I'm back.....
In many ways the outing to Salute felt like the emergence from Winter Quarters. Its not been a very harsh winter in terms of snow and ice but does seem to have been very long, cold grey and wet.
Unfortunately no walkthrough from Joe Dever this year.
But someone steps into the breach...
Overall – my usual
feelings that if this is the flagship wargames event then couldn’t it somewhow
be better ? Better lighting, more
participation games, less of the whole shopping scrum aspect (so that the games
would be better) and generally more “inviting”.
But, it is what it is,
and I’ll carry on with my view that the Partizan’s if not the biggest shows in
the UK are to me the nicest….
Returning to Salute
2014. Once again made the decision to get the later
train (7.50 out, arrive London 10.15 ish, so I get to the show about 11.15 – I
might as well get some beauty sleep than expend it just to be able to have the privelige
of standing around in a long queue.
Almost came a cropper this year though – took longer to get to the show
than expected once in London, and being hungry I made the decision to have a
Bagel pre show entry to fortify myself.
So, I wasn’t actually claiming my goodie bag until 11.45 and the first
one I had had no free figure !!! I
was told that they were basically on the last of the bags, and were close to
running out of the ones with free figures in (5,000 made) and all would get
would be the dice and catalogue etc…
The only likely “limited
edition” thing that was on my list were the VBCW dice from EM4 miniatures
although stand TE04 had a misprint in the catalogue and I struggled to find it
on my first couple of attempts and then scurried off to meet friends from the
South East who had of course got into the show much earlier. Given that one was a Salute Virgin
though they were doing the walk around and as I caught up with them at 12.00
had just finished the outer ring. I
secured the dice later on.
Quite often a number
of the games at Salute have the same theme (not necessarily tied in with the
actual show theme), and perhaps therefore reflect the current trends in the
hobby. This year then I would say
that theme was “Steampunk”. First up is the Oshiro Martian game which I believe won best demonstration game of the show.
In her Majesty's Name (the Osprey rules) were being played and I took this photo for the clever use of the warehouses as the backdrop to the gaming board. On the Oshiro game they would hold a picture of the martian landscale to provide a nice backdrop for photos.
Finally Empire of the Dead (EOTD) had a game from the manufacturer Westwind Productions. My photos of this came out relatively poorly.
The theme was operation overlord and there was a visually stunning game of this on a long table. I couldn't help but feel thought that this was once again diorama vs game. Given the recent releases though of two books of pictures of big games then perhaps I'm not in touch with the market.
The expected traders were there and it would be harsh to single them out - Gripping Beast were demonstrating SAGA and Juglia (alhtough I don't remember seeing Muskets and Tomahawks) and Rob Broom was there with War and Conquest.
Finally the picture of the Salute Loot......
The shop fest
Black Hat Miniarutes –
Japanese Temple Guardian and 3 packs of 3 peasant spearmen
Oshiro Model Terran – Japanese
Lanterns and large graves. Some
clear plastic bases to go with the railway stuff.
Dead Man’s Hand –
rules
Juglia – rules
Rendedra – tents and
some fencing
Litko – explosion
markers. Originally to be used for
Bolt Action pin markers, after watching a game then I think I’ll be using
dice.
Kaiser Rushforth box
cum dice tray – because I feel I need one.
Some mdf bases from
Products for Wargamers
Various FIW figures
from Redoubt - more on these later as they include some excellent civilians from the Body's bits range rather than the FIW proper.
