Salute round up

It's a week late, but I thought I should talk about my day out at Salute. Regular readers know this yearly day out in London is always on my social calendar so I am an old pro at navigating the backpacks and trolley suitcases.

Distinguished Opponent and I set out super early from home (Although not as early as previous years due to the new convenience of the Elizabeth Line.) We got to the Excel at around half eight, so managed to join the queue before it got too long. Just before opening I managed to get this photo of everyone behind us:

So many backpacks

When the show opened we decided to head immediately to the opposite end of the hall and work our way backwards. A great tactic to avoid the crowds at the beginning of the show (maybe I shouldn't be telling you all this for next year.) This choice did mean that we hit up Rogue Hobbies stand at the start of the show so I got to have a chat with Louise (Savage Orc Guy) who is on one of my favourite YouTube casts, Jugz. 

	Yes, I am bending my knees and Louise is in her big heels

The Rogue Hobbies Rascal Town range

 

 

Sadly I missed Rob (who was somewhere around) and Peachy missed the show entirely due to terrible traffic on the day. I did sit down though for the Hobbies round-up panel later in the day which Rob seemed to be the unofficial moderator of.

A great panel, I even got to ask a question

Next up a visit to TTCombat was in order. Every year I am tempted to look at their Rumbleslam range so I felt I should finally investigate and I had a go at the demo game.

Concentrating

The basic set has a mousemat ring

"So, I throw you out of the ring"

I apologise that I cannot remember the chaps name, but he did his job well, as despite losing the game I opted to go all in and buy the core game and a couple of extra wrestlers.  I also upgraded to an mdf ring and had it built the day after Salute:

Just needs a lick of paint

I have managed to make a start on my wrestlers

It's a quick fun game and I am already eyeing up some more of the characters.

I had to make a visit to Realms of Tiberium. I had to apologise as the purchase I made from them last year is still on my to do pile. It's a great sculpt, so good that I am finding it a little intimidating to finish. Come back to me this time next year and I might have it done.

Love that middle sculpt

I am looking forward to the release of the new model in the middle of this shot which I am sure will also intimidate me for a while once purchased.

Obviously we had to make a visit to see Annie at Bad Squiddo, whilst the Distinguished Opponent shopped, I sat at the colouring in table and chatted to Annie and Lil. It was a welcome rest for my weary legs at that point.

My best art work this year

Love these vignettes

 

 

Even if my photography is terrible

 

 

The new biker gang

Another new idea at Salute was the kitbash corner. A whole group of artists displaying their work using wargaming supplies (or inspired by) that was showing some unusual pieces of work in miniature.  It was quite busy so I couldn't get many photos but I did get this of work done by Laurence known as "Baharroth the cry of old paint" which was inspiring:

I really wanted to get loads of close up shots of this, but they all came out terrible

I managed to briefly say hello to some online friends from the blogsphere (very briefly as i wanted to get to the next panel) and we did also manage to meet up with the Illustrious Opponent as well. I had great fun even though as per usual it was an unseasonably warm day. I have heard on the internet grapevine that the day was a massive success for most folks, attendance numbers were in the post 7 thousands and close to maxing out the venue capacity, the South London Warlords should be proud of their efforts.

Thanks to the Distinguished Opponent for photography assistance, he is always willing to join me for such an early start on this day out with very minimal grumbling. (Making sure he gets caffeine on arrival at Excel is a must.) 

Punk Wargaming

 

The world of wargaming has always been a little bit punk. Bear with me as I give my argument.

“The punk ethos is primarily made up of beliefs such as non-conformity, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, a do-it-yourself ethic, anti-consumerist, anti-corporate greed, direct action, and not "selling out".”   - Wikipedia.

All right, maybe not all these things, but I would definitely say the non-conformity and do-it-yourself ethic have always been there. When addressing this topic it is difficult to not address the great big Oliphaunt in the room, Games Workshop, so we may start with them. Early days of GW were what I would call punk. The adopting of sci-fi and fantasy themselves in a wargaming setting were definitely not the accepted norm in the hobby at the time. 

Up until that point wargaming was mostly re-enactment of real historical settings. The industry itself was still very small and a lot of hobbyists were casting their own soldiers in lead in sheds and kitchens across the country (something I think of as a little bit punk too.)

These actual punks appear in the first edition of 40k, Rogue Trader

Going forward through the eighties with the actual birth of punk, we have the release of GW’s sci fi game Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader. Is it a coincidence that another British home grown success, the comic 2000AD had a similarly named title. Another company that had a punky anti-establishment feel to it.

Another image from Rogue Trader, real punk vibes

Early GW games had their own limitations due to the range of products not covering everything required, so there has always historically been an encouragement of colouring outside the lines by the hobby including scratch building or “converting” as the slang was at the time. This was also partly due to the inclusion of randomness in some of the rule sets. I am guessing this is something that bled over from early roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons where players liked the dice to decide what their characters attributes were.

Random ability table from Rogue Trader

Still a popular game today, Mordheim encouraged scratch building your gangs as well as buying the provided kits.

The possessed gang could even gain mutations, definitely something that needed a bit of hobby converting!

As GW became a shareholder led business, they themselves have become the corporate, consumerist entity that punk is “anti” so it obviously leads to these attitudes being less encouraged. I’m not completely against this, when a company grows and has to start ensuring that it has a guaranteed business certain decisions have to be made. The company still has a place in the hobby, it definitely is the gateway drug into a large community that definitely would suffer without it.

The Freebooterz expansion rulebook had a whole army list of Ork/Genestealer hybrids that could only be played with conversions. There were no models!

So, what is Punk Wargaming now? Well, I think I have come up with a definition.

Punk Wargaming – Wargaming with the rule of cool. Not always using models for their intended purpose. Scratch building and converting models. Finding a way to play a game in your own budget. Playing to tell a story rather than win a game.

Not all of the above is required to be a Punk Wargamer. But having the attitude to accept these things in your opponent as well as yourself is probably enough to cover it. So, how do I join the gang I hear you ask? Well, luckily in this current world of the World Wide Web, PDF's, self publishing, 3D printing, it is easier than ever to be a Punk.

Firstly there are a lot of rule sets out there now for whatever your budget. There are free rules from the likes of the 28 community who I would definitely say are Punk Wargamers. There are various self published rules out there that expect you to find your own models.

Self published skirmish cyber-punk rules from Wargamer Punk Patrick Todoroff

If you are still a bit of a traditionalist but want to be a bit punk, well Opsrey do a whole range of miniature agnostic rules. Some which cover historical periods as well as sci-fi and fantasy. The best way to be a Wargaming Punk however when it comes to rules is to write your own. if you aren't confident enough yet maybe use an existing set of rules and write a set of house rules or a campaign. Be inspired. (As long as you don't start publishing and making money from this, being a Punk does not mean being a stealing douchebag, Respect copyright laws)

If you want inspiration for being a Hobby Punk, you are advised to go and watch all the videos from Trent at Miscast. I can heartily recommend his channel, it's great fun. If the written word is more your preference, then go read 28 magazine for inspiration from a whole host of hobbyists. Or if you don't think you can cope with making a mess with hot glue guns and resin, then maybe try some 3D sculpting, you may surprise yourself.

Or, if you just want to buy some different models for your games, then start looking around on the internet for alternatives. Maybe visit Ramshackle games or The Still Tower, two companies who I would say are Punk Wargamers. Or buy something from one of the hundreds of smaller companies out there. Why would you want to have exactly the same models as everyone else in your army at club night, you're a Wargaming Punk now, be individual. (Although I don't recommend putting a safety pin through your nose, Sepsis is still a thing.) Next time you are at a show and you see a model on display, when you say to your friend "That's cool, but I have no use for it in my games". Buy it anyway, you will find a good use and it will look cool on the table.

New year new models

 The leadpile of potential never seems to dwindle. I am forever getting distracted by new shiny things, there is always something on my painting tray.

I even got temporarily distracted by thus Gundam malarkey. I'll admit, the original cartoon is pretty good, even if I can't watch whilst painting. It's in the original Japanese, so I can't read the English subtitles whilst painting. For Christmas I did get my first kit and it have to say, all those comments on YouTube about the high quality of the kits is not an exaggeration. The amount of toy soldier kits I've tried to glue together (not mentioning any specific company) and things have just not quite fit right. Gundam kits are so precision they don't even need glue. Yet somehow they also stay together once constructed.

I went for a High grade kit which is 1/144 scale (not the simplest difficulty but far from the highest grade either!)

Strike Rouge

The Analogue hobby challenge continues on, you can see it here. I am posting as PeterB. I'm not going crazy with my target this year, an easily obtainable target of 1000 points, which I am sure I will just about meet. I am mostly giving myself the challenge of hitting all of the bonus locations instead, rather than just the mandatory number. I shall see how I get on.

At the club we are still in a Warhammer Old World love fest. At least two or three games are being played every week along with other games. In fact, the club is really thriving with members and we are even in danger of running out of tables! It has been really fun meeting some new members and playing some great tabletop games. Old World has its flaws, but mostly it is a great game. I have been working on a third army on top of my Goblins and my Chaos and I am making great progress with an Empire army.

Progress so far

Obtaining original GW models has been a bit tricky with eBay prices going crazy (We must not be the only club going Old World happy) but I have found the Warlord Games range of Landsknecht make great alternatives for line troopers with some Ogres from Wargames Atlantic to fill out the units.

Finally, I did these a couple of months ago, some dwarfs I did on commission. Super proud of them, it almost makes me want to start a dwarf army for Old World as well.

On escalation

 I have had many a discussion with my fellow club members lately on attitudes towards a wargame. As a player, what is it that you are trying to achieve when you play. There are many answers, none of which are wrong, it all depends on the individual. Some aren't even of the same category, or can be achieved simultaneously. 

There is the need to win, the meta-gamer if you will. This is not neccessarily a bad thing, as long as your opponent is in agreement that this is the goal, it can still be enjoyable for both opponents. Trying to win a game by finding the best interpretation of the rules, but not breaking them, can be a fun past time. The best example I can think of for this is competitive collectable card games like Magic the Gathering. Trying to find a great game winning combo is part of the fun and is applauded in some circles. Always using that same unbeatable deck every week at a friendly, non competitive club meetup however is probably going a little far.

 Regular readers will know I like to play a wargame to tell the story, I like to think I don't mind if I win or lose and most of the time that is the truth. Of course there are occassions when an unfair loss still gripes me, I'm only human after all. These occassions are worse though when the opponent wins by insisting on playing outside the spirit of the rules. No ruleset is completely full proof, especially if it is a first draft of those rules and sometimes the author fails to account for a situation the players find them in and this can be exploited. If the exact wording of a rule does not cover every situation, some people have been known to try and exploit that. I like to think that my fellow players would like to play fair however, agree what is the most fair result in the spirit of the game or what should be the most likely outcome if this were a real life situation. Failing that, a dice roll off should sort it out. Arguing for the sake of the win does not a fun game make. I would rather lose the game and continue than get stuck in an evening of flicking through a rulebook trying to find precident.

 At our club we have been playing a lot of Warhammer the Old World. Now warhammer fantasy is an established ruleset with plenty of previous editions. You would think that would mean the authors have plenty of reference to get a perfect, unflawed ruleset. It still however, does have some rules that are not fully clear and open to multiple interpretation. There are also flaws that mean the game can lose some balance. Having two different armies with exact same point values does not neccessarily create a fair balanced game reliant only on tactical generalship. There is still an advantage to be made on your choice of army list. Now, some may say that is part of the fun of the game and I would agree to some extent. Getting the best combinations of units and magic items is a lot of fun. But, just like the above games of Magic the Gathering, once that killer combination has been found, it is not neccesarily fun to play against. As a group we do try and "play fair" otherwise what is the point.

Temptation has become a bit too great though sometimes. We have got stuck in some kind of arms race. Every week one of our players will add a new gribbly beasty to their army in response to the previous weeks game. Myself included, I did succumb to temptation and solely for the fun of it I did field a chaos army list containing two dragons. I did prewarn my opponent and it is definitely not something I would do regularly, these multi-wound, flying, combat specialists are just too much of a game changer and take away the fun if they are not countered by a different tactic (if someone knows a good solution let me know!) 

We rarely tot up victory points in these games, mostly games are declared a draw due to the fun that was had and the story that was told. On the occassions that there is a clear winner I like to think no grudges are ever held. (Apart from the compulsory fictional entrants to the book of grudges held by the Dwarf Lords, obviously.) Sometimes decisions in game are made even because they create the most fun.

It might not have been the best tactical decision, but we all wanted the dragons to get stuck into combat

 All of us need reminding sometimes why we are playing a game, myself included. Next time you are finding yourself rolling dice, take a second to notice how the game is fairing for your opponent as well as yourself. You may be having a great time wiping out their entire existence on the table, but that may not be as much fun for them. 

Unless you are playing Monopoly, in which case, they knew what they were letting themselves in for when you started. Put those hotels on Mayfair and finish that game as soon as possible so everyone can go have some mulled wine and watch Doctor Who.

  

And its all over for another year

 

Saturday the 14^th of September saw this years Colours Wargames show hosted by Newbury and Reading Wargames Society. This being the club’s 50^th year we wanted to put on a great show. The club are not specifically a historical society as we have had to change with the times to keep up membership. Three floors were taken up at Newbury’s racecourse main grandstand, two floors crammed with traders and a third floor full of excellent demonstrations of recreations of battles from history in various scales. Battles included Salamanca in 28mm, Abbeyville in 3mm (a crazy scale if you ask me) and the Battle of Downham Station pitting the Prussian ArmyKorp against the home Brits. The overall winner of best in show however went to Magrathea group and their Burrows & Badgers game, Siege of Lunedin.  The Leggatts, father and son, came second with Salamanca.

Attendance numbers were significantly up from last year, to where finding a space to park a car nearly became an issue. The club have been making a pointed effort to make sure the day has something for everyone, including a board game café where families can sit for a spell and maybe build railways across Europe. This was a brand new idea last year which I admit was under used in its first year, but this year it was super popular. In this authors opinion I think clubs need to start thinking about the changing trends in the hobby. Yes it would be great to have a show that was entirely focused to just historical gaming, but I think it would be tricky these days to maintain that. If we want enough people to come and support the show, things like the board games café can encourage a wider demographic to attend, we can then show them the virtues of the more traditional tables and keep the hobby going. It isn't just wargaming, a lot of hobbies are in danger of ageing out and not appealing to younger people. I'm not saying we have a bank of XBoxes and Nintendos set up at the show, but a bit of sci fi and fantasy at the show won't do any of us Grognards any harm. The weather was on our side for the day, sunny but not too hot. Feedback from traders and attendees alike was mostly positive with everyone seeming to have a great day. 

Traders of note included Perry Miniatures, Empress Miniatures and Warlord Games. Plenty of choice for someone to obtain some brave redcoats in whatever scale your eyes will allow you to paint them in. David Lanchester books also had the largest selection of military history books you will see anywhere. (Apart from maybe in the private collections of some of you dear readers.) We had a couple of new traders as well, one of my favourites being Beowulf Miniatures. I grabbed one of their wizards towers which will look great on a Mordheim or Oldhammer table. I did manage to grab a couple of other purchases, some Lord of the Rings models for a recreation of Weathertop and some very old school Space Orks that I am looking forward to getting some paint on soon. (Once they are out of their strip bath.)

This author spent most of the day on the Bring and Buy stall, so I did not have a huge amount of time to wander the show, what I did see looked brilliant, and I did get some time away to chat with some friends (including one that came all the way from Norway!) and I also managed to go and play a game with Mrs Lead and the youngest offspring. We had a great time playing a card game called Splendor with a fellow club member and his son. It was a great game that was just complicated enough, but the boys picked it up very quickly. I have orders to add a copy to our wish list for home.

A big shout out goes to the other club members who all gave up their time the day before helping set up and on the day. Some of them have been doing this a lot longer than I have and a lot of work goes on behind the scenes beforehand as well by a few hard working individuals. Shows like this and many others keep the hobby going and allow thousands of hobbyists to have a day out and get a proper close up look at lots of cool toys. Ordering on the internet may be convenient, but nothing beats the fun of getting your loot in person.

 

Overall then, an awesome day was had by all. There is probably one or two people who weren't happy, but you can't please everyone. Now we all just need to find somewhere to stash all our new toys.

Nb. Grumpy comments will be ignored and definitely not published. Go write your own blog.

Getting ready to fly the Colours

 Boy did that summer fly by. Lots of games played at the club over the weeks, lots of Old World Warhammer. (My Orcs and Goblins army is pretty fun, for some reason whenever I successfully cast any spell it always seems to backfire on me). I still have problems dealing with pesky flying models, although my last game, my Doom Diver was man of the match, killing an Orc War boss on Wyvern in two turns of firing, so sometimes the plan works.

The army is growing and growing.

My character riding a giant squig (or rather riding in) isn't really effective in the game, so I have started using the model as a Mangler Squig instead, much more effective. I have been watching various YouTube videos on converting/sculpting your own crazy creature models, so I might have a go at making a bigger squig too.

Painting wise, I have had a rest from my own models. I did do a commission job of some Skaven for a Mordheim gang. |These are 3D printed models and so quite delicate. Combined with the delicate design of some of them, I spent the entire time when painting, paranoid something was going to snap. Luckily they all stayed in one piece and the customer was super happy with the final result.

Next up for a club night, my copy of Worms the board game from Kickstarter finally arrived. I am very excited to play this. The Collectors edition can have up to six players, so it is a great game for our club to play. The rules are pretty straightforward and seem pretty fun. My only slight bugbear is one of the rules involves flipping a coin for a 50/50 result. I have found in other games that there can be an issue with this kind of rule. Some people struggle flipping a coin (especially younger players) or there can be accusations of coins not being "flipped properly". I think it is easier just to replace with a D6 roll, 1-3 or 4-6 for either result. This edition does come with a nice heavy metal coin rather than the cardboard one the basic edition comes with, but I think I'd rather go with the dice. 

The included models are great though. With lots of character and variety, the weapons they are armed with have no game effect, weapons are chosen by cards, but they do look cool.

I think they definitely need some paint, worms definitely have to be peachy, not grey. 

Talking of club business, we have our annual show coming up this month. This is always a welcome day to counter the sadness of the end of the summer hols. Saturday the 14th of September is Newbury and Reading wargames Colours show at the Newbury Racecourse. I shall hopefully be helping out on the Bring and Buy stall again this year, it gives me a great chance to chat to lots of punters and see lots of cool models. I will also be able to catch up with some wargamer friends I don't see regularly enough too. Repeat readers will know that I like to peruse the web pages of some of the traders in advance to see if there is anything I might seek out. I have not had the chance to go through them all yet but some have caught my eye.

Beowulf miniatures look cool, they have some nice looking "Blood Ball" miniatures. (No prizes for guessing what game those models could proxy in to.) The Fiends of Chaos team look particularly cool. Black Scorpion always have beautiful sculpts (I have most of their Tombstone range) their new Foot Knights look awesome. Rok minis seem to be growing their range every year. They now have a five army battle set that looks cool. If you are really feeling flush they can include a giant dwarven fortress in the same scale that looks awesome. For those of you that wish to peruse the web pages like myself I have made a handy list of hyperlinks for you to use below. Full disclosure I cannot be held responsible that they are the correct link, or that they are secure for purchases. These are just the links I found with my google fu skills. A couple of the traders I could not immediately find a site for, so left them out. Nevertheless I hope this list helps you out. If you are coming to the show, please feel free to come say hi.

https://www.1-72.co.uk/

https://www.abcbrushes.com/ 

https://anschlusswargames.com/

https://www.athenaminiatures.co.uk/

https://www.baccus6mm.com/

https://www.battlezone-miniatures.co.uk/

https://www.beowulfminiatures.com/ 

https://www.blackscorpionminiatures.com/

https://blotz.co.uk/

https://brigademodels.co.uk/

https://www.charliefoxtrotmodels.com/

https://crooked-dice.co.uk/

https://www.culverin-models.co.uk/ 

https://www.davidlanchestermilitarybooks.co.uk/

https://www.debrisofwar.com/store/

https://www.deepcutstudio.com/

https://www.disainstudio.com/

https://www.forgedinbattle.com/

https://eaglefigures.co.uk/

https://www.empressminiatures.com/

https://entoyment.co.uk/

https://www.essexminiatures.co.uk/

https://www.greatescapegames.co.uk/

http://www.gringo40s.com/

https://www.grippingbeast.co.uk/

https://www.grubbytanks.com/

https://headbunny.games/

https://www.heroicsandros.co.uk/

https://www.imperatormodels.com/

https://ironcladminiatures.co.uk/

https://irongatescenery.co.uk/

https://www.krcases.com/

http://www.lastmanlastbullet.co.uk/

https://www.magneticdisplays.co.uk/

https://www.mammothminiatures.com/

https://www.mcmodelpainting.uk/

https://www.model-army.com/

https://newlinedesigns.co.uk/

https://www.oakbound.co.uk/

https://www.parkfieldminiatures.co.uk/

https://www.paulmeekins.co.uk/

https://www.pendraken.co.uk/

https://www.perry-miniatures.com/

https://www.peterpig.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/paintspirate/

https://productsforwargamers.com/

https://www.valiantminiatures.com/

https://www.rokminis.com/

https://sarissa-precision.com/

https://sheppeymodels.co.uk/

http://www.tablescape.co.uk/

https://www.tangentminiatures.com/

https://thepitgamingshop.co.uk/shop/

https://tumblingdiceuk.com/

https://voidscarminiatures.com/

https://warbases.co.uk/

https://store.warlordgames.com/

https://warpaintfigures.com/

https://www.westwindproductions.co.uk/

Post number 100

 Its been a while, I've been busy. You play a few wargames and paint a few models and all of a sudden a couple of months have flown by. I've also been mulling over what to do for this post as it is that milestone. I have now written 100 posts on this blog. My first post was back in May 2018, so I have kept this up for over 6 years now. Still no offers for a book deal, one can continue to dream. I couldn't decide on anything specific for post 100 in the end, so maybe just a shameless throw out of some statistics.

Almost 68,000 views of the webpage since inception, my most popular post was a review of Salute in April 2019. It's tricky to see how many views individual posts have as sometimes blogger just flags it as a page view not an individual post read. The most popular set up to read the blog from is Chrome on Windows. The most popular location to read from is Singapore, closely followed by the United States, I suspect that is just due to larger populations. Most people find the blog from Facebook and Instagram although I did enjoy the brief period of time when people were visiting via a story from Beasts of War site where some of my painting appeared. 

Since last post I have been busy painting and gaming. At the club we are looking at the possibility of starting a Mordheim campaign, so I have been building a Carnival of Chaos gang. In the rules it is a warband that follow Nurgle the god of Pestilence, but I thought it would be fun to model them as followers of Khorne the blood god instead. Using the same rules, just painting the models a bit more red.

The Pirate with the Monkey is from Bad Squiddo, the Bear and Clown from Crooked Dice. The others sadly I cannot remember the manufacturers

The carnival has the option of a Plague cart as well, instead I have converted a cart to hold sacrificial prisoners, although you can't see the prisoner very well now it is completed. I can assure you, there is someone trapped in there.

Instead of nurglings, I found these great little devils from Alternative Armies that make awesome Khornate equivalents. They were doing a great deal where four of them were given free with every order, although as of writing this offer ends tomorrow on the 5th, so you may have missed it.

Also on the painting table is this awesome Lumpy Toad from Trent at Miscast, if you are in the UK you can order it from The Still Tower here. If you are ordering from them, get some of these stickers too and stick em on your miniatures case, you will be the envy of your club when you turn up rocking the retro look.

He is painted red to fit in with with my Night Goblin army,  he will fit right in with the Squigs I am sure.

Regular readers will remember the "Thundercats" from Crooked Dice I have been painting, well they have their tank now. 

It is a 3D print and comes with alternative open canopy and lowered "claws". I might paint those up too, but I haven't yet worked out how I am going to magnetise it. The kit is hollow, so adding magnet holes looks a bit tricky. I have no use gaming wise for any of them yet, sometimes you just have to paint models you like just for the sake of it. No longer do I go around shows thinking, that's nice but I have no use for it. If I want to paint something now, I paint it.

Finally I have painted up some Ghouls from Bad Squiddo games. These were from an earlier Kickstarter and I felt I should get them done before the next Kickstarter models arrive! I shall probably use some of them in a Mordheim Undead Warband. It is a common fact, no Mordheim player can ever stick to one Warband, there are just too many cool ones to choose from!

That's it for now. I need to get back to the painting, it's too warm and I need to get the paint on the models before it all dries up!