Salute 2024

The title if this post 'does exactly what it says on the tin' - this Saturday I visited Salute 2024, at the Excel centre in London.  Arriving at about 10:30am (I like to miss the enormous queue!) this is the prospect one was faced with: 

I know I've been before, but cor blimey it's big.. just a huge barn of a hall, with low-ish lighting and quite a high noise level simply from the conversation of several thousand(?)  people.  The funny thing is that being such a large space, it's quite hard to make out what's going on at first - you can't really take in the 'layout' of the room. But of course, there are umpteen games and traders in there, and you just have to plunge in - having checked the program and noted where some of the most interesting ones are located, so as not to miss them ( I still missed some!).  I pretty much started at the entrance and worked my way along the lines of games and traders, gradually moving towards the back of the hall - and I have to admit, I didn't really reach there until late afternoon! But that was partly due to some nice social diversions, so I can't complain.  Of course I tried to take some pictures of games that interested me, and I present them here, more or less in the order I saw them. I have to give one caveat - I don't really 'do' Fantasy or Sci-Fi, so I'm afraid you won't see much of that here. Given that these days, probably more than half the show is devoted to such things, I may be accused of missing the point, and I accept that - but then again, I would have needed TWO days to see all of them as well!   So here we go: 

First up, the Continental Wars Society ( 19th Century Europe ) - always an interesting game. This time Gross Sachsen, 1849,  revolutionary Baden vs. reactionary Prussians etc.  

 

A specialtiy of the CWS seems to be to use very brief rules for their show games - good idea! This year's rules fit on one page, as follows: 

I had joined the Society a couple of years ago but 'lapsed' - forgot to renew - so I'm glad to say I signed up again on the spot. The magazine The Foreign Correspondent is  excellent, and membership is only £10 per year ( even cheaper for a pdf-only subscription ) - recommended. 

Simon Big Red Bat Cave Miller can be trusted to put on a big game (and emphasise participation), this year was no exception with his splendid Relief of Norchester fictional ECW game with his For King and Parliament rules  - I particularly liked the siege works and city walls.

view from the besieged walls

    

and the Parliamentary siege batteries

beleagured 'Norchester'

and masses of lovely figures, of course

In the same period, a demo game (by CCC games)  of the new Renatio et Glorium ruleset had rather nice big blocks of troops, which I liked. Friendly guys too, though I am waiting for the reviews before thinking of yet another set of rules(!). 

Renatio et Glorium demo

Best club banner motto goes to Hailsham Wargames Club 'where we all throw low!' , and always good to see appropriate headgear for their WW1 game ( Scouts Out rules )..

 

Also well-dressed dressed, some players, and the table, of this 6mm ACW game - though I'm afraid I don't remember who they were : 

Most spectacular large game by far,  Masterstroke Games   Force of Virtue,  'a skirmish wargame set in Renaissance Italy' - in the biggest model walled town you'll ever see! This is a reconstruction of the Italian town of Gradara.  Amazing stuff. 

Also pretty big, the one piece of sci-fi I photographed was from  the Titan Owners Club - Full Scale Warhammer Adeptus Titanicus Showcase, it says here... I am none the wiser, but they looked quite something en masse.. 

 

Now we step back 40 or more years, as the Warlords' 'Salute Hall of Fame' display this year paid tribute to Gavin Lyall's classic Operation Warboard :  they actually showed three games side-by-side, featuring different levels of modelling/painting/terrain,  reflecting the different ways these rules were likely to have been played - starting with the young kids with unpainted plastics, i.e me, back in the day ( though with Charles Grant or Terry Wise rules! ) - remember those one-piece Airfix trucks, 25-pdrs and tanks? And progressing ( further from camera ) to 'student' and 'adult' levels, quite a nice idea.  

 Another contestant for simply the biggest game of the day - 'Yarkshire Gamer' Ken Reilly's  Jutland. Just a huge table, and loads of ship models, which looked rather lovely up close.

 

 

Back on land, the Milton Hundred club ( hosts of the excellent 'Broadside' show in June ) and Sheppey Models put on WW2 Company Commander, which is apparently 'a tabletop wargaming app using augmented reality'  from Victrix -  is this the future of wargaming? I didn't get to discuss that, and I am still attached to rolling dice, however poor the results, but it was a nice looking table anyway :

'Peter's Paper Boys' brought us The American Civil War in Paper - using Peter Dennis'  paperboys figures and scenery, I think in 15/18mm scale. I really liked the look of this, and it occurred that even if the troops are a bit fiddly to cut out and glue in large numbers, the trees were rather  nice and could provide a heavily-forested tabletop for very little effort and only the expense of a few sheets of photocopying.. 

 

Caseshot Publishing's Assault on Fort Mulgrave, Toulon 1793 (using Black Powder rules)  showed how nice a table  can be made with hex terrain, and took us to the perhaps lesser-known end of the Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars period ( perhaps inspired by a certain recent Hollywood Blockbuster, but hopefully omtting the film's historical travesties! )

Cornwall Wargames Association had travelled a long way to bring us another splendid 'big game', this one being Gallants of Fowey: the French take revenge on on the Cornish pirates, 1457,  using Never Mind the Boathooks rules.   I loved this one, because every year when I was a kid ( 1970s,  not 1450s )  we went to Fowey for our holidays -  I know that the French did indeed ravage the town, being fought off by  Lady Elizabeth Treffry of the manor of Place.  The game expanded on that a bit, adding an English royal fleet coming to the aid of the Fowey Gallants. A really nice-looking game, and the terrain layout looked to replicate Fowey harbour and waterfront pretty well!

 

    From a little nearer, the ever- reliable  Loughton Strike Force gave us Saigon 68, a 28mm Vietnam skirmish game, with typically high-quality modelling 

 Equally reliable for high-quality scenery are of course TooFat Lardies - they put on a great-looking large participation game with  their What a Tanker rules.

All that loose rubble scattered around made me wonder how they pack up at the end of the day, do they hoover it all up with a dustbuster?(!) 

My one real regret game-wise, was that I was too slow to reach the back of the hall where  1/72 Wargames (aka John Kersey) were putting on their Boer War participation game of The Defence of Duffer's Drift. I think this is such a great idea - it's based on the book of the same title by Captain E.D. Swinton, which was written as a sort of instruction manual for young British  officers at the time, as the author realised how outdated their training had been.  If you don't know the book, then I absolutely implore you to seek out a copy and read it - it's just brilliant!  I'm afraid I was too late to take part in the game, and could only take a picture that probably doesn't do it justice - 20mm Jacklex figures feature heavily.  The game has also featured in a recent article by John Kersey in Miniature Wargames magazine  March 2024 issue ( no. 491 ) - well worth finding that, if you are interested. 

 

                                                    ( read this book - that's an order! )

Finally a couple of great games I have seen and shown before : first Maidstone Wargames Society's The Summer of 77  Battle of Britain game 

 and of course who could forget the excellent Hold Until Relieved D-Day game using Rapid Fire  by Retired Wargamers Reloaded - always a pleasure to see. 

That's about all for the games I saw - but I freely admit, looking at the program  I must have missed loads of other games!  I was a bit slow getting round, but for good reasons - I had a couple of good social catch-ups, with  old friend Tony of the aforementioned Retired Wargames Reloaded, and Chris aka Nundanket of Horse and Musket Gaming blog. Chris and I also stopped in at the Bloggers' meet-up organised by Ray,  Lee and 'Postie'of the Postie's Rejects group - nice to meet some other bloggers, we chatted to  the proprietor of  Travels with Khusru,  Steve of General Reeve, Tamsin Wargaming Girl. - and Ken  Yarkshire Gamer (on a brief break from that monster Jutland game) - nice to meet you all!  Sadly I didn't realise that also present was a 'follower' of this blog, Carl Packham of  Hitting on a Double One - so sorry not to say hello, Carl.  Carl has also posted about the show, with a better balance of Sci-Fi vs historical than me!     

Finally a little light shopping was done, of course  - most notably, and in keeping with subscribing to the Continental Wars Society,  I picked up a lovely book on Armies of the Italian Risorgimento, by Gabriele Esposito, at a good price from Paul Meekins books. It's a long-term potential future project.. in 6mm scale, if at all! 

another new period? Well, maybe..

 

And that's about it. I left about 5pm as the show was closing - 'tired but happy' as they say. A good day, if rather exhausting, and great to see all those games and traders, and especially to catch up with friends old and new! Many thanks to all involved in organising and putting on games and tradestands etc.   Finally, of course there are going to be loads of other reports of the show, which will have many more and better pictures than I have here  -  you should certainly see Big Lee's report on his Miniature Adventures blog/youtube (the video version runs 20 minutes and I'm sure he will have captured prety much every game! ) , and Ray's equally massive report on his Don't Throw a One blog - both excellent as ever. 

Back to more normal hobby activites next time, after I've rested my aching feet  - until then keep well, everyone.

Here Come the Heer : Recruiting a German Battalion

Yet again progress has been slow, with Real Life getting in the way of hobby time, but at least a few steps have been advanced:  I have an organised and almost-completed battalion of German infantry for my 'D-Day Dodgers'  WW2 Italian Campaign project. They have been recruited to fill an Order of Battle based on those specified in Rapid Fire and Rapid Fire Reloaded rules, and they currently look something  like this: 

 

Most of the figures are painted and based, but the transport is only primed and needs proper painting, so I will be getting busy with the sand/green/brown paints, probably over the upcoming holiday weekend.  We have, looking from front to back :

- Battalion HQ with Panzerschrek team and Steyr Heavy Car

- 1st, 2nd and 3rd Rifle Companies

- 4th ( Heavy ) company with 2 x MMG, 1 x 81mm mortar  with Steyr Heavy Car and Opel Blitz truck

-  A/T Company with  PAK40 75mm A/T Gun and Opel Blitz truck

- Infantry Gun Company with  iFH18 105mm Infantry Gun and Opel Blitz truck 

As you can probably see, most of the figures are my good old vintage Airfix WW2 German Infantry (1960s designs!). The heavier weapons are crewed by mainly Britannia Miniatures/Grubby Tanks, and a scattering of later Airfix and others. The Opel Blitz trucks (actually one is built as a Mercedes variant)  come from Plastic Soldier Company,  and the Steyr cars from Rapid Fire's own 'Ready to Roll Vehicles' range.  The infantry gun is  Zvezda ( bought before February 2022 - I'm not buying any more from Russian makers, I'm afraid ), and  the PAK 40 is by Revell.   These will be strong opposition for my West Suffolks ( see my previous post ), especially with the 105mm infantry gun and that 'Heavy Company' with the MMGs - the British battalion doesn't have an equivalent. So the British may require some support from 'Brigade' when it comes to a fight. 

With the potential British and Indian units in the same project I have been having fun coming up with 'fictional but plausible'  units names like the 'West Suffolks' - but the Germans give me a bigger challenge.  I would like to come up with a  fictional regiment name for these Germans, but I admit I am at a bit of a loss as to how to work something out - initial on-line searches give several pages showing lists of German WW2 Divisions ( of which there were well over 300! ) , but I haven't so far found a list of Regiments (of which there must have been many more!) - and am unsure of the naming/numbering convention used, though it looks like a simple regiment number was common. I suspect they will become 1st Battalion,  n+1th Grenadier Regiment,  and if anyone has advice on finding this sort of information, I'd be interested!          

A couple of the vintage Airfix figures brought back very nostaglic memories: as ever, 'Button-counters' should look away now ( You may cringe at  my rather basic painting style, but I'm happy it suits the nature of the figures - not much point trying 3-level highlights on these chaps,  and I couldn't do much better anyway!).   

The Panzerschreck** team strongly evokes what else but the 'Action at Twin Farms' game in Charles Grant's wonderful little book  Battle: Practical Wargaming, which is where 'My Wargaming Habit' (to quote the excellent blog by Richard!)  began, all of 50 years ago. My first wargaming book, and it's still with me:

My rather battered copy - c.1974

hmmm... Panzerschreck, surely?

 It really did all start here - this book may represent the best £1.50  I ever spent, in hobby terms at least!   Come to think of it. I was casting around for a scenario idea for my first Rapid Fire Reloaded game..

Now that is sadly about all the news I have to impart, but at least the holiday weekend may allow a little more hobby time,  and then next week I am lucky enough to be invited to another of Jon Freitag's remote games  - more Italian Wars action is in prospect.  I won't be a spoiler to what Jon will no doubt write about pretty soon, suffice it to say this looks quite an intriguing prospect. I hope to be able to say more next time; until then keep well, everyone.

 

** Update: it's been interesting that the close-up picture has made a lot of veteran gamers realise that the guy apparently holding a Panzerschreck missile is probably in truth carrying a Panzerfaust.   I hadn't really thought about it, to be honest - and interestingly I wonder if the source of the original confusion is the above picture from Charles Grant's book - note that he labels them a Panzerfaust team, even though the weapon being aimed is clearly meant to be a Panzerschreck.  I am keeping them as they are - they've been together for 50 years, after all! 

'West Suffolks' on Parade

It took longer than expected, but I have pretty much completed my first 'D-Day Dodgers' battalion, the (entirely imaginary) West Suffolks, in an OOB taken from the Rapid Fire Reloaded rules. The recent acquistion of vintage transport models a la Eric Knowles helped a lot, no need to paint those!  So here they are, on parade back in Blighty and ready  to ship out to Sunny Italy and go into action:

 

On the front row  Battalion HQ with Bren Carrier, PIAT and 2-inch Mortar team, and Carrier Platoon with PIAT team;  middle row A, B, C and D Rifle Companies; back row Support Company with 6-pounder AT Gun and Lloyd Carrier,  3-inch Mortar team with Bren Carrier.   All under the perhaps slightly eccentric but always well-meaning command of equally fictional Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew ('The Legal Eagle')  Phillips*..

Now the plan is that these will be part of the Nth  Indian Infantry Brigade, in turn part of the Nth Indian Division - all of which will of course be equally imaginary, but loosely based on the real OOBs of British Indian units in Italy.  In effect there would be 3 battalions in a brigade, one British and two Indian, and other elements such as MGs, Recconaissance, Artillery and Engineers would be a mixture of British and Indian. This should allow me to mix the vintage British figures I have with the Indians I have more recently acquired  ( perhaps unsurprisingly given the Imperial nature of the force, the senior commanders would have been  be pretty much entirely British ).  Now I can have a bit of fun dreaming up suitably Indian and British imaginary unit names..  This is starting to look like a sensible project - and of course they will need some German opposition!   There looks to be a chance to pick up some more ready-painted troops for both sides, courtesy of David Crook and the collection of the late Eric Knowles, Negotiations are in progress.. 

I would like to have more to report, but I will admit that since my last posting,  'real life' has reduced hobby opportunities - easily summed up in the following  picture..

..fortunately all has gone OK, and things look a lot nicer now.

But there has been some actual gaming, thanks once again to the excellent  Jon Freitag : I was lucky enough to be invited to command the Orsini faction against the Papal ( Borgia ) army at the Italian Wars period  Battle of Sanguetta (1497).  Jon has yet to report our game ( his third iteration of the scenario ), so I won't give any spoilers,  except to show this picture which he passed on after the event: 

 

My mercenary pikemen are on the right, at push of pike with the enemy Landsknechts - you can certainly see how colourful Jon's figures (28mm scale) are. It was great fun, though I confess my dice-rolling was considerably better than my deployment and tactical decisions!  I look forward to seeing Jon's report. 

I am hoping to get some more hobby time in the near future, and I had better try to keep up the momentum on the D-Day Dodgers project, so I will hope to have more to report quite soon. 

Until then keep well, everyone. 

* My imaginary battalion commander is a nod to the biggest character of recent years around my adopted home town -which I also imagine to be the home town of my 'West Suffolks' battalion - the late Lord Andrew Philips . I can't claim to have known him well, but did hear him speak many times, and exchanged pleasantries once or twice.   Whether he would have been a good soldier, or would have  even wanted to be one, I can't say!

Cavalier 2024 and Transports of Delight

On Sunday just gone, I visited my first hobby show of the year - Cavalier 2024 at Tonbridge, staged by the Tunbridge Wells Wargames Society. It proved to be a good day out, from all the important points of view - seeing games, meeting people and acquiring 'goodies'.  I'll describe them in roughly that order.  

There were 17 games advertised, in  a good variety of periods, scales and universes - I admit I tend to stick to the 'historical', with apologies to Sci-Fi and Fantasy fans. Having said that, first up was a really  interesting sort of  'crossover' game,  Death on the Savannah (Survival of the Thickest) from Deal Wargames Society - not a toy solider in sight, but kind of 'historical' .  As the show program stated, 'Can the Wildebeest cross the Savannah, hunted by lions and crossing a crocodile-infested river?; 1/32nd using vintage Britains figures'  

 

I don't know how it played and whether the wildebeest made it (that looked quite challenging!), but I like the way the Deal guys always come up with something a bit different, and always make it look good.  

Another group that can be relied upon for a really good-looking table are Retired Wargamers Reloaded - their Hold Until Relieved game of Pegasus Bridge, June 1944 is well up to their usual standard. I have featured this before ( at SELWG 2023 ),  but can't resist showing a few pics again - apart from the fine terrain and scenery, I like the details such as  columns of vehicles moving up, aircraft overhead etc.  

Also in the  WW2 period,  Tonbridge Wargames Club presented LRDG - The First Rogue Heroes ('LRDG Raids in the Western Desert 1942; DAK Mini-campaign; 28mm' ) as a participation game. I am very bad at trying participation games - just for once I probably had time to give one a go, but ended  up spending quite a lot of time talking to various people - so participation will have to wait for another time!

Looks like LRDG did a good job,,

Another one I really should have tried was Maidstone Wargames Society The Summer of '77 - no, not punk rockers vs. disco divas, but a Battle of Britain game, based on a game that had been published in Warlord comic in, presumably, the summer of 1977.  I liked the way they had taken the simple printed square-gridded map from the original and made a really nice scenic table, with the 1/300 aircraft 'flying' on stands above.  The game ran several times and always looked busy.

 

And just one more  WW2 feature:  Friday Night Firefight Club's Fall of the Reich, depicting battle around the Reichstag, Berlin in 1945 using 28mm scale and Bolt Action rules. 

that Reichstag model  looks suitably grim and imposing

Other periods are available, of course: starting with the oldest, The Society of Ancients   put on a game of the Battle of Ilipa 208BC  in 28mm using Impetus rules: 

Ilipa : view from Carthaginian line

..and the Roman force

This was interesting, as I had taken part in one of Jon Freitag's games of this battle, using his version of Basic Impetus.  Watching the play, I recognised the mechanisms in use for combat die rolls etc, though I think the 'proper' version of Impetus has a bit more chrome than the basic version.  The action seemed to move along at a decent pace with  experienced players.

battle in full swing, later

 

Several Napoleonic games were in progress: first up Battle of Villamuriel   from  Konfederacy of Eastbourne Gamers using 10mm figures 

I really liked the Vineyard terrain pieces, cleverly made to allow units to fight amongst them! 

Central London Wargames Club brought their Tally Ho Vera (!)  in 15mm,  showcasing the Emperor of the Battlefield rules written by one of their members, I think. I had previously encountered them at SELWG - I'm sure if I was thinking of a move into Napoleonics (get thee behind me, tempation!) they would be worth a look.

Meanwhile Warlord Games had a nice-looking demo game of their Epic Napoleonics system in 13.5mm.  They look pretty good en masse! 

Rainham Wargames Club showed a game of Hammerin' Iron : Riverboat Action in the ACW 

Nice layout and 'buckets of dice' !

..and Real Time Wargames had their Russian Civil War  rules and campaign system The Glittering River on show, attracting quite a few players to a participation game. These guys often seem to create games in 'interesting and different' periods and settings. The ships and aircraft were 1/600th and the terrain was 2mm scale.

South East Essex ( SEEMS ) showed their Nach Paris!  ( previously seen also at SELWG )   28mm Franco-Prussian War game, using The Men That Would be Kings rules but pitting two European forces against each other - an interesting idea.

 Last but certainly not least Milton Hundred Wargame Club with, their  1/100th Modern (Soviets vs. NATO )  game featuring 'an armoured bridge assault including a paradrop' , Eine Bruecke zu Weit  (geddit?). 

 

 

That's all the tables I managed to photograph, as I think you can see it was a good selection of games. The second aspect of any show is the social side - I was very pleased with that side of things. I met up with old gaming friend Tony Toms ( from  Retired Wargames Reloaded ) who I had met at the Broadside show  last year after a very long time out of touch. Tony had come along with his son Oliver  also a gamer, and friend Reg, another of my former Rainham Wargames club-mates from the 1980s(!) - Reg and I think we had not met for at least 40 years!  We all had a good long chat over a coffee in the cafeteria, and there may even be some gaming to follow, as it turns out Reg and I don't live so very far apart. It was really great to meet these guys!   I also bumped into various members of Posties Rejects, and had another  good  chat with  Ray Rousell ( looking surprisingly well after his recent illness - thank goodness!)  and Big Lee - including a bit of tactical talk ahead of their second playing of Jon Freitag's Battle of Lake Trasimene game ( they didn't win in the end, so not sure how much help I was! ). I would strongly recomment both Ray's and Lee's blog/Youtube  posts on this show -  loads more and better pictures than me, and a pic of me on Ray's blog - fame at last! 

I also had an important appointment to meet  up with the excellent David Crook of A Wargaming Odyssey  blog,  as we had arranged for me to buy some WW2 British vehicles from the collection of the late Eric Knowles. These turned out to be a really splendid purchase, as you can see :

 

Four Jeeps, six Bren Carriers, four Lloyd Carriers, eight trucks and a 'Dorchester' command vehicle - a pretty useful collection!   And David threw in a lovely 'Brucie Bonus'  -  a box full of command figures and AFV crews. Star of the show is this command group map table :  

This is fantastic stuff, it will provide transport for at least two British battalions in my 'D-Day Dodgers' Italian Campaign project, plus a rather well-appointed Brigade HQ with the Dorchester! Many thanks indeed to David, I am very pleased indeed with these! 

A little light shopping with the tradestands was also done - 1-72nd Models are always of interest, and I picked up a couple of items from them. All those games of the Punic Wars with Jon F must have had an influence, and I have dipped a toe in the water of that period with these HaT Carthaginian Veterans:

Sadly I 'ummed and ahhed' too long over a nice unit of Garrison Roman Republican infantry on the Bring and Buy stall, which would have been a good match with these - learned my lesson there, if you like them,  buy things when you see them!  So the Carthaginians are a bit of an impulse buy, but could be the start of a DBA army - maybe even using some of my vintage  Airfix Ancient Britains for Celtic warbands.. From the same stall, I also picked up some cheap MDF road sections, which should come in handy for the more urbanised setups which are bound to feature in WW2 games As you can see they come with neat jointing included, and also some 'end caps' ( not shown ), so they will lay out nicely and should remain straight when placed on the table! Just need a bit of suitable paint and texture. 

 

So there we have it - overall, a pretty good day and a pretty decent 'mid-size' show, with good games and  traders  and best of all, meetings with friends old and new! Many thanks to the organisers, and all the  clubs, traders  and players, and to everyone I was fortunate enough to chat to.  I was glad I attended, a nice relaxed  start to the 'season'. More to follow I suspect, as  I note that  April, May and June will offer Salute, Partizan and Broadside, all very tempting..  Now I'd better take inspiration from all this and get some painting and/or gaming done... Until then, keep well everyone.