Salute 2013: The Haul

Well, that was fun. A long day at Salute yesterday, followed by a tasty dinner with the family. Salute seemed pretty busy and while I barely took any photos, there were some impressive display and participation games.

This was my haul, from left to right then top to bottom:


-a dockside and trade goods from Ainsty (for Pulp/Sudan); another box of Mahdist Ansar from Perry miniatures, a free sprue of Romans from Warlord, two more well-priced small hills from S&A Scenics)

-a restock and new colour of Silfor tufts, a whole stack of Warbases movement trays (some for Saga and the rest for Sudan), shell craters from Warlord and the Salute miniature, a stack of Perry Sudan blisters, resin odds and sods: domes and generators (supplier forgotten), can of Dullcote and some palm trees that I got off Gharak (who bought them from Minibits last year but never did anything with them).

-a little more laser-cut wood: one more Sarissa building and one 4Ground tree base, two single miniatures from gringo40s, two 10mm jeeps from Pendraken (worlds smallest preorder to finish BKC command stands), Wesfalia 'Cantiniere' (good to have some ladies in stock for nex year's challenge...), Empress rocket team (meant for Zulu wars, but mine will used in the Sudan), 1st Corps motorcycle for Pulp, Warlord stowage pack, Flag Dude banners for Sudan two d12s and the Salute dice and, finally, a spare card deck from Gharak for Pulp Alley.

So quite a bit spent, but I came in under my absolute max budget and managed to pick up something for almost my projects! It is heavily weighted towards Sudan, my current enthusiasm (MichaelA and Greg, I blame you...). It started as a Pulp-esque narrative skirmish campaign, but it didn't quite work. The plan is now to bulk out to what I'm calling 'mini Black Powder': using Black powder rules with drastically smaller units (standard size of 8men) and reducing ranges by 1/3rd. this being both for a smaller board size and for cost reasons! I don't think the rules will need many fudges to work. With the purchases above, I should have enough to do that with a couple of units spare. I've already started assembling, so I can get them based and get Samulus round as guinea pig (ahem, play tester).

Some lessons this year:
-preordering, particularly for 'odds and sods' works: it saves time and decisions in the day and missing out on things that I just wouldn't order over the year.
-1030 is the 'sweet spot' to arrive, the enormous queue has vanished and advance ticket holders can walk straight in.
-I am pleased Gharak and I managed to resist any new projects, while we lingered at Pendraken army packs for 10 minutes (I do quite fancy another 'mass battle' game in 10mm), I think we both felt it would have been buying blind for the sake of buying. I had a long enough shopping list as it was!
-even 5 hours doesn't feel like doing Salute justice: we got no demos in again and other bloggers are posting photos of display games I don't think I saw.

Gharak and I did make the bloggers meet up this year, albeit late and briefly. But it was good to meet a few chaps as a break from the browsing and shopping.

That's that for another year, phew!