What a day. Going into Salute this year my mind-set was completely different from the year before. Last year I took with me a wad of cash and bought so very many things. Including the scenery set from Ainsty Casting below.
Yes it was lots of pennies and no it’s not painted.
This year as part of my efforts to grow this website and present a better offering to you, dear reader, I was all about business. Apart from the stop at Forge World to pick up my pre-order of the Astartes Praetors and some MkIII Legionairres which, to my surprise this week when I got them out to build them, turned out to by MkII. Bravo Forge World. I popped back later in the day to get some MkVs as well. Basically my plan is to sow the older armour variants throughout my 5th company in order to give them some sense of history and character. And I’d also been lusting after the Praetors since they came out so they’ll be replacing my 1st and 5th Company Captains that have served with varying amounts of distinction for the last 10 years.
I’d also intended on picking up an A-Wing or two and a B-Wing for the X-Wing Miniatures Game. But no bugger had any. So, determined to get something for X-Wing I bought some dice. Shut up. And whilst in the line to pay I spotted Codex Imperial Knights (the last one I might add) so snapped that up to. So I can now use my Knight. Tremble before me mortals and despair!
That’s kinda where my spending stopped and as mentioned by others, the business began.
This year’s Salute was an important one for me and for The Shell Case. The site has a great team of writers behind it and I wanted this year to be the year we really started to broaden our horizons and produce more content for a broader range of games long-term rather than the odd review here and there and that’s it. We did ourselves proud and you’ll be seeing much more content from Warlord Games and Mantic. But to kick things off Lee and I will be looking at and playing the starter set very soon. Lee is cursing my name for waving a cool looking World War II game at him because, like me, he’s a bit of a nerd for the history.
We also met with the man behind The World of Twilight, the game Gav Thorpe mentioned in his guest article. All being well we’ll be covering this game in a lot more depth in the coming weeks and months. The models are awesome and I spent a good few minutes chatting with Mike playing the ‘spot the influence game’ which was good fun.
I also got to catch up with some old friends and contacts including Mike McVey – again some very exciting stuff coming out of Studio McVey – WarmAcre, West Wind Games. We hope to be bringing you more on their fantastic games along the road.
There was a long list of companies we wanted to speak and did, others we discovered like White Dragon Miniatures who are working on the gorgeous looking Shattered Void which is a space based game with some swanky, Eve Online-esque RPG elements thrown in. According to the game’s creator the rules will always be free and be a living rule book that fans of the game can contribute to. Which is pretty sweet. And the models are so very very gorgeous.
We’re hoping to bring you some more on Shattered Void as the Kickstarter approaches launch.
For every person we caught up with there was a stand we didn’t make it to. We weren’t able to catch up with Spartan, Prodos or Knights Models to name but three.
At least we got to catch up with our good friends at Amera Plastic Mouldings & KR Multicase and, of course, the #warmongers – for whom we labour into the night. I’ll be honest, I was a bit disorganised with the meet up and so not as many #warmongers attended as I think would have but there was still around 20. But then again I had planned on live Tweeting throughout the day but I got so engrossed talking to the likes of Mierce Miniatures and others.
And to round the day off I got to gather the team together and have a beer and a chat and compare swag. Which was one of my favourite bits of the day.
It was a brilliant day. Lots of good conversations, lots of cool toys and I got to share it with my mates. Couldn’t really ask for more…apart from an A-Wing or two. Whilst a part of me wishes I had a second day but really I just needed to be a bit more focussed. Next year I’ll spend a lot less time cocking about, a lot less time queuing at Forge World (because pre-ordering means it isn’t going anywhere) and a lot more time working my way around the room.
Salute is the thing I look forward to most, all year (excluding the mandatory wedding anniversary and daughter’s birthday) and I’m already counting down the days to Salute 2015.
