First, some context. Before Christmas I got the new 6th Ed 40K box and have been slowly building a second army for it. I’ve also been building another army to go alongside my Ogres in Fantasy. I’ve got all the models I need for my Fantasy force and am a mere couple boxes off having all I need for my 40k army done too. However, I’ve not played a single game of Fantasy this year. Not at all, and even worse than that (maybe) I can count the number of GW games I played last year on one hand. They’re just not as popular with our group as a whole and it’s really only Gribblin and I that ever play each other.

So, why the volatile post title? Well, the clue, as the more eagle-eyed readers will have noticed, is in the image attached to this post. No-one that plays GW games is shocked by the constant price increases, we’re all well aware that they are not basing their prices off inflation in the UK, more like that of Zimbabwe. I am old and remember Codexes costing £10, they are now three times that price, yes they are full colour, yes they are hardback, I’ll concede that the presentation at least has improved. What I am not happy about is what I hope is not a new trend. The latest book out was Codex: Eldar, worth a mention in and of itself for the fact there’s a £70 model in their range now. I think someone took a look at what Privateer Press were doing and decided to hop on a bandwagon without realising that the entry cost to their competitor’s game is much lower. Thirty quid Codexes I’m not really happy about but can’t complain as I’ve bought a couple. What I really don’t like is the Direct Only Codex: Iyanden. I am not against supplements that allow you to change your army up and play to a theme, what I am against is that this book is only available from GW and costs the same as the original Codex! I know that there are going to be people who will not only buy this but will also defend it by virtue of the fact that you don’t HAVE to buy it. I know that, but the fact that there’s a company that thinks that what amounts to an addendum to a book, that is completely useless without the first book, should be the same price as that first book, well, that’s crazy to me.

I can show my displeasure by not buying it and choosing not to buy any more products from the company. Considering this latest decision by them I am really thinking about ditching all my GW stuff. It would make a lot of room available in my miniatures storage and would allow me much greater focus on the other games that I have. However, that’s not necessarily as easy as it seems. You see, GW’s real value is in the fact that, in the UK at least, they are everywhere. No matter where you go in this country you are going to be able to find people who play GW’s games. You’re less likely to find folks for other systems although I believe that WarmaHordes may be gaining a lot of traction these days. So, if I did get rid of it would I have to buy in again at a later date if I move house to somewhere that doesn’t have anyone to play X-wing or Dropzone Commander against. I do have some Warmachine but nowhere near a full armies worth.

So, rather than just rant at things here, let’s look objectively at some of the options we have for gaming and the various costs.

Budget GW entry: £65 for either Fantasy or 40k set, two basic armies that you could play through with the scenarios. Imbalanced in parts on either side. To play either properly add £60 for Codexes in 40K or £50 for Fantasy. So, budget entry just to play £115 or £120 if you’re not fussed about playing equal points games or how the game is balanced to play. Total: £120

Fantasy Entry: £45 main rules (yes I know you can get the mini rulebook off eBay for £20 but is someone new to the hobby necessarily going to be aware of that?) £30 army book, £70 battalion set and £12 for a character model. Depending on the battalion this might not be a valid army either, but should get you in the ball park of at least being able to play. Total: £162

40k Eldar Entry: Normal 40k should be pretty much the same as Fantasy, but if we take this as a measure of what GW might be doing for the future let’s put this together for the sake of completeness. £45 main rules again, £30 for the main Codex, another £30 for the Iyanden as that’s what we want to play. £70 Battleforce set and then £12 for a Farseer. Note that this may not actually include any of the units you really want for the Iyanden army, Wraithguard and a WraithKnight will set you back another £100. Total: £187

Dropzone Commander Entry: Rulebook £15, Starter Army £88, let’s even be generous and throw in a Cityscape so you have a complete battlefield to play on as well so £30. Total: £133

Warmachine Entry: Rulebook £20 for the Mk2 and a starter box for £35. Technically you don’t need the rulebook because of quick start rules in the boxes but for completeness against other options I think it’s fair. If you do want to really expand though you’re also going to be looking at another £20 for a softcover army book. Then the same again for the extra books to bring you up to date with everything, although technically these aren’t needed as cards are in with the models. But still, book purchases can get expensive as you add to stuff. Total: £55

Infinity Starter: Excellent game but has a huge learning curve. You’re also going to end up spending a lot on terrain for this one, but we’re not factoring that in to start-up costs. £30 for the rulebook and £30 for a non-sectorial starter set are all you are going to need. Total: £60

Malifaux Starter: Rulebook £20, starter set £26 and a deck of cards £5. Total: £51 

I left Dropzone Commander in here as it is widely seen as a very expensive game to get into. To play at the same level as the GW entries though the cost is fairly comparable and I even added in a full tables worth of terrain for you too so it isn’t a bad deal by any stretch of the imagination. For the other games you can see that the entry cost is literally half of the GW cost. Yes, I know that these are skirmish games and not mass army games but then 40k plays pretty much like a skirmish unless you are play Orks, Guard or Nids. Most other armies have a few squads and some vehicles which is not all that dissimilar to PP with some Jacks/Beasts and troops rounding our your army. All of these games play differently and I’ve by no means put down an exhaustive list of all the options available. Yet, we can see now just how badly GW are trying to gouge their position as market leaders and ubiquitous presence on tables the world over. I do know that GW have been losing customers because of their rather aggressive pricing and from speaking to my FLGS this is only going to get worse. This is the company that got me into tabletop gaming so while it may seem that all I do is rag on them I’m actually upset that they are trying so hard to destroy their legacy. I’d love them to carry on, to be the same company as it was when I would happily spend every penny of pocket-money I had on their new releases. Sadly though, I find myself once more contemplating abandoning them completely as I do not feel I can support a company that does so little for its customers while expecting them to pay through the nose at ever-increasing values.

Let’s be straight here – there are not enough superlatives to describe how epic the concept of this book is. It’s science fiction at it’s dirtiest and most grubby. There are no heroes here, only a cast of chain smoking unbalanced degenerates trying to get by in a completely random and incomprehensibly lethal environment; part of a universe where alien civilizations actually either do not notice or want nothing to do with humankind.

Highly Recommended!

Yesterday saw the get-together of us gamers here at the floating citadel and my first real game of the much talked about Dropzone Commander.  I had heard some good reports of DZC from my fellows; notably Zombiepirate and Cerebus and after playing a demo game at Salute last month I decided to dish out the cash and go with the Shaltari.  I’ve spent the past few weeks devouring the rules, assembling models and I have now started to paint a few.  Above are the ones I’ve finished.  Yesterday’s game was a bit of an eye-opener, as none of us have seen the Shaltari in action, so I’d like to share my thoughts on the game as a whole and the Shaltari in particular.

First off is my army list.  We had decided to play a 1500pts game (about average size).  For those who are unaware, DZC has a slightly different army selection to other games.  The army is divided into battlegroups (at 1500pts a maximum of 6), and each battlegroup is divided into units (at 1500pts between 1-3).  These battlegroups activate at the same time, though they don’t have to work together.  The battlegroups have different names and compositions depending on the army but are essentially; HQ, Armour, Infantry, Special (choice of heavy support or fast scout) and Air support (Fleet).  For my army I decided to max out on Battlegroups to give me some flexibility.  I also ended up with at least one unit of everything (part be chance, part because I wanted to see what they could all do).  I have not included the two new units.  So here is the list:

• HQ Battlegroup; 1 Coyote Warstrider with a Shaltari Warchief upgrade
• Armour Battlegroup; 1 unit of 5 Tomahawk tanks, 1 unit of 3 Kukri AA tanks
• Infantry Battlegroup; 2 units of 2 bases of Braves, 1 unit of 2 Thunderbird Gunships
• Special Battlegroup 1; 1 Jaguar Warstrider, 1 Ocelot Warstrider
• Special Battlegroup 2; 1 unit of 2 bases of Firstborns, 1 unit of Yari light tanks with AA guns
• Fleet Battlegroup; 1 Warspear Heavy Fighter
• Gates; 1 Gaia Heavy Gate, 2 Eden Medium Gates, 2 Spirit Light Gates, 1 Haven Terragate

In one of those rarities in gaming the army actually comes to bang on 1500pts.  The Shaltari are different from the other armies in that their transports (the teleportation gates) are not attached to specific units, but instead form a pool from which you activate the chosen gate with any battlegroup you like as the game progresses.  Each one can only be activated once though.

So how did the battle go?  My opponent was Zombiepirate with his UCM army, and then came my first surprise.  In an event that almost led to a collapse in the space-time continuum and the end of the universe as we know it…Zombiepirate had more stuff painted than me!  To be fair to my long time friend and gaming opponent, he has been putting in some work on his DZC models.  We had decided on the basic scenario of a cityscape with 5 objectives to capture and take off the table (you get one victory point if you control an objective and 2 if you get it off the table).

The game began with me being lucky, getting both the initiative and having my reserve fighter turning up to perform strafing runs (more about this brave pilot later).  All of the units are kept in readiness off the table and arrive via transports when the battlegroup becomes available.  As units cannot shoot on a turn they disembark (or dematerialize in my case) the only shots came from my fighter who swooped in and took out a light transport carrying the Wolverine scouts.  Sadly both buggies survived the crash.  Zombiepirate advanced on the two objectives nearest to him on my right flank and also to the one in the centre.  I also went for the centre and an objective on my left.  This is I think, one of the biggest differences with DZC over other gaming systems; it is designed around objective grabs, not destruction of the enemy.  DZC is more like modern warfare’s surgical strikes and rapid insertion and extraction as opposed to a more World War I style annihilation found in other games such as 40K.  This I found to be a big difference in gaming style.  As a long time Tyranid player, I am use to just throwing my troops at stuff.  With this game I really had to think and there were moments where I took a few minutes to decide which battlegroup to activate, nevermind where & what they were going to do.

As the game progressed, there were units blowing up a plenty.  The first big casualty was my Coyote Command Warstrider, which got taken out by the UCM tanks and some excellent shooting on the part of Zombiepirate.  My shield rolls failed me, but luckily the escape module worked and my commander survived the game (unlike the UCM commander), allowing me to still use the command cards.  Casualties on my side were fairly light.  It may only be a 5+ save those shields give me, but I made some fantastic rolls.  My fighter pilot gained a promotion when he flew threw the entire UCM AA fire to strike the heavy dropship and come out the other end without so much as the paint being scratched.  The centre witnessed the biggest rumble of the game with opposing infantry fighting room-to-room for the objective and my Firstborns showing why they are elite infantry and cutting apart the UCM infantry.  The game eventually ended up with Zombiepirate scoring 4 VP to my 3.  So victory to the UCM.  This I put down mostly to lack of experience on my part.  As Cerebus can attest, I left an infantry unit out of most of the game instead of sending it to the final objective earlier in the game…I just thought too much about destroying my enemy instead of objectives… oh well learning curve.

Shaltari army thoughts and the things I learnt.  They make a very different army.  Not having dedicated transports means you can do what I did a few times and relocate units across the battlefield in seconds, so long as the gates are there.  Such shannigans can be really good when timed well.  The disadvantage to this, any unit that dematerializes cannot shoot that turn.  The fact that Shaltari gates continue to carry objectives when a unit passes through it, means that the gate can get the objective off the field whilst your unit searches for another.  The 30″ movement of the light gate is scarily fast in a game where most ground units move 4″ or less.  The tanks have some awesome firepower (though I do hate the armour 10 on the UCM…it makes them so hard to destroy).  I would recommend always moving 6″ to give the enemy the to hit penalty and help make the most of your armour 7 and 5+ save tanks.  AA vehicles are  a MUST in this game.  Having my fighter flying up and down the UCM lines, picking out targets was a great advantage…though after my game I’d recommend attack small-medium transports as they will carry the infantry & objectives off the table…and not the big transports which deliver the tanks (once they’ve dropped the armour they really don’t do much else).  Without a save aircraft go down easily to AA fire and having good flak cover means your enemy really has to think about where to put their air support and “do I risk it?” moments are common.  The warstriders…mixed feelings about these.  My commander was unlucky getting one-shotted in the second turn.  The Jaguar performed well, taking out tanks and coming with its own AA guns extends your flak shield.  The Ocelot however I’m not sure about.  It is one of my favorite looking Shaltari models, but I found that its one-shot particle cannon not much use.  The problem is that it cannot move & fire, which restricts it somewhat and although the gun is epic in its power, it’s still only 1 shot.  The best use I can see for it is when your enemy brings their own heavy armour which will have multiple hit points, then the high chance of doing double damage will really pay off.  The Thunderbird Gunships are my other favorite Shaltari model, but they need to be kept out of AA range as they are vulnerable to it.  I’d still keep them in the army as if there is no AA guns, these units can roam free around the table.  After playing the game, I have realised what my fellow gamers have; Infantry is key.  You really need to get as much Infantry as possible…somewhat a weakness of the Shaltari as their Infantry only come in units of 2 bases (opposed to 3 for most armies) and they only have 3 hit points (unlike the 5 of most armies).  This being said they are very dangerous in combat.  With an Armour of 4 they can only be wounded on 6s in close combat, so get them into a building and they will be almost impossible to take out.  The Firstborns are even tougher having 12 attacks per base and a 4+ save in combat.  It was they who won me the combat in the centre and killed 3 bases on UCM infantry in a single combat with only 1 hit in return.  Another unit that will be a must I think.

Conclusions of the Shaltari;  Use your speed as much as you can: your skimmers are harder to hit if they move 6″ or more, the ability to move your infantry from objective holding in a building, to gate, to inside another building to find another objective is fantastic.  The gates holding the objectives frees up your limited supply of infantry to look for another.  This is perhaps their biggest tactical advantage.  The 5+ save is good, but don’t rely on it all the time.  My fighter pilot go lucky, my commander less so.  As for the game itself, different and fantastic.  It is very different to anything else I have played and really makes you think about your army choices and how you are playing.  You can’t go into autopilot gaming mode, you need to think.  Great game, look forward to more.

It is with much kerbalish pride that we can report that we have finally and successfully designed, built and flown a space rocket to land three kerbals on the surface of the moon; and most importantly brought them back to Kerbin completely not dead. From that achievement we quickly stepped up the challenge level and using the same technology and rocket design managed to achieve the same on Kerbal’s second and much smaller moon, Minmus.

Next then, we will try to open the doors to constructing a space station, only as a stepping stone to the other planets. All shall be in awe of our fledgling space empire!

So FFG have announced the next wave, wave three.

Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce the next four single starship expansions for X-Wing™!

The HWK-290™ Expansion Pack, Lambda-class Shuttle™ Expansion Pack, B-Wing™ Expansion Pack, and TIE Bomber™ Expansion Pack are scheduled to arrive in the third quarter of 2013. Each of these expansions comes with a detailed miniature starship, accurately rendered at the same 1/270 scale as the game’s other ships (as always, we worked closely with Lucasfilm Ltd. to ensure the correct sizes of each ship), and includes multiple ship cards, upgrades, a maneuver dial, and all necessary tokens.

Supporting Your Fleet

As a group, these starships allow X-Wing players to pursue a wide range of new, tightly focused, squad-based strategies built around their support functions and system upgrades.

Both the HWK-290 and Lambda-class Shuttle Expansion Packs introduce an array of support options that clever squad leaders will be able to use to great effect. Designed from the ground up as support ships, the HWK-290 and Lambda-class Shuttle are versatile utility vessels that make your other starships better.

The HWK-290 comes with four ship cards for a Rebel Operative and three unique pilots, including the renowned Kyle Katarn, who can assign his focus tokens to friendly ships within Range 1–3. Additionally, each HWK-290 can be outfitted with a turret weapon and a crew member, and the expansion provides you with six upgrade options, including the unique Moldy Crow title card, representing Kyle Katarn’s signature starship.

Meanwhile, Imperial fleets gain the support of the new Lambda-class Shuttle. This starship expansion includes four ship cards, featuring three unique pilots who can each provide powerful benefits to their squad mates. As an example, Captain Kagi can divert enemy target locks from your other ships and force your opponent to fire against his shuttle and its five shields. The Lambda-class Shuttle is highly customizable, too, as each one can carry up to two crew members, one cannon, and a system upgrade. Pair Captain Kagi with a Rebel Captive, and you may discourage your opponent from trying to establish target locks and fire missiles. The expansion comes with a total of twelve upgrade cards.

Also new to this wave of expansions is a new type of upgrade, the system upgrade (). System upgrades appear with both the Lambda-class Shuttle and B-Wing Expansion Packs, and they give players more control over the game by reducing the potential risks inherent in random dice rolls and an opponent’s unpredictability. For example, when your ship is defending against an attack, the Sensor Jammer allows you to convert one of your opponent’s results to a result that cannot be rerolled. Be sure to see our coverage of system upgrades in upcoming previews.

Another exciting group of ships and out third medium sized based ship to add to, Slave One and the Falcon. Interesting to see the first ship not from the classic movies, Kyle Katarn’s signature starship “Moldy Crow” featured in the games and books. This is an interesting turn of events for FFG and fans alike. What will come next??? Until then we have to wait and see how these excellent looking ships with effect the game.

Carabus

Wow, been busy lately… After posting that War was Declared, got a test game of Bolt Action in and have been for a great day at Salute.

It seems that the groups attention has wondered over to Drop Zone Commander which is not a bad thing, I am really looking forward to getting into that game again, or rather make a start. But I still have the WW2 bug at the moment. So I have been painting up some SS miniatures and a Puma.

This is a 1/48 scale kit from Tamiya the old Italeri kit re-boxed. I did some knocking around on the inter-web thingy for patterns etc. I have not done a model kit in 10+ years and was never any good but I thought I would give it a go. 

So here is my attempt at airbrushing:

I have now added 2 coats of filter from AK Interactive and added a pin wash and then tided it up a bit.

The next stage is to add some paint chipping and light scratches, until you are happy with the amount. I have added a fair few I can imagine that the Puma is thrashing its way though under growth  and sneaking into the woods and towns scouting for Allied armor.

The colours should tone down a bit more. I may add rain streaks, still have mud and dust to add. I have not used any of these products before, I normally just did drybrush and ink was but want to try and paint it like modelers do.

Adding the start of the mud:

I don’t want it plastered just some stuck under there from usage.

Here are the wheels:

So I have now been working on the crew, I wanted a crew of 2 for this one. The commander exposed commenting to the gunner who has just his head exposed, sort of a narrative.

Here are some bad pictures 

Here you can see the excellent decals from Warlord I picked up at the Salute show in London, I used two eagles and an officer rank Untersturmfuhuer. Excellent decals. I used Micro Set and then added a little Matt varnish.

Well I think I am finally there.

I took advantage of the nice weather and took some photos.

I am thinking about adding some foliage? What do you think?

So what’s the news? CCP (the makers of internet spreadsheet spaceship simulator) seem to be getting quite heavily in DUST 514. This is a free to play FPS for Playstation 3 set in the EVE universe. Currently they are attempting to integrate the two games. Planetary invasions and battles with alt-tabbing for spaceship orbital strikes are likely to make the initial release; with heavy hints that in future boarding actions may well be part of the experience. Good idea? I’m not a fan of FPS games and I know players can be a fickle bunch which may limit it’s longevity.

Top idea for the week has to go to CCP Soundwave, who in a seminar suggested that you should be able to place bounties from the EVE forums. Hopefully this would lead to bad posters getting big bounties on their heads and the associated infinite grief when they login to play the game!

The big reveal though was the suggestion that CCP are going to build a statue in Reykjavik 5.14m tall to celebrate 10 years of EVE Online with every player’s name engraved upon it. Apparently Iceland has no planning laws!

The big big reveal was the notion that CCP are going to make a TV series a-la Battlestar Galactica, Game of Thrones etc based upon the shenanigans that go on in the game. A few months back a site was put up collecting stories that they will use as inspiration for the storylines. You can find the site here.

Still, with a 10mm scale game rather than the far more prevalent 28mm we’re used to dealing with getting the right terrain means getting something in fresh rather than reusing something bought years ago. I’d seen the cityscape on Hawk’s website but not really given it a thought, I mean, a 6′ x 4′ battlefield for £30, can’t be all that good can it? As we kind of experience a gaming drought post Salute last year things around the floating citadel just didn’t play out as we’d all hoped. This meant that we didn’t get to see our DzC stuff on the table, nor show it off to anyone else as we had planned to do.

So it was that when we went to Salute this year Dropzone Commander wasn’t really on our radar. We planned on stopping by and checking in with Dave but not much else other than that. Fate it seems like to give us a good nudge every now and again. Gribblin and nBreaker got to enjoy a demo game, suitably impressed they bought in, as we knew they would. However, we also got to see the Cityscape up close and personal. It may only be card but it’s of a very high quality and looked excellent. Free buildings from the kit were being handed out on the stand too so we got to have a quick look at what they were like. For £30 this seemed like a steal now that I’d clapped eyes on the things so I picked one up to give us a battlefield that would be compliant with the scale, the objective based nature of the game and friendly on the wallet.

First up I need to tell you that the thing is heavy! We’ve actually got two of the things so I spent a lot of time with plastic bag handles trying to sever my fingers through the afternoon. This will also mean that we can have more than one game going at a time, or just use a really huge battlefield in a multiplayer game. When you open the box up everything is nice and securely padded with bubble wrap and it does feel like a meaty package. When you open it up you’re treated to all the flat packed buildings, pre-scored to make for easy assembly. I spent a couple of hours on Saturday putting the whole thing together. There’s a large stack of double-sided base tiles to use too. You may be better off choosing a layout and then gluing these to a board to give them some stability and stop them from moving on the table although obviously you’ll then have to store yet more terrain boards.

That really is a wad of card you get. Each building just pops open, the roof is then glued down to make the structure rigid, each wall then has a fold on top where you fold down a small flap to “warp” over the top to give you a lip to stop stuff falling off as well as make things look prettier than just having bare white card. I used common, run of the mill PVA to glue mine together. Not watered down, just fresh out of the bottle. I applied this liberally to the roof tabs and also to the flaps. If you want to save yourself a lot of time sat still holding things then I’ll pass on a tip we got from Bex at the show, use bull-dog clips! I put forward exhibit A to show you how I did it;

This works really well and I found that the glue stuck very quickly using this method. I only had the one pack of clips, which wasn’t a problem but I’d suggest people get two if they want to try assembly in this way as it would have just been a nicer experience if I wasn’t taking them off and using them again on the same walls of some of the larger buildings.

The only problem I see with the whole thing is that the buildings are probably going to easily be knocked about a little when gaming. Now this is nothing new but as this terrain is so light in individual pieces I can see this being more of an issue than with other, heavier terrain pieces, but for the price I’m not sure you can really argue against it.

We’re hoping to have a game using it very soon, if I’m feeling generous I might even take some piccies of it in use. However, from an assembly point of view and seeing it all together I must say that this really is a bargain and a very nice set, for the price you’d pay for a single kit from other manufacturers you have a full battlefield to play over. I am really looking forward to using it. Although I might let some of the other guys have a go at assembling the other set so I can get on with getting my army painted.

For me the most influential event of the day was a participation game of Dropzone Commander.  Our regular readers will remember the excitement that this game created after last years Salute.  Despite two of my co-writers buying into the game when it was first released, I decided to wait until I’d played a demo game.  Unfortunately due to one thing or another one hadn’t happened, so last Saturday was the first time I got to see the game in action.  My overall impression…I see why so many people have been raving about it.  It is game unlike anything I have played before, being based on a 10mm scale sci-fi world with the emphasis on dropships, battlegroups and rapid insertion & extraction.  The game is fast pace, easy to pick up and yet very tactical.  Myself and nBreaker were playing the Scourge, and enjoyed the sheer destruction (between us and the UCM we took down 3 rather large builds, not bad for a beginner game), eventually wining by a single tank and dropship.

The game was fun enough for me to part with some money, and I bought the Shaltari Large Army deal with case.  Being Salute and a special event day the rulebook was included for free with any Large or Mega army so woohoo!  Then came lunch, and looking over my purchase whilst eating a sandwich I noticed that there was too much in the box…I been given a Mega deal by mistake.  Being a nice guy I went back to them and told the folks at Hawk Wargames.  The situation was resolved to our mutual satisfaction and I am the proud owner of a Shaltari Mega Army, so a big thumbs up to the guys at Hawk Wargames for their customer service!  I will be buying more in the future…just give me time to paint everything else first.

One and off this week I have started painting the miniatures, and above is the first one that is finished; a Shaltari Warspear fighter.  I look forward to my first game with my associates here at 6 Inch Move.

This meant that Carabus and I got to spend a little over an hour in the show before things got really busy. First order of the day was to find me a TIE fighter to finish off my X-wing army. However, within seconds of the event starting all the X-wing stuff sold out at every stand simultaneously. There was some on one stand, but the Machiavellian stall owner had rapidly repriced all his TIEs with a 33% increase over the RRP (despite the other ships still being RRP). Unsurprisingly I bit my thumb at him and snorted deridingly before walking off in righteous indignation.

It was nice to get in as part of the “Priority” queue for having pre-purchased our tickets. We got to see a lot of stuff before the show really got busy, although we didn’t really do much detailed searching as we wanted to check out lots of stuff as a full group.

I’m always a little hesitant when going down to Salute. In 2010 I didn’t think there was much there, it certainly wasn’t as good as when I was there in 2006, however, both 2012 and this year I have to say that the show was excellent. It really does showcase how big the industry has gotten, there is so much to see there across numerous genres and you can see the direction things are going. There are a ton of terrain stands now where there wasn’t really anything of the quality we can get now. I’ve included a couple of photos of the cityscape from Hawk Wargames. It’s a full 6′ * 4′ gaming table for £30. We’ll be doing a full review of it shortly and it’s rather impressive considering it’s just card stock.

We probably spent longer outside the Hawk stand than anywhere else, probably because of Gribblin and nBreaker getting a demo game. As Servitob also said we got a quick demo of the Mantic game Dreadball, seemed quite good however we picked up the rules faster than the Mantic guy demoing it could explain it and he was getting a couple of things wrong from his own explanations which was kind of off-putting.

I think that the main thing that I took from the show (other than the couple of things that I bought) was a reinvigorated feeling towards my gaming after what has been a very quite year for me. Real life definitely has been a curve ball but yesterday I got my DzC stuff out again and have set about actually painting some of it and working on getting the army finished and ready for the tabletop. Now we’ve got the proper scenery too I’m starting to feel really good about where we’re going now.

Watch this space to see just how that all pans out.