Dragonmeet Rundown

Time to tell you how great Dragonmeet was...

 Explaining Tripods to two groups simultaneously, Andy the Balrog takes the Peg boys through a demo game.

This was our first year attending Dragonmeet as Oakbound Games and it was a brilliant experience. Their new venue at Earl's Court seems to have been a massive success as over 1600 people attended over the eight hours the event was running, that's an average of 200 people per hour- and most of them seemed to stop at the Oakbound stall. The stands were really very good value for the size and space and there was ample on-street parking around, despite the arrival of a Christmas Market on the main road nearby.

It was really great to see so many little companies and independent games creators and traders around. In contrast to the Games Expo, where there was lots of independents but most people seemed to be shopping at Leisure Games' discounted stand, it was brilliant to see so many of the little people shifting so much stock and receiving so much attention. We sold out of miniatures and nearly sold all our remaining copies of Tripods, not to mention taking orders on a few more of the limited edition Woods background books.

In the gaming room there was plenty of space, but so many varied games going on, including an enormous Pandemic challenge. Sadly we didn't get to watch much because of being so busy, but being positioned next to the door we were party to a lot of the highs and lows of the attempt to halt the infection! We also got to participate in the splendid peg game...

I finally got round to picking up the Investigator and Keeper's guide for Achtung Cthulhu and am looking forward to studying the Third Reich's interaction with the Old Ones. I also got some bargains off the bring and buy (helped to be dropping off stuff as they came in!) and some very nice pyrogravured (not laser etched!) jewellery for Christmas presents.

The atmosphere of the place was really nice, everybody was very positive and there were, to my knowledge, no issues with harassment or derision.

Thanks and congratulations to the excellent Modiphius Entertainment who organised the day, I'll definitely be returning to Dragonmeet!

Dragonmeet Rundown

Lost in the Oakbound Woods part 4- Preparing for Dragonmeet

It's Dragonmeet at Earl's Court this weekend....

Thought I'd better sort out some nice display for Oakbound Miniatures, enter my almost-nearly-finished terrain!

Of course, this is only some of it... it's a small table after all and Tripods! needs some room too! Today's main task has been sorting the water and foliage. As you can see, the tall one now doubles as a point of sale display for blister packs.

Tree branches take two forms. For the barer trees lower down the slopes I pulled sections of hobby lichen and glued them onto the branches trying to get the stalks aligned for a natural look. Higher up the slopes I used branches pulled from one of those toilet-brush-style model railway trees. These are nylon bristles with flock glued on and give a nice foliage scatter and branch cluster pattern. Don't cut them though as you end up with bits of bare nylon sticking out, pulling them out gives them a more natural look. I used superglue with an accelerator spray to get them to stay in place quickly, fiddly but well worth it.

The water on these sections is clear vinyl glued over the pre-painted and textured riverbed. The ripples were made by painting on fast-drying PVA wood glue and the shine on the banks where the stream is trickling down is made by using super-thin superglue dribbled down them, about 4 layers to build up the shine. The superglue mingles with the wet PVA resulting in the foamy look here, which can be stippled around with a stick or old brush to give a flowing effect.

 



 Hopefully they'll show off the minis well enough to get me some sales! If you're in the London area the show is dead cheap to get into and the gaming lineup looks brilliant, stop by and say hi!

Lost in the Oakbound Woods part 4- Preparing for Dragonmeet