Salute 2011

On the way to Salute, I often wonder what the two groups of people going to the Excel Centre make of each other. Most years, Salute is the same weekend as the London Marathon (does anyone attend both?), so I while away the journey tagging those I think are going to Salute and those who are going to be slogging round London (hopefully for a worthy cause) on the Sunday.

Attendance at Salute looked good, the initial queue is always daunting, but they efficiently process everyone in and fifteen minutes after arriving (just before the opening time of 1000) I was already spending money (Cutlass! from Black Scorpion).

Next stop was those nice people from Hasslefree. They were especially helpful in offering to swap the slightly full selection box for another empty one ^___^.

Heresy supplied some new SF figures, a small robot and a couple of civilians.

Then on to Crooked Dice for 7TV.

The rest of the day was then spent wandering around (often in circles) looking at what was on offer, deciding, then trying to remember what it was (and more importantly where it was) so I could buy it.

Westwind had their new WWW2 British Paras which look nice and Warlord had their new WW2 Commandos. A name new to me (Offensive miniatures) had some very nice riot police.

There were others, but it all became a bit of a blur, and I will need to unpack to see what I bought. I nearly left before remembering I wanted a couple of Winston Churchills from Black Scorpion, I am sure there was other things I wanted.

I might even get some of them painted before the next Salute ^___^

Game of the show, well, two participation games stood out, both run by Crooked Dice.

The first was "You Only Live Dice", an episode of Department X from 7TV.

The presenters were in suitable costumes (including a costume change at one point) and the game was played on a massive and well detailed board:

No wait, that was in the office:

Which was in a corner of the board:

The Victory of the Daleks game had a far more restrained board, unfortunately I made a bit of a hash of the pictures (not helped by being more interested at peering at the details) and everyone playing getting in the way:

The pictures do not do the boards justice (see earlier post about needing to improve my photography).

I have just read that they (rightly) won Participation Game of the Show.

The figure of the show, the new Messan Grunts from Hasslefree. Definitely going to need a few more of them (some green, some a sort of orangey red colour), and they are going to be chasing Tweedy Mattison around the battlefield. Definitely up there with the Crooked Dice Scary Statues and Corn Dolls for 'suitable villains'.

Game system of the show, well 7TV (I especially like the 'show' listings and the scripts). Admitedly I have not had a chance to read Cutlass! yet. I am working through the figures I have to come up with a suitable episode (the release of a Western style store by Perry Miniatures makes me wonder about "The Die with No Name").