Carronade 2012

I'm just back from Carronade 2012, so thought it would be a good opportunity to describe my purchases and my general impressions of the show.

My brother-in-law and I got there just after 10:00 and the car park was already pretty full. This theme continued throughout the morning and all the halls were busy. Whilst busy, there was no problem with access to trader stands and finding someone to take my money was never a problem.

I had a list of things I was looking for and I managed to get most of them. There were, as always, shiny baubles that demanded to be bought, but I don't think I bought anything that I'll look at in a few weeks and ask myself "what was I thinking???"

Figures

I picked up the "Normandy Firefight" rules a few days ago. These are WW2 skirmish rules designed for between three and six figures per side. They recommend 54mm, but I have only one 54mm WW2 figure painted and no scenery or vehicles. My plan, therefore, is to use 28mm figures. Although I don't have any of them painted either, I do have quite a lot of Hovels scenery, which, although 20mm, will work with 28mm.

I ended up buying some metal German and British figures from Artizan and Bolt Action. I thought about buying the Bolt Action 28mm plastic Germans, but decided they were too expensive to justify at the moment. The ultimate plan is to do each figure in prone, kneeling and standing poses, but that can come later.

In the S.F. category, I picked up a box of Mantic Corporation Rangers and some Pig Iron Kolony Ferals.

I bought a figure from Rogue Miniatures, a UK company that was new to me. Herb now joins my vampire and zombie hunter figures.

Vehicles

Every show I look at the Pig Iron Ironside MBT and decide not to buy it, but this year, I finally caved. Yet another vehicle to sit unpainted for two or three years...

Ainsty Castings were back at the show, the first time I've seen them north of the border in a while. I was very tempted by their pirate ships, but I only have two pirate warbands painted, so I couldn't really justify it. I settled instead on their Sloth Cargo Carrier.

Scenery

Nothing big in this category, just some textured bases, including some bike bases that I'm going to use for my Plague Doctor with wheelbarrow. The bases aren't completely flat, so may require a bit of work first.

Other purchases were some wilderness tufts from Army Painter and some granite chips that look a usable size.

Paints

I needed some colours to paint up the WW2 Germans I planned to buy, so I picked them up (all but one. Either the grey was in the wrong slot or I picked from the wrong slot. Either way, I got the wrong grey (worse, it was one I already have), so I will need to get the correct colour at some point).

I have the "Color Mixing Recipes for Portraits" book by William F. Powell, which I use for hair colours. This, being a "proper" artist's book, uses "proper" artist's colour names - none of your Bestial Brown or Medium Sea Grey nonsense here! I have tried to translate artist's colours into Vallejo colours in the past, but without a lot of success. I did recently find a posting that gave conversions, so I picked up the paints listed. I'm not sure how accurate the conversions are, but I look forward to trying them out.

Final thoughts

The show was up to its usual high standard and there seemed to be a wider variety of items there than last year, which was nice.

The Bring and Buy now appears to be more of a Flea Market, where you have to sell your own stuff. I don't really like this approach, so didn't even peruse the section.

Other than that, the next show for me will be Claymore. Yet again, Wappinshaw clashes with a family thing, so I'll miss it this year. The plan is to take the money I would have spent there and save it for Claymore. Seems only fair :-)

Back to pictures next time, with the next in my occasional series of "Dwarfs with..." posts.