Wappinshaw 2011

Hot on the heels of Carronade a few weeks ago was Wappinshaw - the Glasgow wargames show - which my brother-in-law and I attended yesterday.

I missed last year's show due to them moving the date to one I couldn't make, but this year they moved it again - to one I could make :-) It was in a new venue - the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, which is a lot more upmarket than previous years (its previous location was in an old church hall, which was very badly lit and difficult to get to)

It's always been the smallest of the three central Scotland shows, and this year was no different. While Carronade and Claymore occupy multiple halls with dozens of traders, Wappinshaw fits neatly into one small room, with fewer than twenty traders.

Previous years have seen us complete the show in under an hour, with very little bought. This year was still under an hour, but we did manage to buy a few things.

Figures

I picked up the Pig Iron Wardroids and upgrade pack, which will fit in nicely with their Heavy Infantry figures. These Science Fiction troops are part of a more "hard science fiction" setting than the space fantasy of W40k (that's not to say that I'm going to exclude Tau, Eldar or any other figures that I like, just that the background I'll be gaming in will be a lot less Gothic - and no Space Orks!)

The only other figure I bought was an Evil Cherub. There were three, and depending on how this one goes, I might try to pick up the other two. I'm thinking of using them as some sort of evil onlookers for my Demon games. I can't remember the manufacturer, but it was UK based, not the Malifaux cherub (be careful if you Google for "Evil cherubs", as one of the sites that matched gave a bunch of malware warnings)

Games Workshop had a presence, with a selection of their new Finecast figures. It's the first time I've handled one of the figures, and it seems okay - slightly heavier than plastic, but still very light. Given some of the horror stories I've read about the quality of some of the casts, I'm leaving it for a couple of months before I buy anything. I did ask them about what happened to the metal figures, but other than saying they were all returned to HQ, they didn't seem to know.

Vehicles

At Carrondade last year I nearly bought a couple of SF transport vehicles from Solway Crafts. They were pre-painted, but the one with the colour scheme I liked had decals I didn't, and vice-versa.

I've thought about them a couple of times in the intervening year and when I saw one this time, I snapped it up. Sadly, it was the only one they had left. When I got home and had a closer look at the vehicle, it turned out that it was a repainted Matchbox BattleKings K-111 Missile Launcher. Full of hope that I'd be able to get a couple of them cheaply from Amazon, I did a quick search. The only one I could find - and not on Amazon - was £65. Needless to say, I'll be sticking to the single vehicle (likely to become a transport vehicle for the Pig Iron figures).

Paints

Adding yet again to my Vallejo collection (not sure why I don't just give in and buy the complete set), I picked up 70864 Oily Steel and Metal Red Gold, an Alcohol Based Paint. I didn't even know Vallejo did non-acrylics, so I'll need to give it a test, after checking if I have the correct thinners to clean the brush after using it.

The only other paint related item I bought was a second Citadel brush pot. When using a wet palette, I use an old brush loaded with water to mix and refresh colours and I find the pot really handy for holding it. The new one will be kept for use with metallic paints.

Scenery

I picked up a pre-painted "Alter(sic) of Evil" from Pegasus Hobbies, a company I'd never heard of before the show. The scenery seems well made, and will fit in with the rest of my Demon scenery without any problems. Technically it's 25mm, but I reckon it could be made to work at other scales without too much trouble.

I've been considering recently how to base my Dwarf Phalanx. Given that I painted it over twenty years ago, it would be nice to get it based sometime before I retire. With that thought in mind I bought some bases from Warbases. They're just samples at the moment, but I did a quick test when I got home, and it's looking promising. This could be the year :-)

Display Games

I actually had a look at the display games this time, although no pictures, sorry. They were all of a very high standard and there was quite a variety of subjects covered, including: a Spaceship game (using Firestorm Armada models, I think), a Viking raid, a Fantasy game and a SpaceHulk game with custom scenery - complete with flashing lights in the bulkheads. For such a small venue, there were a lot of games.

Final thoughts

We were there for just under an hour, but it was a productive hour. In previous years, it was much more difficult to find anything worth buying, but there was quite a decent choice this year. One thing I liked is that each stand had something different; I've found at some of the bigger shows, with more traders, that a lot of the stands have exactly the same miniatures, which gets a bit boring.

The lighting was better, but there was still one corner that was bathed in dull yellow light. Inevitably, it contained the stand with the paints, so trying to see what colour you were buying was pretty much impossible.

The venue is definitely better - more spacious and easier to get to. There's a cafeteria in the concert hall, although the selection of food was restricted to some cakes, and the cold drinks were extortionate.

Hopefully Wappinshaw can settle in this venue and build on its success next year, as it would be great to have three really good shows to attend each year.