Happy Easter

Not into the religious significance for this part of the year but Happy Easter ! 

 

Salute 2025

 Another year and another Salute. The largest wargames show in the UK and one I pretty much make sure I attend every year, as April is my birthday month. However this year for some reason I cant quite explain, I wasn't really feeling it.

Things were not made much better on arrival at the Excel centre in London, to see an officious florescent vest wearing minion, you smugly told us that parking was only for the pre-booked? and oh I suppose you dont know eh? well of you go down the road and you might get parked near the rowing club! now fortunately I didn't have the same altercation as my friend Ray, see his blog post here. Well no where on South London Warlords or Excels site was anything mentioned about the parking issues. Anyway finally got parked, did the 15 minute walk over to Excel and joined the maddening hordes in the queue. We all know the queue, but this year did seem to go a lot more smoothly.

As for the show. I believe over 7000 attended this year. The morning seemed very busy but it tailed of in the afternoon and the hall felt a lot more spacious as there seemed to be a lack of traders and the games were the usual mix of clubs who put great games on but didn't want to interact with the public to very small, niche demo games with great enthusiastic demonstrators. 

I didn't have a big shopping list this time round and had already pre-ordered some stuff to collect and didn't get to play many games as nothing was really gripping me. However I played a fantastic game of Hairfoot Jousting, which was Halflings riding animals jousting in an arena. A fabulously hilariously fun game!

As mentioned I wasn't really feeling it this year, so the show for me was a bit lackluster - however I had a lovely day catching up with friends new and old, bloggers, gamers and people in the industry I've know for ages.

Some of my favourite people are Michael and Jo at Oathsworn Miniatures, Karl and Anna at Crooked Dice Miniatures, Wayne at Tangent Miniatures and Alex and his family at Warp miniatures amongst others.

                                                                  Some of the Games

                                                                           My Friends

Gordon GCT Studios

Ray, Me, Lee

Michael Oathsworn Miniatures

Jo Oathsworn Miniatures

Duncan Rhodes

Michael and Alan Perry

Wayne Tangent Miniatures

Karl and Anna Crooked Dice

Wendy West Wind Productions

Richard Clarke Two Fat Lardies

Me, Lee, Ray

Wing, Dawn, Rob and Alex Warp Miniatures

The Blog Squad

The Obligatory Swag pic

Not a lot of loot this year, picked up the new Second Edition Burrows and Badgers rulebook, more Visitor miniatures from Crooked Dice miniatures, Paved bases from Renedra for Guards of Traitors Toll as well as a few 3D prints and other miniatures for the same game.

Merry Xmas 2024

Wishing you all a very Merry Xmas and hopefully a better New Year. Or however you define this time of year.

Bloodbowl League Winner

Last night I was fortunate to get to play in the Final of my local Wargames Club (Huntingdon Wargames Society) Bloodbowl league with my Chaos Team - Slanneshi Slavers. It has been a long league with 15 teams split over two divisions. 

Each division played either 7 or 6 games depending on being in either North or South division and after the divisions games were played the top 4 in each division played against each other in the Quarter Finals.

This was drawn as 1st in North Div played 4th in South Div and so on. 

The winner of these games moved into the Semi Finals and the to the Final.

My road to the Final.

South Division Games

Slanneshi Slavers vs Tortuga Buccaneers (Undead) 

Draw 1-1

Slanneshi Slavers vs The Slough Moss-Sniffers (Gnome)

Lost 1-2

Slanneshi Slavers vs Skull Krushers (Khorne)

Draw 1-1

Slanneshi Slavers vs The Bakers Dozen (Halfling)

Won 2-0

Slanneshi Slavers vs Qui’ttax Pirahas (Lizardmen)

Won 2-1

Slanneshi Slavers vs Guffalot Gitz (Goblin)

Won 2-0

I finished the Division in Second Place having to play my friend Alex who finished 3rd in North Division.

Quarter Final

Slanneshi Slavers vs Temper Bay Marauders (Orc)

Won 1-0

Semi Final 

Slanneshi Slavers vs Ded Zeppelin (Necromantic)

Won 2-0

So onto the Final and I was playing my friend Mark who I had played in the very first game of the league.

Final

Slanneshi Slavers vs Tortuga Buccaneers (Undead)

Won 1-0

CHAOS win!!