Thursday 25 April 2019

Salute: Project Fear


I'd known that there was going to be a Brexit themed game at Salute a little in advance, but I didn't quite realise the scale of it, nor the number of details and rules quirks they'd managed to fit in.


One of the Brexit side's models was a Unicorn, which had mystery stats, and disappeared when it entered close combat, because unicorns don't exist.


The board was crowded most of the day as people wanted to participate or get a good look at it.


In the apocalyptic post Brexit wasteland, the Remainers tried to escape from England to the continent. The Queen was among those shooting at racist thugs and Tory politicians with her shotgun...


The Leavers seemed to be headed up by May, Nigel and Boris. I didn't get everyone's special powers, but it looked like Nigel was a Bad Penny who simply wouldn't go away, and May could summon a Brexit Shitstorm for a time.


The board was well detailed, and rightfully won the "most innovative" award at the show.


My personal favourite detail was the rats trying to escape the country in a little rubber boat.


Although some other rats had other schemes to escape too!


All the different characters had their own stats and powers on handy little cards.


And they'd even gone to the effort of coming up with some custom dice for the game as well.

Monday 22 April 2019

New Artis Opus Kickstarter - Drybrushes


Artis Opus are putting out another range of brushes. This time, it's called the "Series D", and they're a set of dry brushes. It's on Kickstarter for a week or two more, so it's worth having a look.

For clarity - I'm friends with some of the people involved in Artis Opus, but I've not received any payment or free product for this post. I just like their stuff. :)

Thursday 18 April 2019

Salute: Cool Companies


First thing I noticed was that TT Combat has a new Infinity range of scenery. They were doing a fantastic full table scenery deal on the day prior to the full release, but I am trying to go mostly pre-painted these days and already have most of a table. The new flat definitely can't fit a second table worth of terrain!


Bad Squiddo had a bunch of new releases - some jesters, a new orc berserker, and a bunch of ATS, their new scenery line, a retail release for some of their post apocalyptic figures and a bunch of other small bits and bobs. A whole ton of this is now available either for sale or pre-order on their site, so if you missed Salute, you can still go and pick it up now.


Anvil Industry had a few of their new Commissars available, along with a bunch of "miscast bags" where you could get a ton of random product for a knock down price as a few bits of it were miscast. They're doing a lot of cool stuff these days and are well worth a look.


I mentioned the game Briskars by French company TGCM in a previous post, and I managed to take a whole bunch of photos of their figures.


You apparently need only four or five models to play (I suspect it's a little more than that, but not by much). And there's a wide range of stuff.


As far as I understand it, there's no real factions as such so you don't have to take the models from the same faction if you don't want to. Not sure how much of a big deal this is if you don't. I'll look into it when I get a little time.


There's a massive range of different animals and figures in the range. I'm hoping that means those of my friends who are interested will all find different figures of interest.


That said, we may have some problems. I utterly love these penguins (they're what tipped me over into buying the book).


Fortunately, the amazing dodo models are used for objectives and stuff, so it doesn't matter if we all end up with dodos.


No models bought yet, but I suspect it's really only a matter of time. I want to see a squid sword fight a panda...

Monday 15 April 2019

Salute: Ill Gotten Gains


While I recover from attending the Firestorm Satellite Tournament (I'm aiming to get a write up of it done for you next week) here's the summary of all the bits and pieces I picked up from Salute last weekend.

First up was the rulebook for the 54mm Skirmish game "Briskars". We fell in love with the miniatures for this pirate game and picked up an English copy of the rules. Once the painting room is unpacked we'll pick up a few models each and engage in some nonsense with it. If you're interested, they have an online shop and Facebook group.


I picked up this clear resin pond from Wargames Terrain Workshop. The idea is you paint the underside to give an impression of depth, paint the edge and gloss coat the water. It's an interesting concept and I thought it was worth a few quid to give it a go.


As always, there was a free Salute dice.


To save postage, I picked up by "Deep Ones of the Powell Darks" Kickstarter pledge from Oakbound at the show.


I picked up a few bits and bobs from Bad Squiddo Games, too. As I'm not interested in historicals, I've kind of, erm, bought most of their range that is fantasy or sci fi...


My goodie bag from Salute included an extra model this year - a Necromancer for a new game, Starcide. This seems to be for a new game by Archon Studios, who've had a bit of a chequered history as "Prodos Games" and had some problems with the Warzone license. They're going to have to do a lot of work to convince people after the problems with Warzone, the AvP Kickstarter and the horridly sexist nonsense they put out under the name "Space Crusade". I'll probably paint this figure, but I'm not really confident giving any money to them.


The Salute free figure this year was a post apocalyptic lady with a weird reptile creature. Maybe this year I'll manage to get it painted up in time for next year's painting competition?


Simple Miniature Games had a bunch of shop damaged stock to clear, so I grabbed a couple of bits I can use in Qapu Khalqi and Dahshat, depending on what I decide to do.


At the same time, I grabbed a few bits of Malifaux ahead of the release of their 3rd edition, but they weren't as discounted as I thought so I'm having a bit of buyer's regret on these. There was no real urgent need for them and I have enough stuff in my house already.


Creature Caster was over for Salute for the first time, and as well as their big monsters, they had an assortment of paints and brushes. I picked up a few of their paints to try out and see if I like them.

All in all, it was a bit of weird Salute for me. With some buyer's regret, trying to minimise purchases so I can focus on what I already have and a bit of a disconnected feeling, I'm not sure how it went. It was good to catch up with various people, but it felt a bit like a missed opportunity for me. I wanted to get some more demo games in but never quite managed to find the time. I'm still pondering it all now, and may be for a while.

Thursday 11 April 2019

Warhammer World: Some Battle Displays


In the last of the Warhammer World pictures from my January trip, here's the last of my photos. This set are the various "battle displays" in the exhibition areas. I don't have much to say about the different bits and pieces that caught my eye, so will just let you scroll through them at your leisure.











Monday 8 April 2019

This week: Salute, some Commission Painted Druze and future plans


I got some more Druze back from my commission painter this week. I now have all the Remote options, the new Druze box, an assortment of Bounty Hunters and the Hunzakut Sniper to try out.

Unfortunately, this coincided with last week's horrible trouncing by Yashar at a practice game and the all the new profiles from the latest Infinity expansion becoming available. I reminded myself that the purpose of hobby is to have fun, not to continue a commitment that's lost the enjoyment of it.

So, as a result, for the Firestorm Satellite tournament next week I've borrowed a bunch of models and am taking two lists from a new faction I've never played before and have no opportunity to play test. This probably isn't going to do my ELO ranking any favours, but Druze have been making me feel like I'm beating my head off a brick wall, so I'll be coming back to them later.


I spent the weekend, as expected, at Salute. I caught up with a lot of good friends and that was probably the best part of the show for me (whether before, during or after). I won't try and list everyone here (it'd be challenging as I broadly don't use people's names on the blog), but it was great to see so many people and sorry to anyone who maybe caught me while I was distracted or starting to flag from the number of people.


The last of my Warhammer World New Year photos are scheduled to publish Thursday, so I need to start running through all my other photos and event reports. With the New Year Open Day done, I just need to cover CanCon, Beachhead, the UK Infinity Masters, the European Infinity Challenge and Salute . . .

Erm, ever feel like you're getting behind?

I'm off to the Firestorm Satellite next weekend as well, so it's not like it's improving!

I'll get the Salute photos scheduled up as soon as possible, try and get the Firestorm Satellite report up soon after that. The other, backlogged event reports I'll start plugging through after that. How hard could it be?

Thursday 4 April 2019

Warhammer World: A Creepy Armies on Parade Board


I absolutely loved this creepy Armies on Parade board that was on display in Warhammer World in January. The colour choices and conversions were amazing.


In the centre is a woman, who appears to be holding up a baby.


These dryad conversions seem to be a mix of daemonette parts and actual tree roots.


You then have these strange floating ladies on amazing bases themselves.


Sadly, I don't know the creator of the board, so please let me know if you happen to. It's a lovely display board and really inspiring for the sort of dark spooky stuff I'd like to be doing!