Sunday 25 April 2010

A fine day out...

Yesterday was Salute 2010, and I've half a dozen or so photos of the day, mostly garnered from Matthieu's phone (merci!).  They are mostly of the people (I've got a disc of photos of the game at Bletchley from Ian that I will post later).


Muswell Hill Militiamen (Paris chapter) drinking beer outside the Maid of Muswell pub, our spiritual home.

 Matthieu developing a taste for Landlord.

My son Harry, his friend Alex and I arrived at Excel at 7:01, but it took over 2 hours to get in and finish setting the game up.  Various militiamen arrived with their contingents; Ian and Dr. Simon from Muswell, Craig from Leeds, Nick and a friend from Essex.  The doors opened at 9:45 and we kicked the game off at 11.00 with the assistance of conscripted players who included another Simon, Chris and Dirk (apologies for missed names here, I have a terrible memory for names and faces).  Many of the players were novices but they picked the rules up quickly.


Scipio confers with Laelius, whils Masinissa appears to be wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

Gregory Privat, Iron Mitten and yrs truly.   I look almost as crazed as the sapper in the picture!

Gregory in trouble.

The Carthaginian elephants performed very poorly and one of the Carthaginian generals became despondant, but Hannibal kept the battle going right to the end...

Scipio was called away and the other generals decide on cardplay in his absence,.  Leadership by committee  must have been effective, as the Romans did eventually win at around 4.30pm (whilst Scipio was off queuing in the car park). 


Unexpectedly we were awarded the Salute prize for "Most Impressive Troops".  This was a considerable acheivement, because there were some fantastic armies out there!  The judge said that what most impressed him was that the project was the combined work of 6 or 7 different painters, and yet all the figures worked together beautifully.  I think that  this, on top of the Best Game award at Bletchley, is a great tribute to all the people that have worked so long and hard to bring the project to fruition!

So what next?  I think a few weeks are needed to chill out, and then we might bat some ideas around for another grandiose project for 2011...

24 comments:

Secundus said...

It was an amazing show you put on and well done for winning the award as well, very deserved indeed.

BigLee said...

It was an excellent looking game and it was good to see the Dead Nellie's in the flesh. I shot over 600 pictures at salute but when I finally work my way through them I'll post some of my pictures of your game.

Congratulations on the award. It was well deserved.

Geminian said...

Congratulations Simon. You must be really pleased at winning the award.

Caliban said...

Excellent stuff, especially with all the logistics needed to put on such a large game at two shows. The award is well deserved!

Paul

Consul said...

BRB,

Looks like a great game and congratulations on the two awards!

Im gutted I couldn't make it, what with being stuck in a different country when I was supposed to be at Salute! Not much I could do about it though!

I see you met Iron Mitten - did you get his autograph?! Lol.

Consul.

BigRedBat said...

Thanks chaps!

Sorry I didn't see you Big Lee. I was rather distracted... would have liked to say hello.

BigRedBat said...

Hi Consul, I got his autograph at Salute last year!

Are you back yet?

ZeroTwentythree said...

Congratulations on the award! I think the uniform basing plus the fact that all the figures look to be painted to a high degree of quality probably helped the "uniform look."

The game really looks great.

It's also good to see pics of the faces behind the (overseas) blogs that I read out & having a good time! :D

BigRedBat said...

Hi Z23, having Greg, Matthieu and Denis over was a lot of fun! They are all very serious bloggers. Must put links to the latter two on my front page...

legatus hedlius said...

Loved seeing the game in real life. It deserved its award.

Anonymous said...

Well done Simon and everyone invloved with the game. Two awards well deserved.

BigRedBat said...

Thanks chaps! What a lot of fun it all was.

jmilesr said...

Very impressive game and it was well deserving of the accolades. Now if we could just get you to ship over to the US for Historicon!

Well done

Donogh said...

Game looks absolutely fantastic.
Congrats on the award!
I really must get over to Salute at some stage...

Chris said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dr Simon said...

Big Lee - I think I said hello very briefly as I was trying to turn the Roman tide....

Chris, thanks for the help - bet your feet are sore today...congrats on the marathon time....yes alas we couldnt stem the R|oman tide but it was close in the end - it ended 18 stars to the Romans and 14 to the Carthaginians.....

Chris said...

Hi Simon, I had to leave just before the end, I guess your Roman's managed to finish off Carthage pah! Thanks for a great day I really enjoyed playing C&C Epic on a truly superb looking setup! Just to let the other Simon, Harry and ALex know I finished the Marathon in 4hr43minutes and boy do I ache! Well done for your awards you deserved them. Chris

The Doc said...

Well done for the award! :) That table must have looked even better in person.

BigRedBat said...

Thanks all!

Chris, I felt like I had run a marathon at the close of play Saturday; hats off for actually running one on the Sunday!

trev said...

Hi Simon,

Really spectacular game chaps. A fantastic effort from all involved. I didn't make the show in the end as lurgey struck our house just before. I'm gutted to have missed seeing your game in the lead. My fault, I should have gone to the SoA day when I had the chance. Grrr! Please post more close ups of the action.

Congratulations on your prize too.

Trev

BigRedBat said...

Hope you are better, trev!

Have a look at today's post for some super pics of Bletchley. I swear that the photos look better than the game did on the day!

Galpy said...

congratulations on wining your award you really deserved it from what i could see on your blog
Cheers Kent

AJ (Allan) Wright said...

Well done gents!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations ! This was a well deserved award for a very impressive game !