Seemed a bit quieter in terms of footfall, despite car park being full as usual. A scorcher of a day so may be people decided to do other things. Thankfully the Hall was cool enough and with the fire exit doors open there was a nice breeze in places. Unfortunately there's still the dreadful amber lighting in the Main hall itself.
There seemed to be a shortfall in traders this year, with the ones that were there a bit more spread out. Plus there didn't seem to be much competition in wares; You could generally get what you want but only one trader would be stocking it.
A number of demo games going on as usual, Samurai seemed to be a popular theme with a couple of games under different rule-sets, historical and fantasy.
There was a big Seven Year War, and the bloke at the table admitted it was probably too big for the Ruleset 'Honours of War' by Osprey.
With an Egyptian themed Dragon Rampant game on show as well, Osprey was well covered. My wife did point out that the Egyptians wouldn't use Scarab beetles for giant statues.
One of the most impressive was by a group who had come over from the Netherlands.
There didn't seem to be many outright Sci-Fi games this year, there's normally at least on large 40K game going on, and with the all the film\TV franchise games currently out I sort of expected a bit more.
Another thing my wife mentioned was how helpful\thoughtful people were to her being on crutches, opening doors and clearing the way for her. This is a far cry from the classic cliche backpack swinging convention goer crowding people out.
My Purchases...
On the advice of Matt, who mention they were on sale, I bought a Dystopian Wars box, the East India Merchant Company naval battle group. It was going to be either those or one of the Italian States sets.
Also came across some Heroes of Normandie stuff at Magister Militum. Got myself a platoon board for the Allies ( Royal Winnipeg Rifles ), and the both the River and Battleground Terrain Packs. If I want to I can do a really big game now. Had been looking for some extra conventional foot-sloggers to run a D-Day game and these should fit the bill.
Went on the hunt for paints, one in particular - a paint that matches (or is near enough) to the old Games Workshop 'Desert Yellow' - the replacement 'Tallarn Sand' (with ™ Trademark) is darker and lacks the slight orange tone of the original.
Since I've already used the colour for basing I was quite keen to get a match for the remaining troops and for the movement trays I purchased of Warbases at the show. These are intended for use with my Lion Rampant Crusader force, made from the plastics I purchased from the show last year.
Looks like Army Painter has come to the rescue, as their version of 'Desert Yellow' is a lot closer in tone to the original. I bought a couple of cheap droppers (knocked down in price as they have settled a bit) and a can of primer.
My only major non-purchase was of Gripping Beast Dark Age Archers - was looking for the 12 'Saga' figure pack rather than the 30 figure box (which was far too many for my intentions.) but none to be found anywhere.
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