Wednesday 24 April 2013

ZBA at Salute.

The Bloggers Meet!
This will be my last Salute post, at least this year. (Well probably, at least no more planned.) The Bloggers meet has been detailed on several other sites so I won't dwell on it to much I will say it was nice to see the faces behind the blogs. And that I would like to have spoken to more of them. What you may not know is there was a meeting within a meeting. The ZBA (Zombie Bloggers Association) was also in attendance. I am sure there were other sub sets within the Venn Diagram of bloggers and If so they will no doubt be covered on there respective blogs. The ZBA (link on the right hand side of my blog, click the picture/logo to go to the forum ) is a group of wargames bloggers with an active interest in Zombie Apocalypse games. A Niche hobby within a niche hobby. Such is the way within hobbies. Eventually coming to the point, other than my self there was Mathyoo (from Slovenia) and Dave from London. Both really decent guys and we spent a lot of the afternoon together walking round and looking at the show.

Dave was kind enough to take a photo of Mathyoo and myself with "Misty" the zombie hunter. I did not know at the time that Mathyoo was being attacked at the time. "Misty" is a character from Crooked Dice Games 7ombie TV game just in case anyone did not know and was wondering why I was next to a schoolgirl. There is a miniature of her as well should anyone want one. If there was a variety of figures enough to make a whole hockey team I would buy them.

Crooked dice ran the only dedicated Zombie game at the show as well. Another was listed but had been replaced with a Planet of the Apes Game. A nice looking game but living dead it was not.
The Crooked Dice game was a small 2 foot square participation game designed to introduce the rules to new players. But I shall have a word with Karl and see if he'd run it at the club sometime. Given that people were playing constantly all day and the size of the board taking pictures over there shoulder would have been intrusive. Which is my explanation for the strange angle of the game.

There was 1 other known ZBA member at the show Colin but he did not make the meeting, so maybe next year. Simon should make it next year as well but time will tell.

The most important thing I will talk about today is the lessons I have learnt from this Years Salute show.
  • Many games did not have any signage to detail who they were or give the game a title.
  • I took too many random Game photographs and should have concentrated on just a couple of games and tried to do them justice.
  • I should get some form of bloggers ID, maybe a tee shirt with my name/blog name on it. If all bloggers done so we could at least recognise each other. I am not talking about funny handshakes either.
  • 1000's of hours went into some games while others had a very game club feel to them. I know that making and painting is not everyone's forte and that you should play to your strengths but I did find the more club games a little disappointing at a show of Salutes properties..
  • I should buy an ticket before the show in an attempt to cue bust if only a little.
That's it for today I have had a weeks break from painting, but I should have something ready for Friday. So until then take care and have a good couple of days. Cheers Clint

14 comments:

  1. I love the photo of Mathyoo, Misty, you and Mathyoo's zombie friend. Misty was the very first figure that I bought from Crooked Dice. She has joined my cast of St. Trinian's schoolgirls. I'm not too bothered about missing the show but I would have loved to meet up with the zombie bloggers. Perhaps another year?

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    1. Planning to meet again next year, it would be Fab to have you involved.

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  2. Replies
    1. I do try to learn things from my endeavours I usually don't remember them so much a week later.

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  3. It was obviously a good meet-up, just wish I could have attended.
    There were some truly excellent games there (from what I've seen photo-wise) but there seemed to be a lot of so-so ones too.
    The historic versus steapunk/monster/robot non-historic fantasy type games seemed to be about even in both quality and quantity and I noticed a lot more off-the-shelf scenery in evidence than I would have thought would be there.
    I don't think Q-buster tickets worked as intended from the first Salute they were introduced.

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    1. Q Busters don't get you in so much earlier, but I do think they will make some difference.
      Equally obviously we would love to have had you there as well.

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  4. It would have been nice to stay and chat longer to more people at the Blogger/ZBA gathering but that hour just shot past in a blur. I met a couple of new* people but didn't get round everyone before the time was up.

    (* 'new' as in not met before, but known for years in the Bloggersphere)

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    1. I concentrated on the ZBA bloggers, but I agree it would be nice to meet a few more "Regular" Bloggers.

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  5. I've been to a few shows, when I had vacations/ lived near the venue!
    My last time was with two of my girls at Chicago Gamesday. The speed painting, paint and take, build and take, and other fun hobby stuff was a hit with them and a few games they played. I mostly carted our purchases and assisted them when needed, the latter not much at all!
    Although it's been awhile, I recall shortage of time and money. But the heady fun of gloating over the loot and reviewing the day in stories and photos, made the exhausting day time well spent!

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    1. Thanks David the Gloating over the goodies is good). And the chats about who was met and putting names, faces and blogs together is all part of the debrief! And as you say it's time well spent.

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  6. I'm looking forward to coming next year. Monies are being put away bit by bit for it :D

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  7. The meet up sounded like it was fun and I agree about the bloggers Id idea, I think tshirts or polo tops with the blogger address or name on the back or something, this would work well.

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    1. I'm designing mine at the moment, I want a "stand out" colour, that is clearly identifiable, and yet that you can read the addy on and still looks good.

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