About Me

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London, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
A mythical beast - a female wargamer! I got back into wargaming in the summer of 2011 after a very, very long break and haven't looked back since. I must admit that I seem to be more of a painter/collector than a gamer, but do hope to correct that at some point in the near future. My gaming interests span the ages, from the "Biblical" era all the way through to the far future. I enjoy games of all sizes, from a handful of figures up to major battles (see my megalomaniacally sized Choson Korean and Russian Seven Years War armies).

Saturday 25 April 2015

Salute 2015 - Post 1

Well, I'm back home from Salute and have had a chance to rest my weary legs, top up with coffee, take pics of my loots, download all the pics I've taken and make a start on re-sizing them for the blog.

I got to the Excel Centre shortly after 9, made a quick pit-stop and then made a big mistake. I decided to buy myself a coffee from one of the stalls in the concourse. Ten minutes later I finally got it - the stall was hardly busy and they had almost as many staff as there were customers. I then toddled off to the queuing hall and discovered there were (at a guess) 2000 or so people ahead of me. Having now seen some pics on Facebook, it would appear that if I'd skipped buying that coffee I'd have only had abut 3-400 ahead of me.

Eventually I got in to the main hall at about 10.15 and proceeded with my cunning plan which rapidly went to pot. I had intended to just go round all the gaming tables taking pics, pop out for a smoke and a pit-stop, go round the traders for my on-the-day odds & sods purchases, pop out for another smoke, pit-stop and to buy some lunch, head to the middle of the hall for the bloggers meet-up, go for a smoke, pick up my pre-orders then help out with the Agincourt game Donnington Miniatures were running.

Yup, like that plan was going to work. With hindsight, what I should have done was head straight to the far end of the hall and work back - that would have allowed me to avoid the worst of the crowds.

Lunchtime's bloggers meet-up was very well attended with a number of new faces. It was very nice to meet Legatus and Eric the Shed. I'm sure there were a lot of other newbies. As has become traditional, pics were taken. Here are the ones I took.



I'm sure that someone else will be posting a pic annotated with the names of various folks, but I'm too whacked to faff around with that right now.

I did manage to join in at the tail end of the second Agincourt game. There was a young lad who was rolling dice for the English and proving the old adage - kids roll high. As a result, several French units were routed by the archers before they could charge in. His dice rolling for melee was equally good and he managed to score enough hits on the unit that the Dauphin was attached to to allow a chance of killing him. He needed an 11 or 12 and quite handily rolled an 11. Four nearby units had to test for seeing him killed and two (already disrupted or fragmented) managed to break! The next round of shooting was enough to break the French army.

I then spent a while chatting with various folks who came to look at the game (we'd moved all the figures back to their starting positions) before saying my farewells and heading home.

It was while I was waiting for the DLR train that I realised I have the start of a cold. I'm really hoping it's not a nasty one as I have far too much to do over the next few days.

On getting home (and after making myself a coffee) I unpacked my bag separating loot from rubbish. So, here's a pic of all my loot:



Tomorrow I'll do two more posts - one of the games I actually took pictures of and a detailed run-through of my lootz.

20 comments:

  1. I think I came home from Salute with the start of a cold as well. Maybe it was a freebie in the loot bags this year?

    Sadly I didn't get to the meetup (again!) thanks to being in a demo game at the time. One day!

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  2. Glad you had a nice show - good horde too. I decided not to go this year and instead made up some lego presents for my seven year old an started a jigsaw with my oldest.

    looking forward to see what you got in your loot.

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  3. Good to see you Tamsin, and what a warm friendly blogger's meet-up it was. Hope you sleep your cold off, so tomorrow you're bright and refreshed ready for posting and painting :-)

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  4. Great to meet up again Tamsin!!!

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  5. Best laid plans... There certainly seem to be a larger number of Bloggers this year - from the looks of the photos. What a huge event for one day. Amazing. Looking forward to seeing more images of the day.

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  6. The Bloggers Meet Up photo looks like the crappest Wild West Outlaw Gang in history :) glad you all had a good day and nice looking loot.

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  7. Good to see everyone... I think I managed to arrive just in time to miss the photo (or was busy talking to someone at the time)

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  8. Lovely to meet you. That is a big pile of stuff - pre-ordered doesn't count, of course!

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  9. Great writeup Tamsin. Alas I missed the legendary legatis and Eric the Shed!

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  10. The rule is to always join queues as soon as possible - the other 1600 visitors had pre-bribed the coffee stall to be slow. Hopefully its just a sniffle made worse by being a bit knackered and not a full on cold.

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  11. First Ray, now you... I feel A LOT of envy...
    Nice show Tam!

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  12. Well another year and another bloggers meet up and another covering for the dart board..

    I would have liked to meet Blax and Eric the shed. But it was not to be this year, try again next year!

    Hope you got the loot you wanted and I look forward to any following posta about the show.

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  13. Nice write up. Like you I arrived about 9am and stopped for a coffee before entering the hall, but I was also waiting for the rest of the Rejects to arrive....over 40 minutes after me! I must have sat and watched 5000 gamers walk past me and get ahead in the queue! That'll teach me for being over enthusiastic.

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  14. Always a pleasure to meet you Tamsin and my what a lot of goodies you made off with!

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  15. @ Paul - oh dear. Maybe there was something in the goodie bags they handed out to us instead of the golden tickets that we should have got?
    It's a shame you missed the meet-up - maybe next year? :)

    @ Dannoc - it would have been good if you could have made it. Loot post will be up tonight :)

    @ Blax - nice to meet you too, even if we didn't get to chat properly. Sadly, it seems that my cold is going to be a nasty one - I'm feeling quite rough today :(

    @ Ray - likewise! :)

    @ Dean - there were definitely more bloggers at the meet-up this year. If anything, salute is too big for a one-day event. There's no way you can see all the games and do shopping. It's also very difficult to get to some of the traders because of the crowds swamping them.

    @ Herbert - now, there's an idea for next year. All the bloggers should wear Wild west outfits! ;)

    @ Alastair - it's easily done. I missed the photo one year because I got talking to someone :)

    @ Legatus - it was lovely to meet you too. I was pretty sure that it was you when I introduced myself.
    Pre-orders most definitely don't count towards Salute spending :)

    @ Phil - good to see you again too. It was very easy to miss people with so many attending the meet-up :)

    @ Nate - alternatively, arrive about 10.30 or 11 and avoid the queue :)
    Sadly, the cold seems to be more than a mild sniffle :(

    @ Emilio - maybe next year you could plan a weekend in London and come along? :)

    @ Dan - cheers! :)

    @ Clint - I did get most of the loot I was after, but missed a few things :)

    @ Lee - I think next year I will stop off for a fry-up on the way to the Tube and arrive after the queue has gone in :)

    @ Simon Q - that was just a quick pic of the whole haul. I'll be doing a full loot post tonight :)

    @ Michael - likewise, but doubled. It was rather a large haul, but that's quite typical for me! :)

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  16. Alas, I didn't make the meet-up this year as I was playing a Frostgrave demo, but it looks like it was a great turnout!

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  17. Great show this year and nice to meet up again Tamsin. I do wish this was a two day event as it just goes by too quick.

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