Salute 53: the shoppening

As you may know, yesterday was Salute, and we made our annual pilgrimage (although in a reduced party of 2 this year).

As always seems to be the case, I took far fewer pics than I thought I had, mostly due to spending the time walking and talking as we encouraged each other to support a variety of small businesses, as all good citizens must.

As is now tradition, as soon as we got into the hall we rushed over to the Osprey stand to sign up for a demo game, this year being Warriors of Athena. While we waited to see if anyone else was going to sign up, we got to have a look in the cabinet at a preview of the upcoming sprues:

Here’s the board of the demo game, which is basically the second scenario from the first Quest:

I selected Penelope as my Hero, who unlike the other Heroes had no companions, but did have a bow, which I figured might be tactically optimal to reduce the chance of getting my face smashed in by a Cyclops:

The game was fun, and our luck with dice seemed to be very thematic. We were there to reclaim some honey that was due to the gods, and so bundled in to wreak mighty violence on the naughty Cyclopes that were withholding it. Things started well, with us generally avoiding getting blatted with flung rocks and even taking out one of the Cyclops brothers with a combination of bonfire and carefully applied axe, but then things took a turn. My hero, finding herself with nothing unengaged to shoot at, explored a hut, discovering it to be a slaughterhouse full of meat (some of it human). My usual terrible dice rolling skills returned in this moment when I rolled a 3 and failed to hold my nerve, and threw up at this sight. The next turn, I dashed forwards to grab the honey… which again required a roll to resist eating it (which the Gods were very clear about the importance of not doing). And I again rolled a 3(hey, she was probably hungry after losing her lunch earlier). The next turn, everything that could go wrong did, as 3 of the 4 companions were killed, and a harpy appeared just as we came to the end of our time slot, so we all surmised that I had managed to curse us:

Once we’d finished the game, we then ambled around peering at lots of lovely minis. A small selection of things I took pictures of:

Scratched paintwork, a music themed mech game that caught our fancy. No minis for it, but probably worth an investigate…

A Robin Hood game - not something on my immediate projects list, but it’s probably only a matter of time…

Butt Fish!

Dreadfjord had a cool diorama that caught our eye

Barsoom! I’m surprised I haven’t had a Barsoom project at any point, as I enjoyed the novels I’d read, and have a stack of the comics too. I even liked the movie!

Which leads us to the crux of every Salute post, the loot:

• A few packs from Foundry - assorted Satyrs and ancient townsfolk for Warriors of Athena, and some Mexican Irregulars to use as Tejanos in the Alamo project 
• A box of Perry Spanish Guerrillas, because they work for Silver Bayonet Bandits, and between these and last years purchases I could probably do a reasonable Spanish Napoleonic army… 
• A freebie of a little lizard from Twilight 
• A mixed pack of tufts, as I build up my basing options
• The event freebie of Saladin. Fun fact: I read the entire Osprey about the third crusade on planes trains and automobiles coaches the day before Salute in preparation 
• The Barons War Outremer expansion - I asked whether the rumours of this book being updated in the near future were true, which they couldn’t tell me, but I bought it as I figured it was still going to be full of cool Crusade stuff, and also they said they’d give me a free sprue of Ancient civilians (that they were giving away if you bought Gangs of Rome) if I bought it, which I was eyeing for potential Warriors of Athena use 
• Crooked Dice - some Greek themed treasure tokens, the 13th Doctor, a companion for the 3rd Doctor, and the Terminator to go with my batch of them from last year 
• Super Tiny Giant Battles and two gacha from the Mammoth Minis gumball machine 
• Some GSW basing bits - crabs, that I’m hoping look good enough based up to be enemies in Warriors of Athena, and Pigeons, because my daughter is currently pigeon obsessed and next time we play D&D will probably want her Druid to turn into a pigeon
•  Silver Bayonet Spanish Unit, because… it was in front of me and I really like the sculpts! Plus, with the various Perry Plastics I have I could definitely make a unit. He says, still needing to finish his first unit… 
• Bad Squiddo vampire hunters, in case this is the purchase that gets me to actuslly finish my original Silver Bayonet Unit 
• Warlord gave me a couple of Konflikt 47 preview sprues when I bought a pot of Strong Tone at their stand 
• A sprue of Mantic Abyssal Dwarf infantry was another goodie bag freebie 
• Sci-fi barricades (for Firefly) and Amphora (for Warriors of Athena) from Debris of War
• 2 pots of Troll Trader superglue, as a pot of that lasts a year as opposed to going through a hundred tubes of terrible Poundland glue
• A Vae Victus buttfish, and a Dwarf Slayer from a company selling orange brushes 
• 3 shapeshifting aliens from Tangent, because I try to support Wayne every year 
• The Wargames Illustrated Templar and Assassin heroes, that I had previously resisted, but were in fact right in front of me which is much harder to resist 
• A Bushido giant crab for use in Warriors of Athena - expensive, but the nicest crab sculpt I’d seen all day and a good size too 
• Warriors of Athena Mythic Bees and Athena herself - after months of telling myself that I was going to find some alternative miniatures to use as giant bees, after playing the demo game I decided that maybe the official minis were actually the way to go! 
• My Gringo 40s preorder, which had a spread of minis for Silver Bayonet and the Alamo, and even included a freebie mini of an 1860 Egyptian chap 
• The final goodie bag freebies was the annual Salute die, a sample of Warmag base magnets, and then a smorgasbord of stickers, fliers and catalogues.

Before we add all of that to the Tally, a confession:

With the best of intentions, I’d hoped to wrestle the Tally down to zero before Salute, but that didn’t quite pan out. I even took minis 250 miles to Germany to try and hit that target:

Only to discover that rather than Foundry 34B, a nice dark charcoal paint that I was planning to use next, I’d packed 34A, black. 

I was able to get some other base colours done though, although I only managed to actually sit down and paint once the whole week between one thing and another.

And in full transparency, I had also picked up another issue of the new Warhammer partwork magazine since my last post, which had added 3 more minis to the Tally:

So, running all the numbers, the Tally now stands at:

20 vs 160 = -140

Not the biggest haul I’ve ever brought home, but still unlikely that I’ll get it back into the black by the end of the year!

Bits and bobs

One problem with prepping so many miniatures for my Firefly Stargrave project is that physical space on my painting tile is at a premium, so in between applying base coats to the test model for an enemy faction I finished off some scatter terrain that had been hanging round my painting tile for far too long. Firstly, some mantic bits:

A barricade and some cardboard boxes, which I think were originally from the Mars Attacks scenery set that I used for making my post-apocalyptic ruins way back when. I need a bunch of scatter terrain for Stargrave, so this is a start!

I also finished this piece from Checkpoint Miniatures, that I originally bought purely because I thought it was cool:

It’s technically a 15mm scale standing stone, but I figured it would work just as well as a 28mm shrine (just with a… very small skull having been left as a sacrifice). Here’s how it looks with an angry looking fey stood inside the ring of stones:

Number Five, I presume

I know, I know, it’s been a while, I blame Cyberpunk 2077. My desire to paint miniatures hasn’t abated though, I potentially have more ideas for projects on the go than ever before…

That aside, I’ve actually managed to finish a miniature for the first time this year:

It’s Five, another miniature for the Umbrella Academy board game. Honestly, 99% of this paint job was completed last year, but I managed to get it over the finish line and then set about reducing the number of half painted minis I currently have piled on my painting tile…

The back is a lot more straightforward than the front, I’ll give you that.

And here’s how the game looks so far:

As well as finishing this miniature, there have also been a couple of Mini of the Months to drag the Tally in the opposite direction though:

A Striking Scorpion, in case I ever get round to doing an Eldar Inq28 warband

And a couple of Skaven, which can be sprinkled in with my existing rats to give a little more visual variety. 

Which takes the Tally to:

1 vs 3 = -2

So admittedly not the strongest start to the year (if you can call March the start of the year), but there’s still time to claw it back; until Salute that is, where the Tally will likely take a hit or two. Or the postman arrives, whichever comes first…

Pogo, monkey father figure

Work continues apace on the Umbrella Academy board game (although ‘apace’ is a very generous descriptor considering how little painting time I’ve managed to grab this week), and I’ve finished another of the Ally figures:

Pogo! I still haven’t cracked the plastic on the cards in the board game, so I’m not sure what he’ll actually do, but I’m confident it will be great. Part of me is tempted to go back and try to get a crisper finish on the logo on his mug, but honestly I’m happy enough with it to not risk going back and messing it up!

Things were progressing nicely on this paint job until the final highlight drybrush on the hair, which I went a bit too heavy on and so it ended up looking too bright and flat, but I think with the careful application of a dark wash I’ve managed to pull it back.

I’ve also managed to paint a marker of the family crest:

I undercoated it black then carefully painted multiple layers of thinned white into the recesses. My original plan was to try carefully drybrushing black over the top to pick out the raised detail, but then I decided to try something else:

The firm nib of the marker meant I was able to only catch the raised detail, and then I swapped to a fine panel lining pen to carefully clarify some of the lines. It’s not going to win any awards, but it looks snazzy enough for its intended purpose!

Painting Pogo brings the Tally to:

61 vs 192 = -131

And means the first tray of the game now looks like this:

 

Release the Kraken!

Back on track with my plan to play some Umbrella Academy the board game with my wife, I’ve finished another character:

This was the character that my gut felt I’d most likely take, but I really need to get round to re-reading the comics to see if I’m not just being swayed by the tv series (which reminds me, we still haven’t watched the last season of that…)

Lots and lots of grey makes up the Kraken’s uniform, and I went with a more yellow hair colour because I felt it would pop a bit more on the board.

As well as taking the siblings, in the game there are Allies that can come to your aid. Im not entirely sure how that works, as the cards are still shrink wrapped, but figured I should paint some up too just in case, and what better choice than Mom, the Umbrella Academy’s robotic caregiver:

I went for an unnatural skin tone that I really drive home at a glance that this isn’t a human (and she looks a bit like an Auton), and gave her solid black eyes too (thanks, Gundam Marker!) 

The dress was a it of an experiment - I couldn’t find any reference images for this outfit with a quick google, so took inspiration from someone else’s paint job, but decided that I wanted it to look slightly odd, and so went with a grey tone for the shadows, in the hopes it would make it look like a really dull, not fancy material. Not sure if I quite captured that, but done is done, and into the box they go:

Finishing these two brings the Tally to:

60 vs 192 = -132

What’s next? There are more Allies in the box that could in theory make an appearance, so those should be next up on the painting tile, and I should probably get the rest of the surviving siblings painted, so that we have options for playing (plus, I suspect they might also turn up as Allies during the game, so it wouldn’t hurt to have them on hand…)

Everyone’s favourite quasi-dead guy

When asking my wife what character she thought she’d like to play if I was painting things for the Umbrella Academy board game, having seen the TV series she was quick to answer Klaus, so here he is:

Maybe I should go back and sort his eye out, but frankly he looks half decent as a board game piece so I’m happy with that.

The deathly skin tone didn’t come out quite how I’d planned, but honestly might look better than that, so happy little accidents, may they long continue.

Painting him brings the Tally to:

58 vs 192 = -134

And means the first tray in the box looks like this:

Salute 51

This weekend was the annual pilgrimage to Salute, to stock up on plenty of miniatures without having to pay for postage, mostly.

There was a wild number of prizes to be won in goody bags in the queue, but alas myself and my companion didn’t win any of them. Here’s a picture of that queue though, in case that is what caught your attention:

As ever, I was very bad at taking pictures, being more concerned with wandering around peering at shiny new miniatures, impressive game boards, and handing over money to traders! To that end, here’s a series of pictures in no particular order:

These dinky little ECW minis were very nicely painted, so me and my compadre spent an amount of time cooing over them even though it’s not a scale or a period I’m into!

This castle was very large. I’ve no idea if there were any minis inside it, or how you’d move them if there were!

I wanted to have a look at Mantic’s new Halo game, mostly to see how the minis scaled up with the old Actionclix minis that I have bucketloads of. If I were a more diehard Halo fan I’d be all over this, but…

Silver Bayonet Egypt! We didn’t get to play this year, as last year we only finished our initial go around of the show at closing time, having played a game at the start…

This was a cool table! I’m sure I’ve got a set of quick start rules for this game in my bag somewhere too…

This picture was mostly to remind me to look up this range, as it’s not one I’d come across before, and they had a variety of Mexican figures on offer…

This was a cool forced perspective display! Not pictured, the working servo skull camera on the table behind this display

Excellent 7tv board that was absolutely surrounded by people, well worth looking up better pictures than mine!

Indeed. Wrong scale for me though, sadly…

Wizard of Oz mass battle game, flying monkeys and all. Must remember to google Wars of Ozz…

Childish fun for all the family!

Just a nice board, I forget what for…

Once we’d finished out initial circuit of the show, we headed over to the Griffcon make and take to spend a pleasant time digging through piles of sprues.

Unfortunately due to the lateness of the day there was a distinct lack of torsos left on any of the sprues, but I did manage to make this skeleton happily tooting away on his spooky horn.

Which brings us to the meat of the day - my Salute haul:

Some Perry Napoleonics and ACW minis, to make into Alamo appropriate minis (although annoyingly I’ve realised that I bought the wrong box of French infantry - I meant to grab the 1807 line box, but bought an elite box instead);

This year’s Mantic Hellboy show exclusive, because at this point in the game I can’t really not buy one;

A set of plastic boardwalks and other cowboy scenery;

TTCombat superglue, because it really is better than the Poundland stuff;

A Mantic sample pack that had some ogres inside;

A bear, because my daughter’s D&D character is a Druid;

A freebie mini from One Page Rules;

A copy of Five Torches Deep;

A Stormcast Eternal mini that came in a mystery bag;

Some Old West types from Foundry, as well as a flesh triad that will hopefully help me paint some Mexicans;

A Doctor with a long scarf and a big boss looking Thing from Crooked Dice;

An Infinity miniature that for some reason came with the base of a Salute 2017 show mini;

A drunk cowboy from Black Scorpion (they’re all lovely, but so much bigger than every other cowboy I own, but I figured the slumped drunk wouldn’t look overly large!);

A tiny Grogu from Diehard minis, because May the Fourth is coming up and my previously painted Mando needed a friend;

A sprue of Ray Guns from Anvil Industry, because I’ve got some minis in pith helmets that are in dire need of increased firepower;

A blister of Japanese Villagers, because Ronin of Shadow Deep needs some civilians;

The Salute show mini;

A copy of Super Tiny Sorcery and some colour in and make foldable minis from Mammoth Minis;

A couple of minis from the Griffcon Make & Take;

A dice tray, since my youngest has a hard time keeping his dice on the table during D&D

And so many flyers, stickers, and quick start rules, as well as a handful of free dice.

Totalling everything up, this brings the Tally to:

7 vs 146 = -139

Unsurprising, as this tends to happen whenever I start a project with a Salute splurge (and will probably take a swing further down if I decide to rebuy the correct Perry Napoleonics box)…

Unusually, I’ve already got about half a dozen minis from this lot cleaned up and stuck to bases, so hopefully that means I can get some things painted up quickly! Part of me wonders if I should write a post where I go back to a previous Salute haul, and work out how much of it I’ve actually painted in the intervening years, and how much just loves in my lead mountain…