Yesterday was spent with a very pleasant day at Claymore, a morning drive in the sunshine, and a lovely drive back with the countryside looking its best.
The Granton campus of Edinburgh College is a pretty nice venue, with lots of light airy halls, plenty of parking and some nice outdoor spaces when the weather is pleasant. There were excellent traders, and it wasn't too crowded.
So what was it like? Well, I actually found it rather disappointing. I normally expect that there will be one or two games that make me gasp, or come away inspired, or even smiling. In the past there have been Nazi moonbases, volcanoes, whole archipelagos and some great modelling and terrain making skills on show.
This year, I felt there were a lot of games that I would expect to be put on at an average club night, with bought terrain, pretty nice figures, but no great imagination. I suppose it may be because I have seen quite a few of the games already at Carronade in Falkirk, but I was left feeling disappointed
Of the games that were there, Barry Hilton and the League of Augsburg's Ottoman wagon fortress was perhaps the best realised, the Vietnam 'Relief of Hue' style game was impressive for size, but the terrain was a bit sparse, and for me didn't capture the feel you got from movies and period photographs. Honourable mention to the small but well formed Holy Grail game, which seemed to consist of making your way by various paths through a shrubbery with knights posted at intersections, towards a large castle...
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| Muscovites vs Ottoman by LoA. |
And the loot? Well - for once I thought about this beforehand, and decided I needed some bits and pieces to round out various forces, so I pre-ordered from 1st Corps, taking advantage of their show discount. Airborne Jeeps, Pak crew, British 2" mortar crews etc. The rest of my shopping list was essentially small terrain pieces, so a Greenhouse and cart from
Supreme Littleness, a tractor, fountain and telegraph poles from
Sarissa, and finally one of the very cheap 'modular' range from
Warbases, that is going to be a small workshop.
Not having pre-ordered, I just took pot luck that they would have the items available, but both Sarissa and Supreme Littleness offered to send me the items post free. so that was terrific.
And of course there were impulse buys... firstly from
Charlie Foxtrot, their Cafe Normandie looks to be an absolute bargain. I don't really need too many more 28mm French buildings, but this was too nice to go past, and at £16 an absolute steal compared to some other companies. I was also impressed about the little extras included, like flashing strips in plastic, and small tubes for chimney pots. Looking forward to putting this one together.
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| I know it doesn't look like much in this picture.. |
I also looked for the new Rubicon early Panzer IV, but was out of luck.
WarHQ was doing 15% off the Rubicon kits they did have available, so the Scott was picked up.
Other impulse buys, a Westwind US Recce Jeep and some BTD Soviet Riflemen from
Colonel Bill's.
Needless to say, on getting home, I couldn't wait to start slinging some glue at these. So far:
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| Sarissa Tractor |
The tractor is a great model, but getting the top pieces to line up smoothly is a pain. If I were building another one of these, I would use the top of the chassis as a guide, glue all the 'segments' together, and then file to get it smooth before gluing on to the model itself.
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| Westwind US Recce jeep |
Great little model, just judging by eye, it looks like it will be a good match for my Perry US infantry (plastics).
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| 1st Corps Airborne jeep |
Really nice kit, but make sure you drill out the wheels for axles, there's little underside detail so it might actually be worth replacing the white metal axles with some brass rod or similar.
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| Another 1st Corps Airborne jeep |
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| 1st Corps and Westwind size comparison |
As you can see there's quite a difference, I believe 1st Corps are 1/48 while Westwind would be 1/56.
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| Warbases Modcular 5. |
This one is going to have a tarpaper roof, and be a small workshop. I am actually going to remove the doors I glued on, and do cut outs so they are inset rather than outset. As always with MDF, it's a basic shell to build on.
Finally, the standard of catering at Claymore I have to say was even worse than usual. A choice of a very dodgy looking chicken curry or a pie and chips. And they closed early so there was no way to even get a cup of tea after about 3pm. Organisers note, you might have been better organising a burger van for the central courtyard!
See you all there next year.