Salute 2012

well... up until last week, I'd not really planned on going, but I'm glad I did (thanks Ben and Akkie for the peer pressure)...

quick edited highlight of the sights... Akkie's sudden obsessive compulsion disorder evolved from not really getting involved this year to doing a massive fantasy WW1 game between German Goblins and British Hobbits and Russian Dwarves... the table was great work, but it actually required the creation of two new ranges of figures just so the Hasslefree Kindred had someone to fight against...

Frothers had 4 tables this year, the above FWW1 game, a fleet scale Babylon 5 game, Frothy Races with bonkers chariots and Shadow Over Froth Street - a Cthulhu fest over Rev Nice's black and white printed scenery which went on to win Most Innovative Game, which was 2 years running for Frothers and that award... sadly, I have no decent pictures of any of them, not being tied to a table this year I really took my time wandering about and missed the home-side stuff... ooops

Crooked Dice had a couple of tables this year, a big game of On Her Majesty's Crooked Service...

inside the lair...

and they also had some small quick play games, this one was Fiddlers Green and was just a really nice, simple and good looking little board... love it...


always a highlight to look at was the Oshiro Terrain table... stunning Japanese eye candy which my photos don't do justice to... if I had the space and the money...

the Warlords put on a Captain Scarlet road game, using various diecast cars and figures from Crooked Dice...

various other games included a historical WW1 game where shelling caused a river to burst it's banks and reduce the battlefield to a floodplain... I'd never seen anything like it before from a gaming point of view and thought it was a great idea... aside from historical accuracy, it just looked good...

I quite liked the look for the massive Sevastapol game...

a Doctor Who game using the Character Building figures (essentially not-Lego)...

a really nice table for some Roman bashing action... the celtic village was nicely done and the terrain as a whol was something I'd love for my Folk Horror stuff... again, space and money...

and as far as we could work out down the pub after the show, this won best game this year, but have no idea what it was all about... used a lot of Ainsty terrain though...

there were a great many things to see - a couple of Oriental Fantasy games with some nice boards, a quite impressive Napoleonic land and sea game and more than a couple VSF games...

managed to pick up some goodies - the much needed extra heads and some not-Federation Security troops from Crooked Dice, a really nice resin stone circle that was cheaper than if I'd have built it myself, some Warlord ECW clubmen (annoyingly they'd sold out of the dead animals), some flower tufts for bases and a new 4ground release - strictly speaking a medieval hovel, but it will work as an older building...

Salute 2011

a good day, if long day, back at around 10.40 last night... three Frother's games and there seemed to be a lot of interest... the mansion in all it's glory, the first game was a bit slow, but the rules were trimmed back and the later games went better...

the mansion game together really well, especially considering how scattered around the UK the contributors are... of course, Akkie's Battlefield game was just one chaps efforts and was outstanding to look at...

the Tron game, oddly only got one pic of that, but it was genius in it's simplicity and won an award...

and Crooked Dice launched 7TV rather spectacularly... table looked great...

even down to the scale map of the table in the villains lair...

CD also had a Who game going...

other stuff included a nice looking VSF Aeronef game and a few ECW games (which considering my recent dabbling was nice to look at)...

the library at Cthluedo Mansion finished

it's finished... well it's done and I'm stepping away from it before I cock it up in a spectacular fashion...

the table is scratch built from foampvc and beads for the legs (not that you can see them very well, but they look bloody great) and the books/cthulhu idol mark out the spaces on the floor so players can climb on/over it as they wish... the wallpaper on the outer walls will tie this room in with all the others (that's the plan - as ever the Frothers build doesn't come together until the day) with some suitable staining... I had planned on putting some Mythosy pictures, but they haven't turned up, so have used the ones the frames came with as most could pass for sinister in some way... removed 1 picture though to help fill the walls up with removed portraits... not 100% sure that has worked very well though... hey ho...

the library at Cthluedo Mansion part 5

I never want to paint another book in my life... sadly I have some more to do for the table... if I can bring myself to do them... sigh... oddly, the photos make it look much brighter than it is, but the basic room is done, just the corridor side walls to finish and to put in the windows to have a playable room... everything else, including the table is just gravy at this point as I'm quite sick to death of the bloody thing...

and in a desperate attempt to add a bit of Mythos to it all, a Mi-Go brain jar on the shelves:

the library at Cthluedo Mansion part 4

the library walls/shelfs are painted, the massive table is as well, but still deliberating over the floor. While I ponder that, Salute gets closer and I need books... lots and lots of books for the library walls...

I'm using bought metal books for those out on the table and strewn about the room, but all I need for the shelves are spines. Now there are essentially two different sizes of book shelf in the room, the mid-wall case and the corner case (which is slightly narrower) and after some quick playing with 3mm pvcfoam, I need 15 books to fill a shelf in mid-wall case and 12 books for a shelf in the corner case... and there are 5 shelves to a case... that should be around 1750 books. No way was I making those by hand.

I made some blocks of books out of foam pvc, 8 different 5 book blocks and 2 different 7 book blocks (henceforth refered to as bb)... that meant 140 x 5bb and 50 x 7bb to fill the walls... much more manageable, so out came the Siligum and the Alumilite Super Plastic:

I did a few molds to optimise the resin when mixed, but was bricking the actual resin bit. This is chemistry. This is chemistry with warning labels. Scary chemistry. Only it turns out it isn't...

Some deliberation over the need for well ventilated and room temperature while being a very cold March, I ditched the garden, turned up the heating and opened all the windows... it's not exactly room temperatue, but warmer than the garden, this has had the downside of slowing down the curing time a smidge (3 minutes normally), but this means I have slightly longer to pour. I've had to limit my mixing to a quarter of a fluid ounce, as any more caused problems with the tin foil cake cups I planned on using for the mixing pot... large amounts caused the foil cups to buckle, making pouring a pig. I will get some plastic cups later, but it means for now I do half the molds at a time, one lot is curing while I mix the next lot which seems to be working so far. I've also got some spare for the Timelord wall sconce when needed.

Now, I have a new found respect for mold makers, it turns out the hardest part of the entire process is getting a decent mold in the first place... I must confess I've had to ditch a couple of my earlier molds, simply because of flaws, I'm getting better at it though, but it was an expensive (if fun) learning curve... what I have now still have some flaws, but all I need are good spines, the rest of the books will not be seen...

the library at Cthluedo Mansion part 3

nothing like a Sunday for putting up some shelves...

even managed to do my planned secret door...

which meant I had a lasercut door going spare, and seeing as I'd made too big a hole for the other door, I got creative and continued the general Gothic theme that seems to have happened by making the door a large double door instead...

(and now I look at it, I forgot to emphasise the join in the middle - so not quite done yet)

now all I need are books... lots and lots of books... I've plenty of bought 28mm books which will be 'hero' books and very visible out in the room, but for the walls I've tinkered with some faux spines... these will be made longer and with Siligum and some casting resin reproduced at a cracking rate hopefully...

but I'm kind of ready to paint... not sure what colour to do the floor... or what (or who) to hang from the very necessary beam...

EDIT: anyone keeping track will notice that there aren't 42 units of shelves there... originally I had plans for freestanding shelves within the room, but once the table was included, the other shelves didn't really help any...

and finally found a pic online of what has been nibbling at the back of my mind the whole time I've been building this... the Hammer version of Dracula...

of course it looks nothing like that, but with the table and the 'hero' books scattered about you never know...