A pleasant spring sun welcomed me this morning as I prized myself from my bed to prepare for the annual trip to Salute in London. This year, I was making a new contact (and a rather local one at that) in the guise of Stuart Klatcheff who joined the Oldhammer Forum and the Facebook Community recently. He dwells in distant Great Leighs and I picked him up at 8:30. We arrived at about 10am and were confronted by the queues. They were easily the biggest I had ever seen and the Salute team had prepared a vast empty space for us to gather in.
The top picture gives you some idea of that space and of the number of people preparing to enter the show.
As always, we were entertained during the short walk around by the antics of the costumed Star Wars chaps. I quipped the ever-sharp jibe about the stormtrooper above being 'a little short' and was promptly told to 'move along' for my efforts.
The costumes these enthusiasts dress up in are excellent, as this sand blaster trooper from Tatoonie goes to show and there were a great many others to see, including a rather scary Judge Dredd. Alas, I didn't witness him busting any perps!
My first port of call was the Foundry stand. As you can imagine it was packed out with punters stocking up on their excellent metal castings. However, this year they had brought along Kevin 'The Goblin-Master' Adams with his incredible model range, now called Warmonger. Kev was more than willing to chat (at great length) about his work and his recovery and I am pleased to announce that he has agreed to do a RoC80s interview about the old days in the very near future. So look out for that in the coming months! He was very pleased to be at the show, especially considering that the Ansells had put him up in a swanky hotel all expenses paid! He told me he still had one operation to go but he is back at work and very grateful for all the support he received from the community.
Kev was also keen to show off his latest work and had a pocket full of castings. This were a new range of goblins for Midlam Miniatures which were brilliant and could have easily been a Citadel original from 1985. Sadly, not all the castings were for sale, including this topless 'gobliness' as the owner of Midlam didn't like the sculpt.
Tony Hough dropped by with his daughter and I managed to capture the moment with a cheeky not quite selfie thanks to Paul Golgfag from the Oldhammer Forum.
Meeting up with some Oldhammer stalwarts, we stopped for a quick lunch before exploring the trade stands. Here Leadpest listens to Golgfag's idea for his big game at the Oldhammer Weekend in August.
Leadpest, Stuart and Leadpest's brother enjoy a rather expensive Salute sandwich. Thanks to Leadpest, I am now the proud owner of Sgt. Kratz from the Death on the Reik range. A fine trade indeed, an old school piece of Citadel for a coffee!
As you would expect, the quality of miniature painting on display was deeply impressive. This D&D beholder-type creature was my show favourite.
And yes, Dreadfleet is still on sale. £60 a copy for interested parties. Sadly, relegated to the bargin bins of the wargaming world. I felt that the miniatures and mechanics were fairly decent.
As I said previously, many of the pieces that Kevin Adams did for Foundry all those years back are now becoming part of Warmonger miniatures. These were for sale as a special Salute only range and I bought up the Orcling Outriders to make a special unit of goblin cavalry. As you would expect, these are beautifully sculpted models full of charm and expertly cast.
Much of the range that Bryan Ansell was promoting on eBay last year have been repackaged here. Including the famous 'Mercenary Orc' models.
Kev's trademark faces are apparent on all of the models. They are a real pleasure to paint. As I said, I intend to create a little comical goblin cavalry unit complete with rules from WFB3 for a future scenario with these models.
Kev had a pocket full of castings he had just finished work on. These were for Midlam Miniatures, a company I had not heard anything from before and he recommended that I checked out the range. They were brilliant and were very in-keeping with the old school ethos of Oldhammer. They had a very Citadel-vibe to them so I picked up a couple of models to try out. Two goblins, an archer and a captain, to paint up and compare.
A quick close up shot of one of the Goblin Captain Kev did for Midlam. They are part of the Goblinvylle range that they have put out but there models don't stop with greenskins. There were plenty of other models on offer, inlcuding many townsfolk that reminded me of the old Citadel ones.
I was also able to pick up the remaining ex-Citadel barbarians that I failed to get hold of the last time I was at the Foundry. Lots of nice models in here that will be part of my future Old School Norse army at some point.
All in all, another great show. Right, were is that paintbrush!
Orlygg