About the venue, as you could read yesterday I was attending as a pure visitor this year for various reasons, so I hadn't seen it getting 'born' during the build-up, so it would be a suprise for me as well this morning.
And I must say I'm mightily impressed. The hall is BIG, I even dare say that on sheer floorspace we're rivalling Salute now, even though the 'feel' of both shows can't be compared in my opinion.
The hall was well lit (technically, it's two halls in one complex, we used about 1.5 of them) and far more airier then the previous venue, and you had ample space to stand still and have a look / chat without being beaten to a pulp of passing by backpacks. The average wargamer stereotype, no need to elaborate on that now don't we.
Perhaps the only, and that is about the only thing the previous venue had over this one was visitor parking space due to being located at a cinema complex, but that did't weight up against benefits like easier access and all. Now I can imagine some people might also point out that the older venue had more outsourced bars and food locations, but this is due to the new location not being well known by non-'natives', me and my group went for a burgerrestaurant (and I'm talking the real deal, not the McDonalds / Quick crap) at only a 5 minute walk towards the MAS museum (the big, modern looking red building outside the hall, right across the entrance to the parking).
So let's have at first a few looks around the new hall:
Now, as you might see, it all looked a bit less crowded then last year, but my gutt feeling and the fact the goodie bags ran out shortly after noon tells me visitors where about on par. Thank the lord for SPACE. Don't change this guys, it's a very, very welcome bonus.
So next off, let's have a few looks on some of the things on hand at the show:
Sheep Games... I wonder if Andy already has found a way to smuggle all the boardgames into his house...
Only to move onwards to the games themselves, now like all my aftermaths, forgive my swiss cheese for brains as I can't remeber names and clubs presenting the games very well, to much eye candy:
All in all a succesful visit, it felt different according to my travelling companions, but it is a big improvement over the whole line.
So that brings us to the traditional closer: the LOOT
* At Black Cat Bases I bought a second hand ziggurat with bull head icons for 10 GBP, that will become a nice centrepiece for my Chaos Dwarf force, and a treasure chest dice box to put all my mimited edition block dice and chaos dwarf dice into, for 5 GBP (total: 18 euros). And of course the free yearly cat, this time a duo of cats actually.
* A bit further perhaps my only impulse buy, a model kit of a Macross Super Valkyrie for 5 euros
* Size 0 brushes, Plastic Putty tube and MiG Wood Weathering Effect at Dax Magic.
* At a german's discount bin, where it was 3 blisters for 10 euros, I digged up a Mantic Abysmal Dwarf King blister and an Orc hero from the Dungeons and Dragons range. Sven grabbed the third blister with a High Reclaimer warcaster for Warmachines Menoth faction
* A great find at the bring and sell; the Storms of Magic book for only 20 euros; still in mint condition. Time to start adding a lot of monster with the scrolls of binding to my forces hehehe.
* The Peter Minuit entry model, who will become part of my Dogs of War contignent for the Chaos Dwarfs. I ultimately ended up with three of them actually, as both Sven and Andy gave me theirs for having no use for him.
A very sober buying streak, I'm finally seem to be learning the grips of those things called 'planned purchases', 'avoiding eye candy shineys', 'don't impulse buy' and 'budget planning by leaving the plastic card at home'.
As a farewell note to this years Crisis, Sven's Black Cat Grey Aliens that participated in the Lead Painter's League two years ago go back to their creators as a gift, all he wanted for them where some dice:
