Salute and Who

[ffutures]

Salute was fun - I'm not convinced the venue is ideal, it's in the arse end of Docklands and is basically an aircraft-hanger sized room with no character whatever; other things going on in the Excel centre included the sign-on for the London Marathon so the trains were packed both ways, but it's certainly big enough and the food and drink were rather more reasonably priced than Olympia. Noise levels were a bit high, and I didn't feel that it was as easy to find things as in previous years, but I suppose that's the sort of thing that will sort itself out if the venue is used again. It'd be a good place to use for a worldcon, it's certainly big enough, but the nearby hotels are expensive and the commute out from central London (about an hour by tube and the Docklands Light Railway) would make things difficult.

Saw a lot of friends - Phil Masters, the guys from Irregular Miniatures and Leisure Games, lots of familiar fannish faces including bugshaw and major_clanger, Alex Stewart, etc. Unfortunately I wasn't feeling particularly wonderful, a touch of the dreaded Eastercon lurgi, so I only got one game - the big Sky Galleons of Mars thing. In which I proved conclusively that it really does pay to remember how the rules for boarding actions work before you start one, because I pretty much lost the game by doing so - if I'd just rammed and fired all guns without boarding I would have probably knocked the big ship out of the sky, as it was I spent a round being battered without being able to fire back, got in one salvo, then took so much damage that the only thing keeping my ship in the air was the ropes securing it to the two other ships that were taking advantage of my immobility to board... at which point the refs decided that everyone aboard my ship was dead (not surprising since it had one point of damage left, all of the boarding party were wiped out, and I'd taken about eight critical hits) and declared the battle over, since my side had lost all of its ships. Not my finest hour as a captain, and if I'd been a bit more compos mentis I think I might have done better, but never mind. Just hope I didn't spoil the game for the other players.

Got home in time to see Dr. Who, about which all I will say is "Wow!" It made up ten times over for last week's rather lacklustre show. Next week Tony Head, Sarah Jane, and K9. Yay!

Comments

[mymatedave.livejournal.com]

An idea for an dw_conspiracy, Di killed by Royal Family to prevent family secret being outed.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Trouble is that there are too many real Princess Di conspiracy theorists out there - I just don't need the aggravation.

[queenortart.livejournal.com]

When I saw you you had your head down in the Sky Galleons game and were concentrating very hard.

On the plus points for me it was 10 mins drive from the Woolwich Ferry which is 10 mins drive from my house. For once I win on the transport front :)