A trip out to Aberdeen Model Railway Club Exhibition 2014 and a few purchases...

I went along to the Aberdeen Model Railway Club exhibition yesterday afternoon. I didn't expect to buy anything, although there are usually a couple of good tool companies there that are always worth a look. Also due to a mix up, I had forgotten to put the memory card back in my camera, so no photos... To see some photos of the exhibition, check out my gaming pal Jeff's blog.

However, while wandering around, I found a couple of traders who had some interesting second-hand bargain items. Nothing amazing, but thing that just happened to fit in with plans I have brewing at the moment.

Firstly, I have been slowly putting together some winter terrain boards. I have the basic boards together, but haven't made any scenery to go on them yet. Top of my want list was a selection of trees. I had planned on looking around over the festive season to see if I could pick up some cheap snow covered trees (I probably will still see if I can get some bargains), however I managed to get these three bags of trees for £9.

All the trees have a decidedly coniferous look about them, the large bag on the left has around 10 to 15 trees in it (plus, at least one hedge) the two smaller bags on the right have 4 trees in each. I will need to add my own snow to most of them, but this is a great start...

Now moving on, the main project on my plans at the moment is to build up some scenery for some post apocalyptic games. I have a few ruins that will be suitable, but I want to get some vehicles and I would like to put together some industrial looking pieces as well.

These two bags will be perfect for adding some interest to the table.The bag on the left contains 3 OO scale pylons. Whoever had put them together had used a rubber solution glue, so basically they have just pulled apart. There is some slight damage, but I reckon I can get two whole pylons and one damaged one out of the set... Now obviously they are not full size for a 28mm game (they'll stand around 21cm high once fully assembled), but who really wants a metre high pylon dominating their gaming table... These will make great smaller local pylons, possibly connected to a local relay station...

The bag on the right contains all the telegraph poles (and the railway water column) as seen in the photo below. Once again they are 00 scale, but they will look fine on my gaming table. There is plenty of variety here, meaning I will be able to add odd ones to specific terrain pieces and also make up random strings of poles to go across the table. Even the water column will be of use in one of the planned industrial pieces...

All in all I got a real bargain, and in fact, the pylons were free as I managed to haggle down the price of three of the bags.

SKELP! 2014 Wargames Show Report

My gaming pal Jeff, my son and myself headed off to SKELP! in Forfar on Saturday. It is a very small wargames show and I have a bit of a cold at the moment, so I wasn't particularly expecting to have a great day. However, it turned out it be great fun and we all had a good time!

Both Jeff and myself had taken a few things to put into the Bring and Buy sale. Jeff sold all his stuff, and I sold enough that I felt it had been worth taking it with me.  Generally though the Bring and Buy was quite disappointing as there wasn't really that much in the sale this year. I did pick up a bag (about a dozen figures) of 28mm modern British troops for £5. It struck me that they would be useful for our planned foray into the Post Apocalyptic world early next year. We will probably be using Across The Dead Earth, and these figures will easily make up a force for that...

The show itself seemed well attended and most of the attendees seemed to hang around for most of the day, so there wasn't much of a lull. There were two or three participation tables, although we only got to have a go at one of them, the RAF Leuchars (Veterans) Dambusters game. We ended up doing this one three times, as my son found it great fun...

Time for the photo dump!

First up, we have a Warzone participation game. If I see these guys again at another show I will probably try to get a game, as my son and I have tried their games over the past couple of years and we enjoyed them both!

 This was a lovely Hadrian's Wall game. Unfortunately I didn't get any time to chat with them, but I did get these photos.

 Saga!

The Guys from The Geek Room, in Aberdeen (our recently founded new club) put on an X-Wing demo and participation sessions.

 Kirriemuir Wargames Club put on a large ancients game... I didn't get a chance to look closely enough (and it's not really my period) so I can't be more precise than that!

 

 This was the RAF Leuchars (Veterans) Dambusters game. The photos weren't from our sessions as we didn't manage to get a total success and take out the dam in a single hit...

I entered a couple of pieces into the painting competition, something I don't normally do as I don't usually rate my painting skills to high (I usually concentrate on the scratch building and putting together and then rush through the paint job...). However to my surprise I won the Best Single Figure category with my Smart Max Lord Holmes figure.
 

 Then, I managed a second place with the Alliance Model Works Steampunk Submarine for the Best Vehicle or Monster...

 On top of all that I walked away with three raffle prizes. A copy of A Fistful of Kung Fu, very handy as we are planning on playing it soon and the 1st and 2nd Raffle Prizes (£60 in vouchers for Figures in Comfort, and £45 in Vouchers for Dave Thomas, respectively).

So all in all it turned out to be a very good show for me. I hadn't planned on spending very much, just picking up half a dozen figures from Crooked Dice. I did pick up some Vallejo paints from Minibits, as there is nowhere local to get them any more. I had been considering getting some of Fireforge Games Templar figures to use with  Lion Rampant. Anyway, once I had spent all my winnings, I ended up going home with quite a lot...

The Netrunner Card game from Fantasy Flight Games (courtesy of my 1st place in the painting competition - voucher from Highlander Games in Dundee). 4Ground Japanese house (courtesy of my 2nd place in the painting competition - voucher from Colonel Bill's), for the planned sessions of Ronin. Three cases with foam inserts from Figures in Comfort, and yes I did get the Fireforge boxes thanks to the Dave Thomas voucher...

In conclusion, it is probably going to be quite difficult for me to give an unbiased review of the show, as I ended up doing so well out of it. However, I must say that the three of us all had a pretty good time even before we got to the prize giving part of the day...