Post Salute 2012

Well after arriving home late last night (I make a weekend of Salute, as it makes a bit less tiring when I'm travelling from Glasgow) I thought I'd put up my analysis of my Salute 2012.

I will admit, I didn't really take pictures of everything. I did however take pictures of the stuff that interests me, so prepare to have a whole load of them put up, and a list of what I bought.


I managed to pretty much buy everything I wanted from my list, comprising. I also managed to sneak a few things on there, that either I wasn't sure would be there, or just a bit of impulse purchasing.

And also I got to meet Fran and Ray from The Angry Lurker and Don't Throw a 1 respectively, Tamsin from Wargaming girl, the infamous Postie of the Postie's Rejects and a whole load of other people. Was great to put some faces to names and actually talk to people in person.

What I bought:

GZG - A whole load of UNSC troops, drones, and some New Israelis, that will have a very minor conversion into Republic Army troops from Star Wars.

Mongoose Publishing - A Maestekulos Dreadnought for Noble Armada.

Pulp Monsters - More superheroes. Finished off my Heavy metal team with the last 3 members and also picked up a giant hadron.

Micro Art Studios - A whole load of Urban and Urban War bases for my Infinity figures.

Sarissa Precision - Some of the System Infinity range of scenery, comprising 2 of the explorer pods and one settler pod.

GCT Studios - Daisuke and Mizuchi. I was also 2 numbers away from winning the board, if only I'd delayed my purchase about 2 minutes, it might've been me. Ah well.

Simple Miniatures - Infinity stuff I needed, including a Jotum for PanO and my post-humans for Aleph, along with some more blister packs.

Critical Mass - The core rules. I'm going to read these and then work out what I need to turn the few bits I have into a usable force to purchase at Carronade.

Wayland Games - Wasn't sure if they'd bring their Heavy Gear stock, but they did thankfully so I picked myself up an Aller tank and a Kodiak Gear for the North. I would've bought more, but money was limited.

Empire: Peripheral Wars - I had intended to look at this, thinking it was a demo game, but it was more a display, with Antenociti selling the stuff. Spaceships, very much modelled after Homeworld 2, which definitely floated my boat. So myself and one of my friends halfed in on one of the big boxes to get a whole load of spaceships. Lovely. Pictures later.

Twilight - Mike Thorp does some fantastic miniatures for this, and I always take a pop by his stand every year. This year I didn't get much, as again money was limted. However I did buy some of his little creatures and a herder to go with them. This was also the start of a dangerous path, as rather than rushing off to the cash machine, Mike said that they could actually do paypal. So out came the smartphones, and a few button pushes later, money had magically left my account and into his, with no exchanging of plastic or anything. 

What I saw:

First of all I'll add in the fact that it's what I saw. I just physically didn't have time to take photos of everything, what with buying, talking to people, so just ended up taking pictures of what I saw that interested me. And there were a few things.

Empire: Peripheral Wars

The display table run by Antenociti's workshop ended up having some really nice spaceships on it. Currently they have one fleet, based on the Hiigaarans from Homeworld 2, but they are planning more. They also currently have the stats for the ships done with A Call to Arms, but there may be talks of eventually developing something.

The battleship, the big one of the fleet

some of the smaller ships

The whole fleet spread out.

I ended up purchasing one of the large boxes, which basically gave you 2 of everything, though it is getting split with one of my friends. I'm sure I'll find a use for them. Spaceships are about the only thing I break my rule of not buying miniatures I can't physically use with. I ended up talking to the guy manning the table for ages about various things, and he was a great guy to chat too so he was.

If you're interested to know more go here

Fate Amenable to Change


Wolsung

The interesting steampunk game eventually coming from Micro Art Studios. The figures look nice, and the rules look like they could be okay, so I'm keeping an eye on this one so I am. Shall see how it turns out.

There's 3 factions planned for. A gentlemans/nobles club, an inventors society and a triad style organisation. Based in a fantasy world as well, so have ogres, halflings, dwarfs etc.

For any more info go here

Wolsung SSG

Dropzone Commander

Now this for me was the find of the show. A stunning looking miniature line by a new company called Hawk Wargames. They've kept it very quiet, with nothing on the internet, and Salute was the big unveiling. And what an unveiling. Four fully fleshed out factions, ready for release, when the game launches in July. They're working on the rulebook as well, and that should also be ready for the release date, so that it'll be a fully working game on the get go.

The forces of the United Colonies of Mankind

More of them. Loving the fighters at the rear

The alien Scourge

More of them, including their large dropship

The Post Human Concordat, with dropships, fighters and walkers

More PHC walkers and some infantry and tanks

The Shaltari Tribes, with some stunning walkers and vehicles

More Shaltari vehicles, with some gorgeous grav-tanks

The game is 10mm and seems based around the idea that everything is getting brought in on dropships (hence the name). The vehicles are all sculpted in 3D, and then rapid prototyped, and will be resin, while the troops are hand sculpted and made in metal. I was much impressed when chatting with David, the designer/sculptor/painter/everything was saying that the human special forces have grenades on their backpack, and you can make out the texture on them.

Also rather a nice touch is that given that all the vehicles are meant to be brought in on these enormous dropships, they've been designed so that they do actually fit together properly. It will carry what it's supposed to as demonstrated here.

PHC dropships loaded up

Obviously this means that you can attach them with rare earth magnets if you so wish, or if you have the money, can just buy more stuff so that you can do an alternate one. However he's also doing the bases of the dropships to have tabs on them, so you can clip on little representations of what each one is carrying, and that way if you don't have the time or the money to do stuff like that then you don't have too.

The buildings that you can see in the photo are also being produced for the game. They're actually made up from tiles, which are double sided. I was shown an example with a more classical column architecture, while the other side had a more sci-fi look to it. It does mean that what you can do is basically buy a whole load of them, and can then design the buildings how you want.

For more info on this game you can follow them on facebook

Hawk Wargames on Facebook

Or you can go to their website. There isn't much right now, just a front page, with the release date and pre-order date.

Hawk Wargames

This is what I'm definitely most excited about right now.

GCT Studios

Along with buying some stuff from them, I had a look over their stand, and first of all I was pointed to the next release for the Precture of Ryu

A warrior monk for the Precture, who is apparently designed around fighting soulless creatures and what not. I'm sure my main opponent with his Cult of Yurei will be pleased with that knowledge.

I was also talking to them about upcoming releases. Along with seeing some artwork for the Shiho clan, who are a defeated clan and are basically now roning and wanderers, which look really good. There is also some really good information about another upcoming force called the Eto clan. They basically are a clan sacrificing people to an ancient snake god. As they do more the people doing it become more snake like, going from just having scales on their back, all the way up to having half a body of a snake, to just being a head on a serpentine body. Very exciting info.

For more info, along with the concept art for the above model go to their website

Bushido the Game

Empire of the Dead

The new game from Westwind Productions was brought out, and frankly they had a great looking board. I only hope our board, when we demo it up at the shows in Scotland looks half as good.

A very good looking board, with some great little jokes here and there scattered about.

If you want to know more about this new game, or their others give them a look

Westwind Productions

Rather than post every single picture I took, I thought I'll put up a link to my flickr account, where the pictures are all stored so people can peruse them at their leisure.

Salute 2012 photos

And that's about it. I'm considerably poorer, but considerably richer in toys, enjoyed every minute of it as I do every year I go, and I'm already looking forward to next year. Hopefully I'll get to see some more fantastic stuff, meet more fantastic people and spend more money on more toys. Until then I should probably get to painting some of the stuff I've just acquired.