Salute 2013 for GBS

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Gavin Syme

The Shirt and the Badge

Well that is Salute by for another year and while others have posted their reviews of the show (very few this year compared to previous years, or perhaps I am missing them) I have just got to it as its a long trek home and the wind down afterwards always takes a day or so. So how was the show for me and for Alternative Armies?

The front of the mighty Excel Centre home of Salute 2013

Personally for me I thought that Salute 2013 was down on last year in terms of attendance and that the average spend in the trade hall was lower too. How do I know this, well I don’t for sure but I can guess at it from the following information. No que at the gents toilets at 1pm, only a minute’s wait for a coffee at 2pm and a virtually empty hall half an hour before the doors closed. The crowd was never all that dense at any trade stand. As always the Warlords were polite and helpful and the Excel staff were excellent. The weather was lovely and the traffic shuffle out of London was easier than normal too. Oh and I noticed some of the free plastic miniature sprue that was this year’s entry gift left laying once all the stands were broken down so I have a good half dozen of them!

For Alternative Armies it was a good day considering the above and while the total take was down on last year the overall month of promotion (which ends this Friday) was WAY up on the year before mainly due to a great pulse of SHM, Laserburn, Security Force Alpha and HOT orders on 15mm.co.uk. So all in all it was a super top month for the company.

I did not purchase anything this year at Salute which is odd and for once I did not get offered any freebies either (not a lot of give away for me awwww!) but it was kind of my plan as what I did want to do with my wargaming budget this month and what I got for doing Salute was to get a brand new wargaming table. So no new rulebooks, figures or terrain but I did get the table TODAY and its a beauty but more on that in another posting.

A photo for the Typhon demo game 2013

I have also decided that I will not be doing any more demo games at wargame conventions myself as I did not get to play Typhon myself at all. My attention was taken up with conversations, hand shaking and other duties. It seems my infamy is too great just to toss the dice all day anymore. Thank though to Craig Andrews of Barking Irons and Orcs in the Webbe fame for fielding the Typhon game four times in the afternoon.

Eve Hallow attended Salute for the first time this year and he did an excellent post about it too. He travelled to London with my good lady wife…but he did make her carry his dirt filled coffin all the way to Excel!

Great to catch up with Edward Jackson, Steve Young, Bob Naismith, Sam Croes, Craig Andrews, Bill Hilton, Sandy B, Rob Alderman, Elton Waters and Russ Grey on the day; you guys make the trip worthwhile alone. Thanks also to the hundred plus wargamers who spoke with me I can’t name you all but I took all your input and suggestions onboard and thanks for the kind words too.

Feel the Force in one to one scale!

So good result all in all. I will see you there next year!

GBS

Interviewed on Dropship Horizon blog!

Posted on April 15, 2013 by Gavin Syme

The SFA Interview on Dropship Horizon blog

Chris K over on Dropship Horizon blog has posted up an interview carried out with me about the recently released Security Force Alpha (SFA) miniatures from 15mm.co.uk. Its a good and honest read. I like to think that I am approachable and give answers and opinions without any ‘fluff’ or ‘padding’ which is so sadly common in the wargame industry. It was nice to be asked by DSH blog to do an interview and if they would like to speak to me again they are most welcome. So head on over and have a read.

At the point of publishing this post the SFA codes have sold out their pins on the HOF rack to be taken to Salute three times over. Thanks for your support guys!

GBS

A Week Until Salute 2013

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Gavin Syme

This Years Salute Badge

It is seven days now until the biggest wargame show in the world takes place down at Excel in London. Salute 2013 is a lot of fun for me on the day. A chance to meet and greet, chat and play a game or two as well. But it is a ruddy lot of work before hand as well. Those who work in the wargame industry will this week be spending their time making stock, filling orders, packing racks, painting miniatures, counting books and more besides. I often think that some wargamers do not realise that in our time of automation this industry needs a person to create every miniature and fill every blister pack too. The materials in the massive hall at Salute will most likely represent a million hours of effort on the part of the traders.

How will I and the company do on the day? Who knows! It is all part of the excitement for me and every year is different as the ranges and products we offer evolve and change. This will be my twelfth Salute in a row and maybe the fifteenth I have attended.

I will say it a lot on the day but I want to say it here as well to all the customers of Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk : “Thank you all for keeping me in the best job in the world!”

GBS

Giving in to the Pressure of Wargamers – Security Force Alpha

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Gavin Syme

Security Force Alpha sculpted by Elton Waters

Last week I released a whole miniature sub-range into the HOF 15mm Science Fiction miniatures line. This was the eight packs and about thirty poses in the ‘Security Force Alpha’ or SFA set. Due to technical problems caused by an internet war (of which the company was not a part but we did lose our websites for twelve hours or so) I did not post about this here at the time. I was going to let it pass, after all there is a lot going on, but the response to the release has been frankly huge.

Dropship Horizon Blog, the best place online for the latest and greatest in 15mm science fiction wargaming announced the release and this sparked off a lot of views and then comments. I added my own comments and then watched as email messages began to arrive at 15mm.co.uk congratulating us upon releasing, at last, a generic human force that is not another cookie cutter power armoured ‘not marines’ at a good price. Other emails asked, some even pleaded (steady on!) that we release SFA as single miniatures as well as packs. I had intended to do this, after all it has been getting done now for the majority of the range over the last year plus, but typically it would be a gap of several weeks or a month before it happened. The reason for this is simple. News is constant and the effort that went into the SFA frankly deserves a second bit at the news cherry.

After thinking it over, with Salute 2013 so near, I decided to give the wargamers what they wanted. As of Thursday this week the whole SFA range will be out as singles. Personally I think this is in the main for wargamers to get bundles of the two prone casualty poses in the SFA Command Pack as well as the kneeling Laser pose in the SFA Support Pack.

So pressure on 15mm.co.uk does pay off for wargamers. Makes me do more work, but it pays!

GBS

p.s. Big Thanks to Chris at Dropship for his assist on this release.

SupaBases adds a String to the Bow

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Gavin Syme

This posting is a little late as it had been planned for last Friday but if you look at the post previous to this one you will see that South West Scotland, where I live, was battered by one of the worst blizzards in living memory and that I was also affected by it. Though the snows are currently gone, they may return, it has meant I am playing catch up now. So…on with the show eh!

The ‘SupaBases’ logo designed by Sam Croes

Last week Alternative Armies and 15mm.co.uk both released the ‘SupaBases’ range of MDF Wooden wargaming bases into the hobby market. This was the culmination of several months of effort on my own part and others as although there are a few other makers of these kinds of bases in 2mm and 3mm thickness’s none of them were suitable as suppliers to the company. So we decided to create our own and we were determined to source the wood and get the job done in Scotland. The bases are precision cut with a tool, not a laser, and this gives a lovely finish to what is currently fourteen different sizes of square, rectangular and circular. You can see them below in the picture.

I personally think that although the company offers white metal and plastic bases these wooden bases have a lovely feel and especially for 15mm scale miniatures as singles and elements in wargames they give an impressive finish. From this point on I will be using them for all of our own new releases and so on.

Its not always all about new miniatures and the excitement of new game systems sometimes its the tasks without the glamour which give a lot of satisfaction. Hundreds of customers had asked if we would make these bases, so we did. Not a lot more I can say except that if you want to you should give them a try especially the larger ones like the 75mm and 100mm circles as these are not practical in other materials and allow for some great set pieces or dioramas or vehicle mounts. Thanks for reading and if you want to see the SupaBases then click on your choice of link below:

15mm.co.uk Alternative Armies

GBS

Eli’s Vergan’s are my kinda Miniatures!

Posted on March 20, 2013 by Gavin Syme

SHM54-SHM57 Vergan Free Traders

SHM54-SHM55 Rear View

These are due to release this week but I wanted to give a little post about them here before that as I have to say that I just love the alien species of Vergan created by Eli Arndt for the SHM line on 15mm.co.uk. Eli has created and is creating a number of alien species and these are one of my favourites. Why do I like them so much?

Well its partly style and its partly ethos. You can use them in any game system and they are of Human height with greater bulk so they match in with ease. Their style is pure space opera of the kind that Star Wars promotes where alien races are welcomed and not automatically targeted as ‘Xenos’ to be exterminated just for the sin of existing like in some other settings. They remind me of aliens produced in 25mm scale in the 1980’s back when larger scales were as open to experimentation as the smaller 15mm scale is now. Its a shame that the seeming increased ‘need for polish for its own sake’ in the wargaming industry, sometimes without any visible increase in quality or value for money, has meant that only 15mm scale now see’s such bold and different designs in the 21st century. Ethos wise its just that. Fun and good value combined with not taking themselves too seriously. Perfect for me and for 15mm.co.uk.

Why call them ‘Free Traders’ and not ‘Soldiers’? Eli said to me when he sent me the designs that he thought of the Vergans as merchants not mercenaries. After a bit of thought I came to agree with him. Some of the other races in SHM like the Prang are blatantly militaristic but the Vergans seem to carry weapons mainly for self defence. Part of a starship crew or in a spaceport these blob shaped and many tentacled fellows might just heft an energy rifle only when the traitorous Human they are dealing with tries to double cross them. The aliens are not always the bad guys…humm…I can feel a USEME scenario brewing now.

The Vergans join the first of their kind (SHM20) as single miniatures but also as a value pack. I do hope that Eli makes more of them in the future (perhaps a Vergan child or female) but he is a busy guy with LNG and other projects so time will tell.

GBS

Creative Staff Meet – February 2013

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Gavin Syme

Eve, GBS and Sam

Its been a hectic week for it was time for the ‘creative staff meet’ hosted this time by me here in Girvan in Scotland. As you can see from the picture above myself (centre…ain’t I pretty!), Sam Croes on the right and the crypt keeper himself Eve Hallow on the left (yes, he does manage speak with that on!) had a jolly time of it. Being face to face allows for a lot of conversation and ideas to flow quickly and they did. It did mean that I have been out of the office all week but I do promise to catch up on, what I am told, is all of the fifty plus emails for me that are awaiting answers.

As well as work we did do some sight seeing too as it was Sam’s first time here in Ayrshire so I took him to see Alloway and the land of Burns along with some scenic sights. This was made easier by four dry and sunny days in a row which for Scotland is a rare thing. Eve did not come along…sunlight does not agree with him strangely…

Sam was kind enough to give me some pressies from his homeland of Belgium and I gave him some goodies from here as did Eve Hallow. I have not pictured all of the presents as I drank some of them and ate others but I will review the excellent looking comic books and the music too. Time should not be so pressed now for me.

Gifts from the lands of Ghent!

Its rare to have so much talent in one room and it was a blast and I can’t wait until we all meet up again in London at Salute 2013 in April. In a time of instant communication and ever faster computers sometimes you just can’t beat working shoulder to shoulder on exciting things for the future of miniature wargaming. Eve say’s he might even turn up to Salute without the mask or his shovel for digging up corpses!

GBS

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The online residence of wargame creator and writer Gavin Syme

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