PAW 2011 ....... and stuff!

Hi there all,
Lots going on to report including a 2 day gaming convention so here goes.
Will be inserting images of the weekend all the way through.

PAW 2011

Day 1
For those that dont know about PAW here is thier page to give you a starting idea of what its all about.
PAW 2011
Its a quite large wargames convention in the south west UK. This year was the first time I had been but Im sure now that it wont be the last.

A couple of days before the event we found out that the planned tables wernt going to be ready. PANIC!
Buy luckily my wonderful wife had some time off. After a couple of late nights we had a new fully painted and terrained snow board.
Sat 8AM - PAW is about 1 hour away from us so we needed to head of early. Andrew (club council), Coleen (my wife) and myself sent off after trying to cram all of the gear into the car.
Arrived at the location just before 9AM. The main hall was huge! There were around 12 traders around the edges and the centre had roughly 15-20 game tables. A second hall held 3 large tourneys that would run over both days,
We were placed almost in the middle. This turned out to be a great thing.
Most of the other gaming tables were your usual green. Light, dark, both, but still green.
Right in the middle was a huge great table with a big bright white board on it! This was one of the factors that pulled people in and intreaged them from all over the building. People were even heard talking about it in the overhead canteen. Think we may keep this one!
The layout-
A nice big selection of rules, books, mags and info on both Warmachine and Hordes

And the games-
Khador v Cryx on a ruined battlefield and Legion v Circle on a snowy wasteland

Unfortunatly abit of the snow terrain gained some battle damage and we didnt have the paints to repair with us. But once the games started nobody noticed anyway.
Afew of the traders and other gamers came over right away and the demos began rolling.
Than at 10AM the doors opened to the public. It went mental.
Games, games, books, rules, games and it went on. We totaled just over 30 demos in the first day! Even between 3 people with 2 boards it was still alot.
I tried to catch everyones names and make sure I had time to chat to anyone interested. But at times I just couldnt get around to all of them. Thats where Andy and Col were the best resources I had with me all day.
Time for afew in demo shots I think

Alot of people ended up taking cards for local Privateer suppliers or going over to the Cross Swords trade table that had almost the whole PP range. There were new Battleboxes, Forces books, Prime/Primal books and mini blisers appearing everywhere. I think the interest grew 10 fold from when we started to the end of the day. Exactly what we wanted. More players = more fun for everyone! 5PM came and it was time to go home. All the scenery and books were stored under the table and we headed home to crash out for afew hours

Day 2
Once again we were on the road early. But this time we had some extra toys in the car. Grind and Monsterpocalypse!
Before hand I had been told that the second day would be quieter. It was. But not by much.
Over all we ran over 20 demos on day 2. More interest and more players. And again there were people buying minis and books all day. Cross Swords even ran out of some of the Forces books and Battleboxes!
Went for a bit if a layout change on Sunday. A couple of the kids couldnt quite reach the middle of the boards so we moved them to the table edges and displayed everything else in between.
Added alot more of our own models for display to give peopel a chance to look at the quality and detail of the ranges.
Like this -

The day started to slow down in the last hour or 2. Time to have a game between ourselves and try to drag the few people left over.
Monsterpocalypse ended up being the game of choice seeing Col hadnt played before and wanted to learn.

After that the public had cleared otu and it was time to pack up.
All in all it was amazing. I thought it went really well and I was so lucky to have 2 great people to help me through it. Cant wait for the next convention. (End of April)
The end of the day wasnt the most pretty sight though.
One very tired PressGanger

Shattered Grounds
Its day 1 of SG: Windless Wastes today. The club will be starting properly on Thursday.
The Mercs/Minions are painted and things are being made for the first 2 commendations.
We are running a terrain comp for the Combat Engineer. 2 small or 1 large terrain piece and the best wins 2 yes TWO Factions patches of thier choice.
Outside of the club I have been given a very nice post for the league. Leftennant of the Talion Charter for Mercenaries on the PP forums. Time to stir up some trouble in those 'Factions'
For Boold and Coin! Yaaaarrrrrr!!!!!!!
I will report on the progress from both positions over the next 4 weeks of Windless Wastes.

New Faction Time - Hordes Edition
I have been looking into a couple of Hordes Factions recently. My original plans never really came to and its time to get some new big Beasts on the go. The choices were
Legion - Arch enemy Andy has started them.
Circle - Already 3 armies at the club or
Minions - Blindwater
Picked up Forces of Hordes: Minions at the PAW show and all the bits are in place to get the Blindwater Congregation into the fight. More underdogs to go with my Mercs.
On a (vaugely) related note I found a very nice place about 30 miles from me in North Cornwall

Now I know where they are from. Its not Immoren at all!!!!!!!

Cheers for now then people.
And prepare to bow down to the forces of the Mercenaries for the next 4 weeks!!! ( I hope)