Salute Loot

Yesterday was the 2014 Salute wargaming show, held at the Excel centre in London's docklands. It's only 20 minutes away by car for me, so I try and make it every year. This year I was joined by my brother and his wife and their 2 month old daughter. I was please to see that my brother was introducing her to wargaming at a young age. I fully expect her to be painting her first 28's within months.

The Excel venue is a great one for shows of this type, with good transport links, plenty of space and only moderately overpriced food and drink outside the halls. The car park that I usually use, outside the East entrance, was closed for coaches this year, so we were directed into the labyrinth under the venue. Random closures of certain parts made this a real maze, and I drove around fr about 20 minutes trying to find a parking space.

Eventually we managed to get into the hall just before 1pm, by which time all the freebie bags were gone, so I didn't get an of the nice give-aways like the Salute figure, which is a shame. I also thought that the hall seemed darker this year than previous years, but that could just be my failing eyesight. There seemed less gamers there than previous years, and I noticed a few empty tables. The lack of a bring and buy this year possibly contributed to the more spacious feel, as the stores were a little more spread out, which was a welcome change.

I didn't take any photos at the show, but there are some excellent galleries here, here, here and here. I was particularly impressed by the Sword Beach display, and the 1950's Vietnam board. The VSF board on Mars and the IHMN Lost City board also looked great. Unfortunately, because we arrived late, it was the first year that I didn't get to see everything, and missed some of the really good boards that you can see in the links above.

So, onto my haul. All the pictures below are straight from the pack, so include flash and sprue and are unassembled or glued.

 

Firstly, we have a freebie figure that I got from an interesting looking range soon to be launched by Spectre Miniatures. The range appears to be a modern/near future set in the dark, dangerous and sweaty world of unstable African countries. The figure is a CIA agent, and if the rest of the range is of similar quality they could be worth looking out for.

Next we have a collection of miniatures from Ground Zero Games

Firstly we have the Crusty attack bugs and handler. These are really nice giant attack prawns, and crusty with forked stick to prod them towards their enemies. I can see a whole host of uses for the attack prawns, and they are very nicely made, as ever.

Next we have a set of NSL heavy weapons, an autocannon on wheeled mount, grenade launcher on wheeled mount and RAM mortar. All nice, clean sculpts that will add a bit of punch to my Militech forces for the 4th Corporate War game.

I also wanted to pick up some Crusty light cruisers. When I placed an order with GZG after Christmas using my discount voucher, I ordered 4 sets of Heavy Destroyers by mistake instead of 4 light cruisers. Due to a picking error yesterday, I ended up with 2 more heavy cruisers and 2 light cruisers instead of the 4 light cruisers I wanted. I'm destined never to get my light cruiser squadron...

Light on left, heavy on right.

Next we have some really nice civilian vehicles from Critical Mass Games. I picked up a pack of the anti-grav cars and the anti-grav vans. The vans will make really good proxies for AV-4's (aerodyne vehicles) for the 4th Corporate war game, and the I'm going to convert a couple of the cars to be police cruisers by the addition of a styrene lightbar on the roof. I also picked up a Ravager Mech, but as it's in parts, didn't bother to photograph it.

Next we have a single pack of Arthurian Personalities from West Wind Productions Arturian range. These are a really nice set of Arthur, Merlin , Bishop and Owain, who I assume is Owain Ddantgwyn. Really nice figures, especially Merlin leaning on his staff. He just cries out for some faded blue tattoos on his arms.

Next we have a pack of Wargames Foundry figures from their unreleased range. These are a set from the Egyptian Adventures, which are essentially figures from the movie "The Mummy" and "The Mummy Returns". This set recreates the fight in the throne room between Nefretiri and Anacksunamun (his daughter and his mistress). It's a a nice set of figures which I will be using to bolster my Servants of Ra forces for In Her Majesty's Name.

I seem to recall a distinct lack of boobies in the film...

Next up we have some casualty dials from Warbases. Warbases are my go-to service for bases, counters and various other laser cut MDF bits and bobs. They make some nice dark ages buildings which I have just purchased, and they also did the custom order for the large hexes for my micro forests. The casualty dials are really simple, just disks with a window cut into them and a rotating dial with numbers on it. at 60p each, these are a bargain and will be useful for a number of games including Bolt Action, Chain of Command and Dux Brittanium..

I finally picked up a set plastic of hills and escarpments from Kallistra, which I have been uhmming and ahhing over for the last 4 or 5 shows I've been to. They should paint up nicely, and when flocked to match my table will provide a nice alternative to some of the crummy polystyrene pieces I have. The ones below are the smallest pieces of the small, medium and large that you get in each set.

Finally, and my last purchases of the day, we have a few bits from Brigade Models. Firstly we have two sets of their powered armour, which will again be used for my 4th corporate war game, in this case a Militech Commando PA suits. They'll also do double duty as French BH-21 PA suits for a 2300AD game set on Aurore. Very nice models, but the details on the weapons seem a bit soft. Perhaps this is the age of the mould or maybe I just got a slightly rough batch. I got one set of the regular suits, and one set of the heavy weapon suits armed with a mix of rotary cannons and bazookas.

 I also picked up a couple of sets each of their new fleet scale British Fighters. The detail on these really is remarkable. You can even make out the cockpit canopy frame on them, which is a major achievement for a miniature less then 6mm in length. This is clearly a positive result of CGI design and 3-d printing.

The bars on the tail are sprue, but could easily be turned into a rear air-foil to give you a Vampire/Vixen twin boom vibe.

With handy 15mm figure for scale

So, overall quite a nice haul. There were a couple of things I looked at but didn't get, the raiders expansion for Dux Brittanium and some of the new plastic tribal Orcs. I forgot to get some Longhorn fighters from GZG and I also picked up some Northwind and Foundry Arabs for my brother for his birthday present. I managed to stay just within my budget, and resisted the temptation to spend it all on buying every X-Wing ship I could see.

Dark Ages Church WIP

A few quick WIP shots of my Dark Ages church, inspired by some excellent churches here, here and here.

The main body of the church is made from 3mm foamcore card on a hardboard base, dressed with a mix of coffee stirrers, balsa strip and some balsa sheets for the doors and floor. The floor has been laid as planks, but I suspect it may have been bare stone flags or even dirt in early churches. I've made a bit of a pigs ear of the inside of the doors, as I was going to leave the roof attached,  so they may get boxed in to some kind of archway to hide them.

The thatch roof is green pan scourers split down the middle to make two thin sheets. These are affixed to a roof former of foamcore with PVA and then once dry are painted with 50/50 dilute PVA and water to stop them shedding and add stiffness. You have to be careful with the dilute PVA as it can make the paper backing on the foamcore soggy if you are too liberal.

The building has been under-coated in cream exterior textured paint to seal and add texture to the foamcore. The next stage is to basecoat and then start the highlighting process, which I will start with the airbrush to get most of the colour on, then switch to stippling for the daub texture on the walls. The roof will be airbrushed black and then dry brushed up to a pale grey-brown to represent old thatch.

Dark Ages Wattle Fences

I'm building up a collection of 28mm terrain for some Dark Ages/Age of Arthur gaming, using either Dux Brittanium or Dux Bellorum. As part of this I decided to make up some wattle style fences. Rendera make a nice set in plastic, which I became aware of after I had made my own... 

The construction was fairly simple. I started with a 2 meter length of semi-round wood trim, about 18mm wide and 5 mm high at the peak. I had originally bought this as a base for 15mm bocage, but never got round to using it and it had been snapped this into short lengths to get it into a storage box. I started by sawing off the snapped off ends and sanding down the corners.

I then drilled 2 mm holes along the length of the strips, at semi regular intervals. I varied the distance between them, as I'm thinking the dark ages farmers didn't measure the distances between uprights with any great accuracy.

I then put a blob of super-glue over each hole and inserted a cocktail stick, rotating it as I inserted it to spread the glue around.

Which gave me a veritable forest of spikes. 

These were left to dry thoroughly. You may need to trim the underside if the point of the cocktail stick has protruded all the way through. They can easily be sanded off or cut with a sharp craft knife or scalpel. I then marked off  a line where the top of the fence will be, using a 28mm figure as reference and remembering to take into account the added base thickness that there will be on painted troops. I picked about chest high, just the right height for two dark ages farmers to lean on to discuss the details of turnip farming and pig husbandry. 

I then Sellotaped the tops of the cocktail sticks together. This avoids them pinging across the room like tiny missiles when you clip them off using side cutters. I also tried Dremeling them off using a cutting disk, but it's just as quick to use side cutters. Cutting them this way is quick, but leave the tops slightly flattened. A quick squeeze in the other direction evens them out and give a quite nice roughly cut timber effect.  

I then painted the uprights in Burnt Umber (dark brown) and the base in Burnt Sienna (reddish-brown - GW Bestial Brown is very similar). I left the tops of the uprights unpainted to look like the fresh cut wood inside the bark. The base got a liberal coating of PVA followed by Woodland Scenics Medium Brown Ballast and then Woodland Scenics Medium green flock in patches. The whole thing was then left overnight to dry.

The next day I started to add the wattle to the fences. Wattle is typically made of branches woven between the uprights, either split or whole. I had already experimented with various materials for the wattle itself, including green garden wire, beading wire (which does make great barbed wire, though) and garden twine soaked in PVA, none of which really gave me the effect I wanted.. I had seen a recommendation for thin leather cord on another site and whilst browsing for it at Hobbycraft saw some waxed cotton thread in dark brown. At £3 for 22 meters, I thought this was a bargain, and seemed to be exactly what I was looking for.

I tied the end to one of the uprights and then wove the cord between them, passing on alternate sides as I went. Occasionally I had to stop and push the cord down, as it had a tendency to creep up the uprights. Once I got close to the top I tied off the cord again, and secured it with a dab of super-glue to stop it unravelling. The picture below was on my test piece, which I hadn't painted or flocked at this stage, but the method is the same.

The end result was quite pleasing. I managed to get about 5 or 6 feet of fence from each spool of waxed cotton. They need a misting of watered down PVA from my garden sprayer to fix the flock and ballast in place, and I may experiment with a light drybrush on the cord to bring out the detail, but even as they are I think they look pretty good. I may now go back and re-do a livestock enclosure that I had previously done in garden twine soaked in PVA, replacing that with the waxed cotton.  

 Overall I'm pretty pleased with them. Including painting I managed to get all of the fences completed in two evenings work. The most arduous part is winding the thread around the uprights, which can get quite dull, but the end results are well worth it. I even managed to use my Dremel as a drill without drilling any more holes in the dining room table.