I have to say I had an absolute blast at Salute this year, and I think it was a much better event than last year. The stands were better laid out and I was able to see much more, talk to people, and it didn't feel quite so manic, even though there seemed to be more people this year.
Obviously the big highlight was the bloggers meet-up, where I finally got to meet the third corner of the Tale of Painters triangle, Mr Michael Awdry from 28mm Victorian Warfare, plus some new people I didn't know before (and new blogs to follow) and meeting up with some previously known reprobates (that'll be you Fran...and Mike...and Ray...). It was really good to talk games, painting and blogging in general, comparing lead mountains and painting backlogs, and the joy of Oldhammer.
I'll give a run down of my purchases tomorrow (I spent quite a bit to be fair), but for now, here are a few demonstration/participation games that caught my eye.
Like a muppet, I didn't take note of who was running these games, so I'll have to take a look at the event programme when I get the chance and try and work out who was who, and what was what. I do however know that this one was the Wolsung participation game, run by the lovely people at Micro Art Studio. There was so much detail on what was quite a small board, it just blew me away.
I'm pretty sure this is terrain produced by Warmill, it's very "Starship Troopers" and would look good for games of Infinity.
These two were lovely Japanese themed boards - a few of our gaming group have Bushido warbands, so I may be tempted to give this style of architecture a go at some point (yeah I know, yet another potential project which will get listed and never see the light of day...).
Last but not least was this rather fantastic Dungeons and Dragons terrain piece. There seemed to be unpainted D&D miniatures available to buy (I think they were called "Collectors" or something, I don't know, I haven't had much sleep the last week...), which I hadn't seen before. The purple light was provided by LEDs, which was really effective.
Fran told me I had to post more (he gave me "the look" as he said it), so this is my attempt at posting more. Hopefully tomorrow you'll see my addition to the lead mountain, with a few comments on retailers and stands and then I'll try posting something I've actually painted recently...
As always, comments welcome!