spain).




3 comments:

  1. Yes, the MW lady I bought my copy from was completely lovely! I actually remembered my camera this year as I usually forget mine too but like you din't find that many games worth photographing...

    Wish I'd known Giles was there he started me off on blogging!

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