Claymore 2011

I was at  Claymore yesterday, where I spent the morning and a chunk of the afternoon wandering around the show with my brother-in-law.

My to-buy list before the show consisted of a few paints and a hope that figures would leap out at me. Four hours later, I had spent pretty much all my money, and had a number of things that I'll be keeping an eye on as potential future projects.

As usual, no photos, as there will be plenty of those about from other sources. This post is about things I bought, and some of the ideas that have started bubbling around in my mind because of the show.

Paints

Seeing as this was my main reason for going to the show, I shall start with them.

I added some more to my Vallejo collection - gloss and satin varnishes and some light greys.

Foundry continued the white/light grey theme with the Austrian White (67) set. I have the Andrea Miniatures White set, but it's more of a warm (cloth) white, and I was looking for a cold white.

I also picked up some Coat D'Arms from Fighting 15s (eventually - people were buying a lot from the stand so I gave up and went back later). I bought chestnut brown, dwarf flesh and their dark brown "Super Shader". It looks like another dip, so it should come in useful for my skeletons and other figures where I don't need/want to spend hours shading.

Books

I actually picked up a few books this time:

• Fighting Men of WW2: Axis forces. I have plenty of books of British uniforms, but not really any of German ones. I have some 20mm WW2 Germans to paint at some point, so this should come in useful
• Pirates: Predators of the Seas. Yet another Pirate book, but looks interesting
• Battle for Malta - the attacks on the island during WW2
• Langton Miniatures' Guide to assembling, painting and rigging their 1:1200 Dutch Wars ships. Naval warfare doesn't really do much for me, but the ships of this period are from the Golden Age of Piracy, which does interest me. I have always fancied painting a couple of these ships for display, and I've looked at them in past shows, but never done anything about it. The guy at the stand pretty much talked me out of the idea (the combinations and parts of Langton models looks quite daunting), but I'm going to do some research and order them online
• Chaos in Carpathia. This is a set of Victorian Vampire hunting rules from BlueMoon. I have plenty of Vampires of that period, but my hunters are all modern. I hope that the rules will be flexible enough to cope (after all, a wooden stake hasn't changed much in 100 years), but I may use this as an excuse to buy and paint some appropriate Victorian figures

Figures

Purchased figures covered a wide range:

• Pig Iron command squad. Having already got the troopers, heavy weapons and war droids, it was only a matter of time before I completed the set
• Lead Adventure Jesters. These will join my zombie clown troupe, although the figures aren't sold as zombies
• Lead Adventure Deep Dive Night 2. This is a deep sea diver and a figure with a large spanner. I didn't buy the figure when I first saw it, as I couldn't think of a use for it. However, at another stand (whose name I forget), they had various sea demons. An image of these guys fighting the deep sea diver immediately popped into my mind, so I picked up the demons and went back and bought the diver. It's a diorama idea, so whether it will ever manifest itself remains to be seen...
• Some Cthulu Cultists from the same sea demon place, along with a bloated zombie
• A Gremlin from the same manufacturer. What I really wanted was the base the miniature was on. However, it came with a blank base, and when I asked, I was told the base was from Fenris Games. I've tracked it down, but as they're an ebay store, and I don't have/want an ebay account, I don't think I'll be buying them
• Urban Mammoth Venom Drake. This was half price, and looks like it'll be suitable for my Demon Apocalypse, so it's in the lead pile
• Laughing Monk - Bearer of the Light. Bought this from Fighting 15s as I liked the look of the figure. Having looked at it in the cold light of home, however, I'm not so sure...
• Copplestone Terminators Robots. I had two of them already, so this will add some reinforcements. I have plenty of painted near future figures, so if I ever decide to have a Terminator style game, at least I'll have the figures
• Warhammer Vampire Counts Necromancer. This is the latest plastic release from GW. I think it's just me, but £8.00 for a single plastic figure seems to be a step too far. For metal or resin it doesn't seem too bad (although still expensive), but for one plastic sprue with no "extras", it just seems wrong. I got it at 10% off, but if it hadn't been at a show, I'm not sure I would have bothered. It's a shame, as it's a nice figure, and quite a few of the others in the range are nice as well. At the moment, however, it's a price point that's going to take me some time to get used to

Things I didn't get

One of the few specific things I went for was Dixon Miniature's "pianist with piano and female singer" set. I need a piano for the Dad's Army diorama and this one looked ideal.

Unfortunately, he brought the entire saloon set, but not the individual packs. It seemed silly to buy the whole lot for one item, so I ordered it online when I got home (not without incident, as clicking the "Add to Shopping Cart" button in Firefox 5 caused it to go into an infinite loop. I eventually managed to buy it using Chrome)

Inspiration for future projects

6mm ancients from Baccus.

I have a couple of painted 6mm armies from Irregular miniatures (Dwarf and some evil type army). I also have two unpainted armies from the same manufacturer (Orc and skeleton).

The main reason they're unpainted is that the casting quality isn't great, and it's sometimes difficult to tell where the flash ends and the figure starts.

The Baccus ones, however, look much cleaner, and I was nearly tempted into buying a 6mm Macedonian army pack. The things that saved me were:

• the old eyesight is not what it once was
• I'd have nobody to fight against, so I'd end up having to buy the Persians or Indians as well

Still, this is an area I may revisit, as the idea of a 6mm phalanx on the table is very appealing.

20mm modern British from Britannia

I have some 28mm moderns, although none of them are painted. These ones, however, looked amazing, and again, I was sorely tempted to purchase some. 20mm has the advantage that a lot of plastic kits are available in that scale and I already have some scenery (granted, it's WW2, but a bombed out building looks pretty much the same in every time period)

28mm, however, is more flexible, as I can use the figures with my zombies and other near-future figures (e.g. terminators). This means I won't be investing in 20mm moderns any time soon.

That's the end of my wargame shows for this year. There are still a couple in Scotland, but they're up north, so I don't bother with them.

Now I just have to wait patiently until next May :-)