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...