Saturday, April 23

Salute 2016 - Part 2 - my top 5...

So...  drum roll... it's time for my top five..

Fifth

So in fifth place this WWII winter war scenario by 'Loughton Strike Force' [clicky] - "Russo-Finnish War 1940". The plucky (but misguided?) Finns take on Uncle Joe's minions, with an attack over an iced lake was based around the Battle of Rate Road [clicky] during the Winter War between Russia and Finland in 1939... I swear the temperature dropped in this corner of Salute....!


Lots and lots of fine modelling and the snow effects were outstanding.... look at those tank tracks...


Superb quality for a participation game...


Ice road across the lake



Fourth

...and I owe Ian an apology as I said elsewhere this wasn't really my cup of tea, as in my head I got this mixed up with the Victorix demo game we saw in the Part 1 post!

Click to embigen.

Lovely, lovely work...  you can almost smell the heat, and the dust and the oranges..  all the figures are 40mm...

Look at those lovely hussars..


Big battalions as well..



Splendid!

Third

The Essex Warriors depiction of " Kunersdorf" in 28mm (Figures are mainly Front Rank I believe)

I love black powder warfare, tricorne's, linear warfare, and Front Rank figures..  this is almost ideal... what kept it off the top spot? Terrain I think.. it is very good, but not perhaps quite as good as #1 and #2... as you will see...




Lots and lots of gabions...!


Lots more pictures here [clicky] (warning - that link will take you to the 'bucket of frogs' that is The Miniatures Page TM etc - you have been warned... )

Second

Oh my, oh my....  black powder, English Civil War, pikes, ships , terrain - this was always going to be one of my top three I knew it the moment I saw it...  scenario was "What if Essex had gone to Bristol" and it was a demo game by Neil Trew of the Crewe and Nantwich Wargames Club


Scenario description - very clever "what if"..




Scrumptious!




This takes the prize as my favourite picture of the entire day


First

..but just by the narrowest of margins - this was "The Battle of Wilhelmstadt, 1762 - Bill Gaskin and Friends"..  there were lots and lots and lots of little vignettes in this game individually modelled by Bill, but I think what shaded it by the most minute of degrees over the Bristol game was the degree of modelling of the town....


Scrumptious

Horse grenadiers! Yes, please...


.. and here's the town I mentioned



..talking to the guys manning the stand they tell me that the whole thing started from that terrace at the bottom of the picture, which is a Faller model railway kit - this one I think [clicky]..


A worthy (Steve the Wargamer) winner I think!

...and if you like this - check this [clicky] out...!! 

So - that's it for another year....   roll on Colours [clicky]!

9 comments:

  1. A great selection Steve! But what about Dalrupror's Viking game?

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    Replies
    1. Ray - featured in Part 1.. a lovely looking game but not top 5 when compared to these ("I love black powder warfare, tricorne's, linear warfare," etcetc..) :o)

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  2. Hard to argue with your Top 5 but did you miss Michael's Viking game?

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    Replies
    1. Jonathan - I didn't.. and it has featured... but as per my reply to Ray, basically it only failed to make top 5 because there were 5 games I liked more... and I am an increasingly opinionated cranky old git who just .. likes what he likes... :o)

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  3. Thank you for letting us figuratively press our noses up against the glass. Did you see the NWF game?

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    Replies
    1. CK - I did, but for some reason, and I don't know why (as it should have), it failed to resonate, and so, no camera pixels were discombobulated as I passed it...

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  4. The standard of terrain modelling continues to rise to 'model railway' quality of realism. That's one big change over the past decade or so that I have observed. The Winter landscape is stunning, and with a lot of new 'Winter War' figures being produced by Warlord I'm seeing a lot of such landscapes.

    Cheers for the pics.

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  5. Certainly agree with your number one! Nice to see model railway buildings weathered. Model railway terrain can be wonderful but so often the buildings, trees and people don't get the same attention but are used straight out the box.

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  6. I think that you nailed the Top Five games, although I might have substituted the Viking game for the Kunersdorf game. I can't quite put my finger on it, but a little something is missing from the Kunersdorf game. However, each game provides something unique and they are all inspirational.

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