Salute - Battle of Ayacucho 1824

This weekend it was the first time I was able to visit the Salute in London. After some problems with the flight which we were able to master and several beers in the evening on Friday we had an early breakfast and then went to the Salute.

Knowing the German figure fairs the huge hall and the hundreds if not thousands of visitors in front of the doors was a very impressing sight to me.

Ok, through the door and on to the first stand which was a bookshop. 15 minutes later I had 50 pounds less but 8 books more in the collection:-) And so went the day on. At the end I broke nearly down because of all the weight I had to bear...

Beside the shop there were several dioramas and wargames on display. Of course most of them 28mm. But to my great delight some 1/72 too.

My absolute favorite was the battle of Ayacucho in Peru 1824, shown by The South London Warlords.
Bolivar fought here the Spanish in the South American wars of independence. All the figures on the diorama were HAT and Italeri with a few old Airfix and some Falcata. Some Zvezda and Strelets mixed between them too and a lot of great conversions.

The guys there did the battle in numbers of 1:10. Well, maybe I will be able to show it (or another from the same war) in 1:1 as the armies were not bigger than 3000 men. But enough talk, here are the photos I made there.

 Not sure, but could be the Granadros de la Guardia

These unit I always wanted to paint myself. Guardia Honour in their colourful uniform!

 While the Spanish regulars had blue and white uniforms with some other colours of the colonial Realistas, here we have Bolivars regulars from the good old Airfix range.

 Husares de Colombia

Again regulars from the army which became later Venezuela, Columbia and Bolivia

And what I will go for sure (wasn't available at the Salute) are the books from Grenadier productions.

Finally talking about South American history, I came over the brand new book from Caliver press "Sabrs across the Pampa". The Argentinian Indian wars. Well with 47 Pounds very pricy for just 175 pages. But with 24 colour-plates each of three figures and more photos from paintings etc. I think a fair price for such an unusual subject - and you know I am always after the lesser known campaigns!!!!