It is all-out Warfare today

Like a few other people on my blogroll, I went to Reading's annual gaming show, Salute, this morning. Given that it is about a mile from home, it would be daft not to. I nearly ended up helping out on the Modiphius stand, but one of their team ended up making it. Still, I spent a fair chunk of time with them chatting away about one thing and another and ended up signing up for the Star Trek RPG playtest. This netted me the first acquisition of the day, in the shape of  the preview Captains, Kirk and Picard. If the rest of the miniature range are as good... damn this is going to be hard to resist. The models are absolutely perfect representations of the two actors. They are very truescale figures... no giant hands and accessories, or overstated creases in clothing, but the casting is so well done that it hasn't turned into a blobby nothing.

I also had a run through the Achtung! Cthulhu skirmish demo and managed to massacre Chris' Marines with my Black Sun troops supported by some Servitors. We only got to do some basics like move and combat, but it looks promising.  I'm looking forward to trying this with the strategy card decks and magic mixed in as well.

After that, I went shopping and picked up some essentials like undercoat and grass tufts before turning to some more bits and pieces for the upcoming Western project. These will appear throughout the painting challenge this year hopefully.... so no sneak peeks.

There were some stunning tables in the gaming area. My favourite two were the snowy Chain of command game going on in the middle of the room

And the Minions racing game at the back

There are plenty of other photos on Jim's blog

Warfare

Today was Reading's own wargames show, Warfare. Despite having lived nearby for years, this was the first time I've ever attended... shame on me! Claire decided to come with me and see what all the fuss was about and was slightly astonished to find that she got in for free. I assume it is either to try and attract female gamers, or for suffering wives who have been dragged along... we're not quite sure which. Thankfully, Claire seemed to enjoy it and played her first ever wargame! Unfortunately our zombie hordes were all beaten by an 8 year old girl who had been playing for most of the afternoon while her Dad ran one of the ww2 demos.

I also stopped by the Gripping Beast stand and was given a lesson in Saga as I've been reading you lot going on about if for ages now. I have to say I'm impressed. Simple rules, but plenty of strategy thanks to the dice... now I just need to read the rulebook and decide which force(s) to build so I can get some friends involved. The demo used the ground floor of their forthcoming Great Hall kit which is absolutely gorgeous and will be mine as it makes the perfect demo area. The Great Hall will be coming boxed with a book of new scenarios with missions such as rescue the princess. If you can't afford the Great Hall, there will be a version of the book that comes with a poster of the hall floorplan.

They also had an early version of their new game, Jugula, running which looked like good fun. This game has you building a team of gladiators and sending them off to fight in the arenas. Apparently it comes with a campaign system to allow your school to grow and the fighters to evolve over time (if they survive!)