So much to say Sunday (Part1)

So...today is the day after Salute, the biggest independent Wargames show of the year.

My day started at 06:15hrs in the morning and I eventually got home (with the a very welcome Kebab) at 22:05hrs at night.

Getting to the show was interesting. Yes, it could have been easier (getting on the wrong train twice, didn't help!) because the rail network closed a few of the stations I needed due to maintenance...but overall the getting there wasn't bad apart from me being an hour later than I planned.

Getting into the venue was easy because I bought my ticket prior to the event. I just joined the quick queue and was in to Salute in a few minutes.

Once in, I went straight to the Hasslefree Miniatures stand and put on my rather fetching shirt (it had a Hasslefree slogan on the back and INSO on the front with a bar-code to go with it!). That was me for the day!

I had plenty of opportunity to have a wander around the show but didn't bother because I was enjoying my time chatting to lots of Forum and blog readers who came to say "Hi!", talking to the staff on the stand, gossiping with the punters and even selling a few miniatures in amongst everything! I did go for a wander and consulted my carefully constructed map to go where I needed without being too distracted.

This first post is less about the things I bought and all about the people who I met on the day...so without further ado here are just some of the friendly people who came to say hello or who were cornered and couldn't escape!

On the Hasslefree stand were Neil, Matt, Sarah, Sally and Kev. Everyone had a blast, the stand was busy all day and there seemed to be very little of the stress that has been involved in previous years. I would like to thank all of them for being so welcoming and friendly on the day...there was a real 'family' environment going on and it made this year the best Salute I have been to.

Next door on the Heresy stand were Andy, Pockets and Reaperman. All were very friendly and I am absolutely amazed that I managed to escape the stand without buying everything on display! I wouldn't call it 'hard sell', more like completely enthusiastic faith in what they were selling. I saw Andy's dragon and to be honest...IT IS AWESOME! I think that when the dragon gets released, Heresy miniatures will be setting a benchmark for all future dragons.

Over at Twilight, I met Brandlin (his blog is linked to in my blog list) and the guys and girls on the stand. There were some lovely miniatures there and in addition, Brandlin was showing off some wonderful kit based buildings. I saw Mike over at the Twilight gaming table but didn't get to say hello because he was busy with all the gamers (and I don't like to interrupt when people are in the flow of things).

At the Critical Mass games stand, I met the guys and got to marvel at the great metal and resin kits that were available. I had a chat and even managed to get a bit of a nibble with regards to possibly producing some of the walker kits in 28mm scale...I hope they decide it is a worthwhile venture! I am dead set that Critical Mass is where I want my Dwarfs to go when they are finished...they will be in amongst some of the finest 15mm sci-fi miniatures money can buy.

Other stands that were extremely helpful were the Fighting 15s stand, where the nice gentleman behind the counter managed to find a few very specific items for me and didn't get fed up with me asking lots of questions. Maxi-Mini were great too. The guy on the stand, rifled through boxes to assemble a blister with the last possible gun carriage for me and I couldn't have asked for better service.

I visited other stands and bought what I wanted and generally all of the traders and people I met were not only very friendly but enthusiastic and willing to chat.

Whilst I was on the Hasslefree stand, many people came over and said that they read this blog! I had no idea that so many people would remember the blog and come and say how much they liked it! What surprised me the most was that some of them were not from the UK. I count myself as privileged.

I had a delivery from Fenris Games who found out that I was at Salute and kept my parcel of Deep Ones to one side just so they could deliver them to me by hand rather than posting them this coming week! He was even polite enough to accept my "why didn't you release these earlier?" quip and also to give me further info on some of the future plans for the range...some were VERY interesting to those of us who appreciate Sci-Fi!

...SO!...as you can probably tell, I had a great day. The most important thing to me was the feeling of community and the fact that everyone said hello and had a good time.

Roll on next year!

The next part of this post (a bit later) will be more geared to what I bought and the usual updates in my hobby progress. Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me on the day so there won't be pix of the event however, my new camera battery charger turned up yesterday so I will be able to take a few pix of what I've managed to finish...and maybe a few pix of purchases.

See you through the kaleidoscope.