Salute 2025

Went to Salute yesterday, and played with Rich and Nick of Two Fat Lardies. They were demonstrating version two of their Chain of Command rules.

I helped Nick marmalize the British Paras with our adhoc German force of reprobates in recreating an action at Arnhem. We played for about two hours, and the result were pretty much replicated the historical action, despite my dice rolling.

 

After which Susan and I had lunch, and enjoyed a much needed sit down after standing for so long.

This modern game by The Friends of General Haig called Breaking the Stalemate: Iran Iraq war, 1986 in 15mm caught my eye.

Then we looked around the show and pick up a couple of items. I had in mind getting an Osprey book, but none of the dealers had the recent Boots on the Ground by Leigh Neville, so I'll have to order it online.

I also wanted Pro Acryl's Glaze & Wash Medium, but again I came up empty handed. But, learnt that Element Games have opened a new store in London in Drury Lane. So, I intend to pop in and get the glaze medium from them come time next week.

I did buy a Artis Opis  texture palette for drybrushing.

We also came across Crow games who do STLs for Starship Troopers and some rather nice starships too.

And of course there were a ton of other wargames and traders at Salute too, but by about three o'clock my feet hurt enough that I decided to call it a day.

 So that was Salute 2025, which also felt a lot busier than last year. Catch you all on the bounce.

Addendum:

Whilst archiving the photos for this post, I rearranged the files and discovered I missed going to Salute between 2017 to 2023.

These dates coincide with my rheumatoid relapse, and also cover Covid, and my compromised immune system making me reluctant to expose myself to large crowds.

Salute is huge. It might only last a day, but it host thousands of people. So, I added this note, as I do understand why people find going overwhelming.

Herts of Lard 2025

Saturday we went to Rickmansworth to play at the Herts of Lard wargaming show. So we were up early and out the door to get there for the 09.30 start. After some confusion we arrived at the right hall to be greeted by Joe Bilton announcing the start of the games.

 

In the morning session, I played a Call of Cthulhu variant of What a Cowboy.

 

This was a skirmish game playing as faculty members of the Miskatonic University who were chasing a thief who'd stolen a page from the Necronomicon. We were intercepted by other cultists who also wanted the manuscript the thief had stolen.

 

We lost.

 

In the afternoon, I played in a Chain of Command game of US paratroops versus Fallshirmjager with Gary who posted this video on YouTube.

 

We played as the US, in a game of two halves. The first, the US doing a good job of tying up the Germans. In the second half the US advance ground to a halt due to my ineffective leadership.

 

These were the first games I've played in a long time, and I really must be more proactive about getting out and having fun, as the day made me realize what I've been missing out on.

 

Catch you all on the bounce.

Salute 2024

Sidney Roundwood and Richard Clarke of TooFatLardies

I haven't been to a Salute since before Covid, so it was great to go this year. Especially so since the new Elizabeth Line makes the journey really easy.

Schmoozed (which will be the word that best describes my day at Salute) with Big Rich, Nick, and Sidney of TooFat Lardies. The lads are the biggest inspiration to my wargaming hobby.

With Nick Skinner of TooFatLardies

And then I bumped into GZG Jon; long time friend, former SFSFW original committee member, and purveyor of wargame goodness.

With Jon Tuffley

Touched base with Mel Bose, The Terrain Tutor too. He has a book that's worth checking out.

Susan and me with Mel Bose, The Terrain Tutor

And, I met Annie from Bad Squiddo, who has asked me to make her some trees for her, as she loved the ones I posted on Twitter.

With Annie Norman of Bad Squiddo Games

And my new, bestist fan ever, Gab of OrkAngel. He's asked whether or not I would like to run a model making workshop? We shall talk and try and work out something.

With Gab of OrkAngel blog

And my acquisitions, because no post about going to Salute can be without a picture of what was purchased (though I went with no intention of purchasing anything, which is a forlorn hope at Salute).

 

A God Hand sprue clipper, a Deep Cut Studio six foot long strip neoprene river, a 15mm resin Taurus APC from Void Scar Miniatures, and of course the free Pirate Annie figure.

Warfare 2023 Show at Farnborough

For the first time since Covid lockdown in 2020 we've been to a wargame show. We met up with Paul from The Man Cave. He described our conversation as erudite, which is totally flattering given the amount of cussing a typical conversation with me entails.

I looked around the show, but only bought some size 0 Kolinsky sable brushes that were on offer. I saw a lot of bargains, but I need more stuff to paint like I need another hole in my head.

Susan took a picture of me looking at temptation and resisting the urge to buy more stuff. There were plenty of great looking games being run.

Above and below are a couple of pictures of the impressive games on show.

For a full on video showing what we saw, check out Big Lee of Miniature Adventures, who has you covered.

And Susan caught me on camera wondering around the vast hall. As you can see there was a plethora of tournaments games being played on the day too.

And afterwards I gave Paul a lift back to London in my M1009 CUCV Chevy Blazer.

We were blessed with nice weather and had a great day out.

Après-Salute 2015: HMS Defender

   

While everyone else went home after Salute, some hardy souls went to see D36 HMS Defender, a Type 45 destroyer that was moored at Greenwich, and open to the public.  On the trip on the Dockland Light railway we passed another warship docked at Heron Quay, which after a bit of Googling was probably a visiting German ship.  Anyway, we arrived at Greenwich and after a bit of a panic trying to find exactly where to go to get in we made it in plenty of time.  What can I say?  We're wimpy old civilians.

As you can tell from the shots she was moored a little way off from the embankment, and we were ferried across to her in one of London's river taxis.

The ship has panels that can be dropped flat, and here's the Phalanx CIWS, looking deadly and shiny in the late afternoon sun.  The interior of the ship was what I'd call a pale Dove grey, I was expecting cream (my research has been into US Navy warships whose interiors are described as such), and as I said to one of the crew; RN ships are painted fifty shades of grey.  It made him laugh.

A close-up of the rear for anyone trying to make a model of this.

And a close-up of the business end of the 20 mm rotary cannon.  See the shells.

Given I've written a novel set aboard a ship I was interested in the interior fixtures and fittings, so took these two reference shots for research.  What I will comment on is the bare necessities of creature comforts.  The crew have to work around walls festooned with equipments, and I can only imagine that in rough seas one would have to take due care an caution to move through the ship without injury.

A shot of the hanger bay ceiling.  Isn't that just inspirational for anyone who want to make a model?

Well that's it.  I had a lovely trip around HMS Defender, her crew were not only polite, which was to be expected, but warm and welcoming.  I have to admit the crew all looked incredibly young to me, and were very nice young men and women to talk to.  I can only wish them well, and if I were in charge we would've have built the twelve ships that were planned.

Edit: The other ship we saw on our way in on the Docklands Light Railway was the Méndez Núñez.
  

Salute 2015: Excel Centre

Wings of War with airships, very nice looking game by Aerodrome UK Wing.

Another year, another Salute.  How time flies by.  What doesn't change are the aspirational nature of the games on show.  Everything is bigger, brighter etc than anything you'll see on a club night or would normally be able to put on at home.  Unless your name is John Treadaway of course, and then this is all routine.  For the less blessed wargaming souls of this world, like myself, I have to play within my means.  So it's always good to see the games at Salute.

I, unlike many others, arrived late; at my own leisure so to speak.  I'm old enough, and can remember that my feet hurt from walking around Salute, and standing around in queues only makes this worse.  So I left home at 10.15 and arrived at 11.45, and was so able to walk straight in.  I hear that the queues were a lot less this year, primarily down to having a hall to stand in that had been allocated by Excel who have learnt that a horde of unwashed hairy wargamers lowers the tone of the place (not exactly what John Treadaway said to me, but that seemed to be the gist of it.)  What with the Sherlocked convention going on at Excel alongside the Marathon registration and other stuff, the place was heaving.

Mechworld Development's Group awesome looking Blood & Steel game.

I'd heard that some German wargamers were coming over with a Battlestar Galactica game called Blood & Steel, and that they were giving away a six page free set of rules based on Full Thrust at the show.  The game was, as you can see, rather stunning.

Yep that's a destroyed Battlestar in the centre of the table.

More Cylon Basestars than you could shake a big stick at.  A slick looking game, and the crew were very easy to talk to, which given the crowds around their table was nice.

Fl/Lt. Robert N.G. Barlow DFC Lancaster on the Dambusters 617 Squadron raid; all the crew of the real AJ-E died in a crash.

The Peterborough Wargames Club were running their Dambusters Challenge with a 1/72nd scale Lancaster on a fiendish looking remote controlled arm.  The game was simple, but effective and was heaving with people, and lots of people wanting to have a go.

Coming up to the dam with flak all around the Lancaster.  If the player was successful a part of the dam could be removed and replaced to show the damage, and flooding.  Slickly run game that looked like a well oiled machine.

Built to the same scale as Dropzone Commander 10 mm approximately 1/160th scale Avenger class starship.

Hawk Wargames had this rather impressive model, which is now complete.  I saw it last year in its unfinished state, which was pretty epic then.  Totally awesome sauce display, with a big static table showing off their range of miniatures.  The big news is that there is going to be a space game to go with Dropzone Commander, provisional title Dropfleet Commander, which is due out later this year.  The unique selling point being that it will simulate orbital battles around a planet, rather than being a deep space game.

To save you the bother of counting, this ship carries one hundred dropships.

A labour of love, every hanger had a fully painted dropship loaded up with an AFV.

A close up of said dropships from the game in their hanger bays waiting to be dropped.  Oooheey.  The attention to detail borders on obsessive, other than I know that if you want something to look this good then paying attention to the small details is the only way to achieve a good looking end result. So kudos to the crew who made this; BTW the construction uses custom cast parts, which is why everything looks so good.

Illuminated engines.  Not seen from here a colour internal layout diagram of the ship.

Hawk Games are clearly looking at the Star Wars Imperial star destroyers for their inspiration.  For those who are wondering there were miniatures of the ships in a much smaller scale for their future space combat game.  The game sounds interesting in that it deal with planetary invasions with about a dozen ships per side if I've understood things correctly.  The model of the UCMS Avenger represents a frigate, one of the smaller ships in the game.

Big Rich caught capturing the hearts and minds of a new generation.

TooFat Lardies were presenting their Fighting Season game this year, which is based on the Chain of Command rules modified to play modern asymmetrical wargames, and I imagine they will also be adaptable to retro-converting Charlie Don't Surf too, with the caveat that Fighting Season is Section level game, whereas Charlie Don't Surf is a Company level action.

This photo doesn't do justice to the terrain of this game, which was lovely.

Spartan Games were demoing their new Halo space game with big spaceships with the largest running at 10 inches or 250 mm for those who prefer metric.

Spartan Games were all about their new Halo line, and telling us about the new 15 mm ground combat game that will be accompanying the fleet action sets.  For Halo fans this is a big, big thing, even if Halo is no longer at the height of its popularity I can't image the fans not wanting to get this for all the lovely toys.

The fact that there is a space and ground combat game is again I think interesting, and of course this means that Spartan Games will in someways be going up against Hawk Games new Dropfleet Commander will bring some diversity and new blood into spaceship gaming.

Hercules doing a quick touch and go drop.

Wargames' Illustrated game Cold War Gone Hot caught my eye for the the sheer scale of over the top action, which included what I assume was a Hercules doing a drop and go deployment of an artillery team while the Russians stormed across a damaged bridge.  What I'd call the Warhammer 40K version of the Cold War.

It all looked rather impressive, even if lacking in verisimilitude i.e: broke my sense of disbelief.  Still very pretty and gorgeous to look at.

Star Wars ATATs begin their assault.

The next game I caught up with was the rather more convincing reenactment of the Battle of Hoth from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.  I think the Beasts of War may have run this, but I can't confirm the details, because the game is not listed in the brochure.

I also missed seeing the Millennium Falcon, because of the crowd of people around this impressive table.  It just didn't feel it was right to barge in, and disrupt the people playing the game who were clearly having a lot of fun.

Arcworlde.

Arcworlde had this rather stunning fantasy pirate game complete with zombie whale for bonus points.  I don't know much about them other than they ran a KickStarter (it seems everyone does nowadays), and can add nothing more than wow it looked stunning.

This photo doesn't do any justice for how many of these large there ships were, and how big the table was.

However stunning Arcworlde were, the bonkers over the top Essex Gamesters display with 1/56th scale ships using 28mm figures Fort George American War of Independence game blew them out of the water.  Not a lot moving when I saw it, maybe more of a static display, but crazily impressive modelling.  I should have tried to get some more pictures, but there were a row of frigates all in a line down one side of the table.  Needless to say it won the best game of the show award.

Tiger Shark one of two sister submarines that were accompanying Stingray.

As always the South London Warlords were putting on impressive game to their own.  Stingray, where anything can happen in the next half hour.  Cue drums for battle-stations.  Given that Gerry Anderson's shows were a significant marker of my childhood, the stories depicting the World Aquanaut Security Patrol facing underwater terror were something exciting I looked forward to watching each week.

Terror fish trying to outmanoeuvre Tiger Shark.

I took great glee in seeing this game, and the memories of Troy Tempest, Phones, Marina and Atlanta, and my favourite creepy villain Surface Agent X20 all came back to me.  I believe that the rules for this game will be available, though if you're like me than perhaps playing it in 1/300th scale will be a bit more manageable.

Awesome paint job on Great Titan's Terrrorfish.

As you can imagine this table was surrounded by people watching the game being played, and just in case it wasn't obvious, the show had a real buzz this year.  People were out enjoying themselves and having a good time.

The final game I took a picture of, which I'm featuring last, because it leads into my follow-up blog post, is this rather magnificent model of a Soviet Union Krivak class frigate.  This game was put on by a group calling themselves MDK, and the game was titled Operation Broadsword – The Cold War Went Wet.  A contingent of Royal Marine Commandos and SBS mounting a raid on the ship, all done in 28 mm.

Apposite because after going around the show I went off with friends to see HMS Defender, which you can read about in Après-Salute.
  

Dragonmeet 2014: Escalation

  

The last official MIB demo game of Ogre/GEV with miniatures at Dragonmeet.  I wore my Steve Jackson fluorescent orange and green Ogre T-shirt for the occasion.  The scenario was one of my own devising, and was designed to be unbalanced so that a new player would have a better chance of winning.

More miniatures than you can shake a big stick at.  KR Multicase FTW.

I managed to run three games during the day.  The show was packed and very busy, and quite frankly as I was running the games on my own three was all I could manage.  I actually adjusted the force composition you can see above before the second game started to give me three GEV-PC carriers to move my troops around to bolster my limited force.  I woke up today quite hoarse, and was told I sounded sultry by my partner.

Ian was the first winner, seen here pleased at destroying two of my three command posts.  The other was a GEV-MCP, which can be seen running away.

Justin won the second game, and was a really good sport for posing for this photo.  Again I was forced to retreat my GEV-MCP off the board and concede the game.  I shall be writing up this scenario with notes for a future issue of Miniature Wargames & Battlegames magazine with lots of ideas of force compositions etc.

Friends came and said hello during the day, so hi to Adam, and people who had played last year came and thanked me for the running the game.  Finally, I was surprised and delighted to meet my old friends Pat and Bill who use to run Warlord Games.  Haven't seen them since I went for the funeral of another friend of ours, Kevin, and we had a lot of catching up to do.

Pat on the left and Bill Forster author of The Norway Mission on the right, centre is Kelvin a member of their RPG group.