Lust for Glory! and WoFun

I saw two things at Salute that lodged in my brain and have been festering ever since. One was Simon Miller's forthcoming horse and musket variation on To The Strongest! provisionally entitled Lust for Glory! The other were the WoFun plexiglass flats.

After some intense soul searching over the last few days I've fully resolved to invest in the WoFun  War of Spanish Succession and English Civil War standees. Both of these will be used primarily for Simon's grid games - LfG! and For King & Parliament!

Although intrigued by WoFun, I wasn't initially convinced, but the more I thought about it, the more I was attracted to the style of the 'figures' and the straightforwardness of the pre-printed approach. They will be ready-to-play after a couple of hours' assembly and light to carry.

It has also helped me to come to terms with the obvious: I will never complete more than a tiny fraction of my accumulated lead mountain and might as well start disposing of it. 

An initial ECW order is in and a WoSS order will follow. The disposal side will take longer and be more difficult. This is undoubtedly the most revolutionary development in the history of my adult wargaming career.

It took some time to decide on the scale. The beauty of the artwork shows best with the larger figures,  especially 28mm, but the ECW rules require some flexibility in unit representation (e.g. small, large, pike-heavy, shot-heavy etc) and this was best offered by the 18mm stands. I'm not attracted to the 10mm flats as it's quick and easy to paint 3D figures in that scale, but my attitude may change if I decide to invest in Napoleonics. And maybe I'll also look at the '45, another period I've always wanted to do.

My last Salute?

There was some fantastic scenery at Salute 25 but the usual horrible lighting and noise level gave me a pounding migraine which lasted all day and into the evening. I also sat on a chair which was apparently broken and collapsed under me. Nobody had thought to put it out of the way.

The trade stands were dominated by Fantasy/SciFi start-ups flogging myriad ranges and rules, and big box shifters reflecting the commodification of the hobby.

I found a couple of games of particular personal interest: Simon Miller's Lust for Glory (in development) and an excellent and amusing presentation of the Two Fat Lardies' Chain of Command.

But as long as the show is at ExCel and on its current trajectory, I will probably never go again.

This is also the first year that I didn't notice anybody that I used to know when I was a member of the South London Warlords back in the Seventies...

 

 

Salute 2021

This is admittedly a bit of a non-report. I'm glad for the return to normality, but I didn't get anything out of Salute myself. I was seeking inspiration and motivation, but failed to find any. 

 

Unusually, I didn't have a shopping list and don't currently have any burgeoning new interests, so it was a question of going with nothing and coming back with nothing.

I was vaguely looking for a 1/56 ready-made, ready-painted Russian building suitable for my RCW project, but didn’t see anything. The dim artificial lighting sadly remains the overwhelming feature of the venue and my ageing eyes struggle to see figures properly under these conditions. This rather removes the point of looking at trade stands and the pleasure of looking at games. Unless I have a pressing reason, this is probably the last time I will go to Salute.

My Salute 2019

I went to Salute this year with a more positive attitude and came home with some 28mm Otherworld fantasy figures for Dragon Rampant, some Blood and Plunder Buccaneers/Spanish for The Pikeman's Lament and a few bottles of paint.

I also said hello to Dan Mersey and Michael Leck whose Rampant games are currently my favourite wargaming activity.

I took only a few photos but here they are:

Michael Leck's spectacular Rebels and Patriots game featuring the last stand for the Swedes in Swedish Pomerania as the French land to attack a fort outside Stralsund.

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Battle of Aughrim using Maurice presented by the Crewe and Nantwich Wargaming Club.

A Batman-themed game presented by Thor's Hammer Gaming Club. I took this shot of the scenery for future inspiration.

6mm vs 10mm and a theory about light

10mm: do they catch the light significantly
better than 6mm?

Regular readers will know I have quite settled (though not unusual) scale preferences. These are 28mm for skirmish, 15mm for small armies especially if they are predominantly infantry (e.g. for games like Crossfire and Irregular Wars) and 10mm or smaller for any mass armies. For at least two future projects (Bloody Big Battles! and Dux Bellorum), however, I have been torn between 6mm and 10mm.

I could say that further light was shed on this dilemma during my recent visit to the Salute 2016 show, but it was rather the lack of light and its effects that struck me. Now, the lighting at Salute is not good, but it it is also probably not untypical of many wargaming clubs. Anyway, in search of the one true scale, I had a particular interest in appraising certain 6mm and 10mm figure ranges.

On the Baccus stall I was struck by the dioramic excellence of Peter Berry's 60mm x 60mm American Civil War bases. I then had a closer look at the painted figures on the stand. Now I know that the Baccus figures are very well detailed, but under these conditions they just seemed 'dark' and silhouetted against their bases.

I then visited the Pendraken stall just around the corner where a unit of French Franco-Prussian War figures were on display.  These did not have a dioramic appeal. To achieve something similar would probably have required an 80mm x 80mm base. But they did not seem dark - they were definitely in full colour.

This was not a controlled scientific experiment, but is it possible that the greater size of 10mm figures, marginal though it may be, makes a crucial difference to reflecting light and thus showing colour?

To be honest, a lot of my own 10mm and even 15mm figures are too dark. When painting future armies I really must make more effort to use lighter/brighter colours.

Salute 2016 - a somewhat jaundiced experience

Superb architectural modelling: the wargame is irrelevant.

If I didn't go to Salute I might miss something, but it's far less of interest to me than it once was.  This year's visit was even more routine than usual. I picked up some more Hexon from Kallistra and had a chat about some possible, though probably unlikely, Hexon extensions. I bought a few more trees from S&A Scenics. I got some ready-painted Epsilon buildings from Pendraken. And I bought a few steel bases which I only mention for completeness. I could have done all that online.

Other than these more-or-less planned purchases, nothing new caught my attention. I might have made some impulse purchases on the bring-and-buy stand, but, disappointingly, there wasn't one. Good job I didn't take anything to sell!  Of course, I do have a wargaming shopping list, but most of the things on it were not available at Salute.

Unusually, I also walked round the games. I don't usually bother, partly because I find it difficult to concentrate on them in the oppressive and disorientating Excel environment, and otherwise because I usually end up having a few drinks with old friends. That can also end in disorientation but it's more pleasurable.

At a show like Salute it isn't really the game that counts but the visual impact it makes, and in that regard my vote would go to the Battle of Wilhelmsthal which I believe was the work of Bill Gaskin and friends. As good as the figures undoubtedly were, it was the architectural models which grabbed my attention. It was absolutely superb work depicting a very different world from the gargantuan hangar which houses Salute.

Could Salute be better? Yes, it could be somewhere else.

Salute 2015: all roads and hills

30mm wide roads: TimeCast (left), JRM (right).
Possibly not the most interesting photo to appear
on this blog.

Conscious of my painting backlog and diminishing time, I went to Salute with only the shortest of shopping lists. My priority was to get some more '6mm scale' JRM dirt roads from Magister Militum to supplement those I already have. I've got plenty of curves, junctions and cross-roads, but not enough straights.

The JRM roads, produced in a rubbery substance, are 30mm wide and good for pre-modern 6mm or 10mm games. Unfortunately JRM appear to have stopped supplying MM. Whether they are still trading outside the USA, I'm not sure.