Salute 2013.

A few of us attended Salute at the Excel in London and it proved to be another good day. All the usual suspects were there but unfortunately there was not SEEMS representation this year. One of the centre-piece games was the South London Warlords own 'Fleeced' games tying in with the loose theme of the show, Jason and the Argonauts. The game looked great fun and was fought using 1/6 scale figures with amazing looking skeletons.

Jason battles skeletons!

Here are some more snaps of games from the day...

Gripping Beast / 4Ground's massive Viking Hall.

Nantwich Gamers - When Chaos Reigns Normandy 1944.

Nantwich Gamers - When Chaos Reigns Normandy 1944.

A particular favourite of mine was the 3D version of the classic Snits Revenge board game by Tom Wham, designer of The Awful Grenn Things From Outer Space.

Frothers United - Snits Revenge.

Frothers United - Snits Revenge.

Frothers United - Snits Revenge.

Frothers United - Snits Revenge.

Planet of the Apes...

Frothers United - Return to the Planet of the Apes.

Frothers United - Return to the Planet of the Apes.

...and some more sci-fi...

Red Planet Miniatures - War on Mars.

Red Planet Miniatures - War on Mars.

Blakes Seven.

Blakes Seven.

...and some VBCW...

Gentlemens Wargames Parlour - VBCW.

Gentlemens Wargames Parlour - VBCW.

Gentlemens Wargames Parlour - VBCW.

The day managed to slip away very quickly but I did spend more time just gawking at the amazing games and less shopping. I had some great chats with some of the guys running games and a very interesting discussion with the designer for Sarissa Precision - the new 'Gaslamp Alley' buildings are lovely and I can't wait to pick up some of these.

 I picked up the new Crooked Dice 7th Voyage book plus I added a few packs of the lovely Foundry Argonauts to my current handful from the Wargames Foundry stall and very nice they were too!

Check out Big Lee's site for much better photos and a proper review!

4Ground Detached House.

Just built the lovely pre-painted 'Detached House' from 4Ground.

I also picked up the ruined version but have yet to tackle it. As this was the first attempt at a 4Ground building I really had no idea but following the instructions proved to be pretty simple even for me. One thing I would say is that a couple of the pictures on the instructions are not overly clear and I am sure at least one was in reverse! Having said that, it is all fairly instinctive and everything fitted together perfectly. I would recommend a good strong PVA glue (unlike the cheapo stuff I was using) as I ended up using a dab of super glue to fix the outer walls of the roof section.

A few quick pics, with a couple of Artizan British Paras I am working on for scale -

The completed house.

Loft space - plenty of storage.

Upper floor.

Lower floor.

Some Paras investigate...

I opted for the 'no damage' look as I intend to use this for various periods, including WW2 and some zombie fun and may well buy another to mix and match with the destroyed version.

The layers come apart simply and sit on little tabs at the corner of each floor. It all fits nice and snug and is quite sturdy on the two lower levels as the walls are effectively double thickness.

There is loads of room inside the buildings but I did find that my 2p based models are not able to stand in the doorways or stairwell. Anything up to about 25mm base size will fit perfectly well though. Good job most of my WW2 stuff is on 1p bases then!

Hopefully it will get to see some tabletop action soon as we are planning to have a first game of Troops, Weapons & Tactics in the near future!