Another year and another Salute. The largest wargames show in the UK and one I pretty much make sure I attend every year, as April is my birthday month. However this year for some reason I cant quite explain, I wasn't really feeling it.
Things were not made much better on arrival at the Excel centre in London, to see an officious florescent vest wearing minion, you smugly told us that parking was only for the pre-booked? and oh I suppose you dont know eh? well of you go down the road and you might get parked near the rowing club! now fortunately I didn't have the same altercation as my friend Ray, see his blog post here. Well no where on South London Warlords or Excels site was anything mentioned about the parking issues. Anyway finally got parked, did the 15 minute walk over to Excel and joined the maddening hordes in the queue. We all know the queue, but this year did seem to go a lot more smoothly.
As for the show. I believe over 7000 attended this year. The morning seemed very busy but it tailed of in the afternoon and the hall felt a lot more spacious as there seemed to be a lack of traders and the games were the usual mix of clubs who put great games on but didn't want to interact with the public to very small, niche demo games with great enthusiastic demonstrators.
I didn't have a big shopping list this time round and had already pre-ordered some stuff to collect and didn't get to play many games as nothing was really gripping me. However I played a fantastic game of Hairfoot Jousting, which was Halflings riding animals jousting in an arena. A fabulously hilariously fun game!
As mentioned I wasn't really feeling it this year, so the show for me was a bit lackluster - however I had a lovely day catching up with friends new and old, bloggers, gamers and people in the industry I've know for ages.
Some of my favourite people are Michael and Jo at Oathsworn Miniatures, Karl and Anna at Crooked Dice Miniatures, Wayne at Tangent Miniatures and Alex and his family at Warp miniatures amongst others.
Some of the Games
My Friends
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| Gordon GCT Studios |
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| Ray, Me, Lee |
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Michael Oathsworn Miniatures
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| Jo Oathsworn Miniatures |
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| Duncan Rhodes |
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| Michael and Alan Perry |
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| Wayne Tangent Miniatures |
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| Karl and Anna Crooked Dice |
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| Wendy West Wind Productions |
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| Richard Clarke Two Fat Lardies |
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| Me, Lee, Ray |
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| Wing, Dawn, Rob and Alex Warp Miniatures |
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| The Blog Squad |
The Obligatory Swag pic
Not a lot of loot this year, picked up the new Second Edition Burrows and Badgers rulebook, more Visitor miniatures from Crooked Dice miniatures, Paved bases from Renedra for Guards of Traitors Toll as well as a few 3D prints and other miniatures for the same game.
