This past Saturday I decided to make my first trip to the Bournemouth International Centre, Dorset, in order to attend the "exciting tabletop games event" known as “Beachhead”. To be honest my expectations weren't particularly high for this show, as despite being in its fourth year, there was no Bring & Buy sale and its single hall only boasted approximately thirty industry trade stands; which is less than half the number present at "Warfare" 2018.
Fortunately however, one of the first vendors I stumbled upon was Dave Stone of "Wargames Terrain Workshop" fame and he was soon showing off his stunning "selection of warrior animals based on the Chinese Zodiac" to me. The range currently consists of ten different sculpts, with the largest model, the Zodiac Ox, quickly catching both my attention and imagination due to its formidable size and pugilistic pose.
Indeed, I quickly ensured Dave had one put by behind his till for me to collect later, and then spent a brief while picking up a few of his smaller pieces to tackle the giant bovine boxer in hand-to-hand combat. Ultimately, I went with a Rooster, Goat, Monkey and rabbit, and have subsequently set to work priming the plucky bird and billy goat gruff. These miniatures really are quite incredible to behold in the flesh and seem especially sturdy due to them miraculously containing a wire skeleton deep inside the resin...
"Great Escape Games" also soon caught my eye with their increasingly tempting "Dead Man's Hand" range of Wild West figures, and I have little doubt that the next time I see this characterful range I will be picking up a few of its "Down Under" and "The Curse Of Dead Man's Hand" miniatures. On this occasion though I was able to resist due to succumbing to a quite reasonable sale of old "Knight Models" at a nearby stall.
I actually own a fair few sculpts for The "Batman Miniature Game", yet quite quickly fell 'out of love' with the range due the difficulty I experienced trying to assemble its fiddly metal miniatures. In addition, as I already own a vast array of "Wizkids" plastic models, it has always seemed a bit silly to invest heavily in a second set of super-hero related figures. Having said that, it was arguably impossible to resist the likes for Black Manta, Doctor Fate, Black Mask and his Crew, Hawkman, and Black Adam for just a fiver each.
Interestingly, by far my favourite 'pick' from Bournemouth actually came in the form of a birthday gift from my eldest rather than anything I bought from "Beachhead". A whopping box of "Heroclix" miniatures, including a few members of the Enforcers, usually means an evening being spent chopping figures off from their clicky-bases and readying them for a re-paint. But this time round I'm tempted to keep some of these models intact, and try to get my head around the collectible miniatures game's rule-set once again...