Claymore 2012

Yesterday was Claymore 2012 day in Edinburgh. A fine day out usually, and this year was no exception, with the weather absolutely glorious through in the east of the country all day and lots to see and play at the event made it an enjoyable day for all. Well maybe not all, as the traders and clubs stationed in the Atrium had to endure crippling temperatures for most of the day as the sun beat down on the glazing above made the area absolutely stifling ( but good light to see the stands and games) but unpleasant to have to work in the place.

The air conditioning was on in the area, but the placing of the stands meant that just a foot away into the circulation space round about was pleasantly cool, tantalisingly close.

All in all a grand day out with only the usual grips and moans that come with old age; the b&b I thought particularly poor, which I think many agreed with me, as generally there wasn't the usual hordes and it was pretty easy to see the goods on offer rather than the standard push and shove. Maybe all the good stuff had gone at opening time. The other perhaps more pertinent gripe is the grub, which was the usual council style fair and I know this is something the organisers can't do anything about but more a rant at the state of the nation where the caterers do everything to a cost and aren't allowed to sell cheese for a burger due to health & safety regulations. Hurrumph.

And on to the photo's;

A pretty good selection of games were on offer as you can see from the foregoing, plus quite a few others including Urban Mammoths Urban War who's Marc Smith had a lengthy chat on the future of Urban War 2nd Edition and new range of figures soon to be released and several small scale PPG's all of which looked to be well attended.

I'm pretty sure SESWC had another successful day, although my impression was that the numbers were down on last year though not certain, possibly the too good weather being the cause of that, but still pretty well attended.

The one impression I did get which is perhaps a little bit worrying was on the traders front. Although there were the usual numbers of traders with a couple of new names to the event (which means someone else has dropped off) the traders did not seem to have a great deal of stock. Again this was a general impression only with a couple of traders admitting that it was near the end of the season and didn't want to stock up, there was also the other end of the scale with a couple of the bigger names having lot's of lead and other goodies to sell. There just did not seem to be the variety, or indeed the quantity of products compared to previous years.

That said, I did manage to pick up most of my shopping list (plus a couple of other unplanned goodies) in the form of several bits and bobs from Warbases including some of their MDF modular buildings which are very good value for money and should soon be formed into Italian Wars period structures, a couple of blisters of Copplestone White Russian cavalry, a couple of Artizan Andalusians blisters, some Foundry paints to try, a pile of terrain type additions from Mutineer Miniatures and Coritaniand the latest couple of issues of Medieval Warfare magazine from Caliver books (to save the postage) so happy enough with my haul.

I assume some part of the recession is beginning to bite into the stock that traders can keep and transport too plus there's always the '..if I'd known you were looking for that I'd have brought it up with me..' syndrome which I know caught out a couple of folks, so the morale there is to let the traders know before hand if your expecting to get something particular from them, otherwise they're only human and may not bring that particular selection.

Well done to the FDWC crew that put on the WWI Russian vs German game which definitely looked good on the day and picked up a fair bit of interest, and congrats to David Imrie (Saxon Dog) who I'm led to believe picked up the Best in Show for his very pretty Otterburn game with it's scratch built terrain, which you can see above is rather nice.

Anyway, a good day out once again, and I'll be there next year looking to have something else to moan about whilst having an enjoyable day 'oot.