My Day at Salute 2015

I think it is safe to say that Salute has become the premier wargame show in the UK. I have being going to it since Kensington Town Hall was the venue back in the eighties. And with most years since that time the numbers attending seem to increase. Queuing has always been a fundamental part of the experience and this year was no exception. Due to my usual lack of planning I had left my on-line ticket purchase too late and had to buy a £15 ticket on the day (rather than the £10 on-line cost). However, standing in the 'more money than sense' queue did allow me to see the queue busters queue rapidly lose patience with the organises plan for gradual admittance. At roughly 23 minutes past 10.00am the organised lines decided they had had enough and all remaining people in the queue just made a beeline for the entrance. No harm done as far as I could see, but perhaps more planning next year is required.

People. These on the left, not bored by having to queue to get into Salute, were now queuing for Forgeworld

Kill Team/Combat Squad - Short and Sweet

Kill Team/Combat Squad 40K games are new to me. Two club mates invited to take part in a 350 point game. I won't go into details on the rules, but the major change to a traditional game is that models act as individuals rather than in squads or platoons.

I decided to take a selection of my work-in-progress Harlequins. I took two troupes with a Starweaver fast skimmer transport for one, and the other was accompanied by a Shadowseer.

Harlequins doing their best to be inconspicuous

We managed two games during the evening, the first featuring one moveable relic objective (which needed to be taken off from your own table edge) in the middle of the table, and the second, featured three standard objectives whose final position was set by using the scatter dice. My opponents took two very different forces; one with 20 Dark Angel Space Marine Veterans (Kanan) with a selection of special a close combat weapons, the second a Adeptus Mechanicus force (Dave G.) based on a Inquisition henchman force with numbers on their side, and the occasional heavy weapon and specialist, such as Death Cult Assassins.

Above: The Mechanicum hordes

The Bridge of Sighs - A Maelstrom Battle Report

So Dave R. Agreed to come over for a Maelstrom game of 1850 points. He took his Iyanden Eldar army (which has won a painting trophy at a local tournament in West London in the past) and I took my trusty Iron Hands. We decided to have a game on an unconventional table.

The big bridge

The Small Bridge

Infinity The Game - A Learning Experience

So Tuesday night was club night. And Mike (MegaMike) managed to drag himself away from his beloved DZC and agreed to have a go at Infinity, a particular favourite of mine.

Infinity is a skirmish game set in the future (Manga inspired), which benefits from a lot of scenery, in comparison with a 40K battlefield, and only requires 10 or so figures per side to play.

My fondness for Infinity is based on a number of reasons. The overall look of the game is very appealing and the models are very pretty. I like a tabletop that is interesting to look at, and Infinity game play certainly benefits from lots of terrain, be it buildings with plenty of roof access or scatter terrain to hide behind. I also enjoy the ability of the game to tell a story and for individual models to take on a character of their own. And to just round things off, the fluff and the artwork contained within the lavish rule books is superb.

Panoceania - Knight of Santiago to the fore

However, for beginners there are a couple of elephants in the room that need to be considered.