Conventions

We're back. Semi rested, taking a day off to readjust to our timezone, and do things like update the blog and getting orders out.This was my second trip to London in 6 months, the first being my trip to BLAM. That was a great experience filled with fun players and great looking games.It did nothing to prepare me for SALUTE.I won't go into specifics, but it's massive. I've had the pleasure of going to San Diego Comicon several times. It was like that, but with miniatures.Every manufacturer in Europe was there. Almost too much to shop, especially when you have to run a game, and have no suitcase space and are destitute from the flight prices. The Hordes unleashed! A strange mushroom table. Simon Miller's To the Strongest Game. More hordes! Almost bought a bunch the Darklands miniatures. Lace WarsSpeaking of games, it looked like everyone brought out their best toys and scenery. Again, I didn't get much time to roam and take pictures.We had our own game to run!James at Oshiro Model Terrain pu

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The Marathon show report is two-thirds done, but there is plenty of more eye-watering goodness to see. I must admit that by the end of the day I was 'flagging' somewhat. My knees were screaming at me in protest by the end, but despite this, I had a fantastic day. I talked myself horse, spent a small fortune on my new lead mountain and got pretty much everything on my shopping list. One of my jobs today (aside from posting my pictures) is to go online and order a couple of the items that I couldn't find. Kudos and a shout out has to go to 4Ground for their customer service yesterday. I couldn't find something and two members of their team spent a good ten minutes looking through their stock for what I wanted. They didn't have the item I wanted but told me I could place an order at the till and would send me my item post free. Going the extra mile for a customer is always a good thing but this was at 4:45 when they must have been knackered and footsore after a long day, so I appreciated

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Welcome back to Part two of my Salute 2019 photo report. As usual, I shot too many pictures although it has to be said there was plenty of eye candy to draw the attention of my camera lens. Having said that I enjoyed the fact that many of the games were played using what I would call 'club terrain', ie the sort you'd expect to use on a regular basis (ie it didn't look purpose built for Salute). While I love the big set-piece display games I do like the simpler club display tables because you can look at them and think "I could do that". Anyway without further ado, here's part 2 of my Salute 2019 Photo Report.TooFatLardies - Malaya 1942TooFatLardies - Malaya 1942TooFatLardies - Malaya 1942Spirit of the Game - a 40mm Wild West skirmish game "Blaze of Glory"Spirit of the Game - a 40mm Wild West skirmish game "Blaze of Glory"Loughton Strike Force - Ligney 1815 using the General d'Armee rules - 15mm Napoleonics at its bestLigney 1815Ligney 1815Peterborough Wargames Club - D-Day Omaha Beach (Easy Red sect

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It's the day after Salute 2019 and I have hundreds of pictures and a wonderfully huge pile of goodies to sort through. Ray, Stuart and I were able to get inside the hall early again this year to see some of the final preparations of the Traders and Clubs. We took full advantage of this extra time to chat to traders and get our bearings. Over the next 7 hours, I shot a LOT of photo's (not a great surprise) and having now sorted through them I realise I have far too many for a single blog post. So I'm splitting this photo report in two to share as many pictures as I can. Some of these were shared on Twitter yesterday but for those that don't tweet, here they are again. Posties Rejects (L-R Me, Ray, David & Stuart) were inside the venue by about eight fifteen.The lads at WarbasesBarry Hilton with PostieSydney RoundwoodThe door opened and we had to dive out of the path of the stampede!The Battle of Mohi 1241 - Terrain and Figures by KallistraThe Battle of Mohi 1241Secrets of the Third

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Only one more sleep until Salute 2019 and I am (as usual) unreasonably excited. Like last year Ray, Stuart (aka 'Postie') and I will be sneaking in 'behind the scenes' with early-entry passes which means we will be inside the event shortly after 8am to watch the final preparations of the Traders and Clubs. I'll be posting pictures to my Twitter account before and during the day with the hashtag #Salute2019. No Salute would be complete without a slew of excellent display games and as usual I will be taking a lot more pictures during the day (too many probably) and will post a selection of the best here on the Blog sometime on Sunday. Of course, Salute is also a huge trading event and this year I have a very large shopping list to fulfil. The combined entry and parking fees do make this an expensive event to attend, but I always make back the cost by saving postal charges on my purchases and this year I expect to be saving quite a bit! I tend to walk around in a world of my own so if you see

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There are just a few days to go before the biggest one day Wargaming Show in the UK calendar. Salute has become a firm favourite of mine, especially since it moved practically on my doorstep. As usual, I will be attending with Ray and Stuart of Posties Rejects and like last year we have been granted early access to see behind the scenes as the show sets up. The three of us will be wearing our Rejects shirts so if you see us please come over and say hello. As in previous years, Ray has put the call out for a Blogger Meet Up so those of us that talk often online get to meet in the real world for a change. It's a bit earlier this year, as in previous years we seem to have clashed with other groups gatherings. Blogger Meet UP - 12 o'clock at the Big Red Dot!For me, the show is all about eye candy and shopping. I buy a lot at this show and even with the entry fee and the extortionate parking costs I still always make a saving on postage costs. I have several traders in my sights this year and have a

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I went to HMGS‘ Spring show, Cold Wars, last weekend.   Cold Wars is a show that I usually don’t volunteer to work staff for, because sometimes I actually like to go to events in the morning. Imagine!  This time, however, there was a plaintive request for assistance on the HMGS board, so I said to myself, “eh, okay, self, why not?” An Epic Journey.. okay, a two plus hour drive.. https://i.imgur.com/UZu2p48.mp4 Of course, we had to honor a time-honored tradition. https://i.imgur.com/ynP53l6.mp4 So I’m going to mention this stuff up front, so we can get it out of the way fast and just discuss convention activities. The Host has gone through some changes for the better. I will be the first to admit I have been critical of the Host’s diminished capacity in the last few years. Some might say even scathing. The last show, in particular, was fraught with facility problems that just seemed to be taking forever to make headway on. So don’t be shocked, but I’m going to sa

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I've just got back from a very pleasant morning at the Skirmish Toy Soldier and Wargames Show in Sidcup. I regularly attend this little show with it'a s quirky but friendly atmosphere, as do many of the Rejects. This time it was just Postie and myself at the show but I reckon between us we spent enough for a hoard of wargames (especially Postie with his bottomless pockets!). As usual, I shot a load of pictures and there were some cracking looking little games on display. One that seemed to catch the eye of nearly everyone was a 54mm Sudan demo featuring modern recasts of old toy soldiers (pictures below). As is the norm I spent more time chatting to friends than I did shopping but that is the attraction and charm of this little show. Rainham Wargames Club - A very nice looking Sudan gameSeveral companies of redcoatsFacing defencesTunbridge Wells Wargames Society The Old Guard - Another Sudan game, this time using The Men Who Would Be Kings rules.A clash of infantryMedway Wargames Society playin

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Over the weekend I went to the Cavalier Wargames Show in Tonebridge in Kent. This is traditionally the first show of the year for the Rejects and usually marks the end of a long winter without any shows (SELWG is usually our last of the year). For me its been even longer as I missed SELWG last year due to car problems, so by the time Sunday came around I was very eager indeed! Its taken a couple of days to sort out the pictures, mainly because I have been working hard on my latest entries for the Painting Challenge. So here, at last, are my pictures of a great little show. Ray & Postie start early, buying some buildings before the show had even official openedDavid Lanchester photobombs me taking a picture of his standEagle Figures... I bought a load of MDF bases from them.Debris of War - Tufts, Static Grass and Hedgerows filled my bag after visiting these guysHailsham Wargames Club - Da Vinci Wars - A slight fantastical version of the Italian WarsLots of very impressive Pike BlocksMore Pik

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I once hinted about this story, but it came up recently in an online conversation so I'll post it now. I've probably posted about it on social media before.I was at a convention where I spent some money on miniatures. I won't go into any figures here, but if you're in the hobby, then you know what the damage can be. Usually about a couple hundred bucks or more unless you're one of those odd people who manage to somehow wait to buy stuff later.(I actually try to as much as possible, but this event had some stuff I wanted to paint)What was unusual at this convention was that they didn't have bags for us, so they went and got plastic bags like you get at the grocery store. Given that none of us knew this when we got in line, we didn't think to leave the line and, oh, get bags from our hotel room.Purchases made, I took my bag of stuff down to the gaming area and looked around.In one hand I had a plastic bag of models.My son was with me and we were looking around."Hey dude!"There were a lot of people in the gaming

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* Image Credits at bottom I am happy to report that Scrum Con happened, last Saturday, at Davis Hall, College Park, Maryland. Attendance was sold out a week ahead of the date, and adjusted a little with a couple of last minute cancellations and a couple of walk ins.  Davis Hall is a medium sized meeting room in College Park, used by the municipal authorities apparently, and I had never been there prior to this event.  It was full up, to be sure, but not too crowded.  We provided a lunch at reasonable price to mitigate any mid-day exodus in search of fast food, and that proved to be reasonably popular.  We even had vegetarian options!  Yeah, that’s right, we’re hip!  We also had coffee and bagels for GMs in the morning, which is more than I ever got at any convention. ScrumCon was conceived as a fair play, equal ground concept for both RPG and tabletop miniature games.  It was built that way because, frankly, that’s what the Second Saturday Scrum Club likes to play.   So there were equal pa

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Escaped this past weekend for a great weekend of gaming at DundraCon 2019.  Roy Scaife, John Lantz, Dan Kerrick, and Adrian Turner joined me along in the gaming fun.  Oddly enough, we covered the gaming spectrum on this one - playing fantasy (LOTR) on Friday, Sci-fi on Saturday (Star Wars), and historical on Sunday (Napoleonic) ... no gaming discrimination here! :-)Along with the miniatures games covered below, played some great boardgames as well - Giant Killer Robots (using the new factions), Everdell, and the Expanse boardgame (after the show, which I have been binge watching).Many pictures below ... enjoy!Charge of the Mumaks!Finally got some LOTR on the frigg'in table!  Didn't get a chance to play this scenario before running it at the con so wasn't sure how it was going to play out.  As it turns out, worked out great!  The Mamuks looked really good at the start trampling lots of Rohirrum, but Rohan bounced back, isolating and swarming each Mamuk which turned out to be a winning

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Past saturday, WarCon Ghent took place and me and Nemesis jumped in the car to make a visit to the wargame show, our first roadtrip of this year.Held in the village of Merelbeke, the size and the venue are those of the fun kind, not to immense (like, our Crisis show for example) giving you a good chance for a chat and a look at games.There was a dozen traders present (where we found some good deals, see below) and about two dozen demonstration and participation games.  Entry was a modest 7 euros, and as you can see in the video of my loot below, I also bought two of the Gamer's Guild dice to "support the cause".To give an example of the chatting, I was only 15 minutes there when I was talking to someone I never seen before about 6mm and 40k gaming, and how I am blessed with a GF with an intrest in the hobby.The bring and buy had some fun things, while not to large, like this 16+ hentai cardgame...But let`s have a look at the games then...Adeptus Titanicus, a game that intrests both me and Nemesis, was on

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  If you would like to receive the Director’s Briefing straight to your inbox each month, you can sign up to our mailing list HERE.     Welcome to 2019   Happy New Year to everyone. Welcome to the ninety-second Briefing and the first scheduled Briefing of 2019.   Over the course of 2018, I managed to read Elizabeth Moon’s Paladin’s Legacy quintet, Terry Brook’s Legends of Shannara duology, and multiple Valdemar trilogies from Mercedes Lackey. My holiday reading was the Evermen quartet by James Maxwell and his Shifting Tides quartet. The Evermen cycle features a rune-based magic where spells are inscribed onto surfaces before being invoked through incantation and used by bladesingers for combat and to create multiple forms of constructs. The Shifting Tides is a completely different setting set in an analogue of classical Greece and the wider Mediterranean where ogres, giants, furies, merfolk, sea serpents and dragons are forms taken by shapeshifters – but if they spend too long i

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Another edition of Roma Wargame convention at Angelicum. Mixed with a periodic fair for postcards, coins, medals collectors. Even for us wargame collectors there was something. As painting services, miniature vendors. Soldiers but of a different kind: 54mm for collectors. Wonder how they don’t think to play with them. Even bigger: customised 1/6. I understand why they don’t think to play with them. Something that we are used more: wargame tables. A big, and partially playable, Ostia scenario.

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