Falkirk Carronade Run Down

Hello Folks,

As many of you will know I was at Scotland's biggest Wargames Convention called Falkirk Carronade, run by Falkirk Wargames Club. Here is a link to their website: Falkirk Wargames Club. Just a fore warning I forget to take my camera so unfortunately I have no pictures of the event, however if you go to the link within the next week to two weeks there should be a bit on Carronade 2013 with pictures of some of the fantastic display games.

Anyway, the day started early for me, with having to get up to Falkirk for 10am. Trust me that was a shock to my body. I made sure I had all my money and did some last minute checks on my competition entry before securely storing it away in it's box for transport. The roads were really bad going up to Falkirk, with about an inch of surface water from all the rain, well that's what my Dad said anyway! We arrived in plenty of time. The usual crew were there to meet and greet everyone, giving you a warm welcome and the pamphlet for the day. The pamphlet had the layout of the convention on the front and detailed positioning of tables and stalls on the back. Like so:

This was the back, there was a page next to this one that had all the clubs and stalls behind those G's and T's.

When we arrived my Dad and I had to pick up some figures from Gripping Beast in Hall number 1, table T12. For those of you unfamiliar with Gripping Beast they sell WW1 &WW2 models and Dark Age/ Medieval models for a game call Saga which is set during that time period. I might do a we battle report on that soon. After we picked up our order and packed it into the car, we headed for some much needed elevenses. We had a massive choice of bacon and a roll or a roll and bacon. He decided to have the roll and bacon. After our tummies were indulged and dealt with. I headed up to the Upstairs Hall A to hand in my competition entry and take a quick first glance at the bring and buy. There wasn't really much there that  I was looking for. Oh I almost forgot to tell you my shopping list. "Please don't bore us" say the readers. Oh shush you'll survive. I was mainly looking for some good deals on the new Tau models and some new paints for my Tau commission. Surprisingly even though the Tau have been recently released there weren't many Tau models to be seen. But more on that at the end.

As many of you know going to a convention isn't just about the hobby, you will more or less likely bump into someone you know or haven't seen for a while. I wandered aimlessly around the halls just trying to take the sheer scale of it all in. There were so many different scales and time periods being played beside each other. You would go from 54mm American Civil War to 25mm Medieval period skirmishes. It almost made your head hurt trying to get around it all. I spent most of my time looking at the fantastic terrain that was on the display games tables. I couldn't believe just how creative our hobby is getting, some people just have amazingly creative minds. I highly recommend looking at the website of Falkirk just to see the terrain, it was spectacular. Anyway, I'm side tracking. After perusing for most of the morning sniffing out all the deals. I had some lunch and headed off to spend, spend, spend! Instead of listing off everything over about 3 paragraphs I'll just some it up with where, who, what and how much.

• Broadside New Type, Static Games, Hall 3, £24
• Battlesuit Team, MinMax Games, Hall 3, £36
• Vespids Metal, Bring & Buy (Flea market), Hall 4, £12
• New Pathfinders, Hawk Wargames, Hall 3, £16
• XV25 Stealth team, Bring and Buy, Hall 4, £8
• GW paints 5 for £9.50, Hawk Wargames
• And some other Saga stuff which I can't remember who or where I got it from, and no it wasn't Gripping Beast

All in all I saved £45 with my purchases from the vendor discounts at the convention. My painting competition was going to be judged at 3pm and I had finished shopping at about half two. I put my stuff in the car and headed up to the hall where my model was. There are six categories in the competition, Single Historical Figure, Historical Unit, Single Fantasy Figure, Fantasy Unit, Fighting Vehicle, Club members models and the Junior Competition. I was in the Junior one since I was just on the age cap of 16. There were actually  quite a few in the Junior category, but as always the adult one was busy and full of amazing painting talent. There were 5 entries in my category with 3 painters. Me with my Haranobu, another guy the same age as me with a Chaos terminator approaching a guardsman impaled with a banner, a nice conversion I might add to. And last years winner with 3 entries, mounted Saruman, Guardsman walker and a group of Epic 40k marines. Again I'm sorry that I have no pictures but check the Falkirk site soon to check for photos. The competition is judged by neutral professional painters so that no one gets upset and calls for corruption. So at 3pm on the dot the results were in and well here was the result:

 

 

Yes that's right I won! I couldn't believe my eyes at first, no seriously, the way the trophy was positioned it looked as if the Epic 40k marines had one. I had to awkwardly ask the guy "who won in this category?" and then go oh that's me by the way. It was quite an anxious and an awkward moment, even why I tried to explain it to the guy. I also was told that my figure got a lot of praise from the professionals, my head was so big that I could hardly fit through the door to get out! Just kidding.

 

So what was my prize I hear you ask? Well I got £20 and a goody bag with paints, brushes and some magnetic strips for bases. This was a big susprise as I didn't really expect to get anything. Anyway that was my day at Falkirk Carronade. I hope you enjoyed this post. Give me some feedback if it was too long or needed more pictures. There is another big convention on in the beginning of June, hopefully I'll remember my camera! So until next time bye for now!