The Salute experience never really changes. We arrived around 10.45am, by which time the queues had all gone but we were still in time for bags with the free Hannibal plastic figure. It was very busy - the best time to look around is after midday when it thins out for lunch. We had a good lunch at the tapas restaurant outside the Excel Centre, but I realised that going back in after a relatively leisurely (and, in my case, 2 beers) lunch can be a mistake - by 2.30pm we were all starting to flag. With all shopping done by 2.50pm we left shortly thereafter. As noted in previous reports, I would have stayed much longer if I'd been by myself; but it's always worth taking the boys along. Monty shocked me by announcing that he'd seen Pokemon cards for sale - and, sure enough, there were a couple of traders who sold them. These traders were, of course, at the more "fantasy" end of the hobby, and one of them said to me that they wouldn't have bothered with Pokemon cards 5 years ago, but now it seemed a natural fit for the show. Monty was delighted with the "very rare" boxed set he picked up for £50. Salute usually coincides with my birthday, so I pushed the boat out a bit in terms of shopping - lots of Foundry paints, some rules and books from Helion and Caliver, a Wargames Illustrated sub (which I'd let lapse), Crooked Dice's new King Kong figure (see photo below), pretty much everything on my Perry list from Dave Thomas, and a load of Artmaster brushes (I barely use anything else nowadays - these are superb). I'll talk about the Perry purchase in a couple of days when I do a blog catch-up. Basically, over the past few months I've been working through my lead-pile by period and this has resulted in a number of half-finished units; so I needed a lot of random packs to deal with these.
Overall impressions? Another solid year, I thought. The mix of games seems to have settled down to: a handful of large, 25mm/20mm historical "mega-games", with WW2 being the clear favourite; a larger number of mid-size historical games; a majority of 4x4-ish skirmish games of all periods and genres; and then "advert" games, some of which don't seem to have changed much since pre-Covid. As always, the terrain is what makes games stand out. The Pokemon story illustrates how the show has broadened out to encompass pretty much anything you might consider a "game". Personally, I think that's probably a good thing, and my boys have certainly appreciated it; I know others might disagree. The shopping experience remains excellent - the only people I noticed were missing were Tablescape, who I sadly see have ceased trading, and the Perries (so no 3-up reveals etc). All the traders seemed very busy; you could barely move in the Caliver and Helion stands. The lady at Helion said that the "Gaslands" rulebook was their bestseller (see the amazing futuristic Gaslands game below).
Anyway, here are my photos (which I appreciate are a bit analogue now, given the preponderance of videos of the show), in no particular order. As always, apologies to those who I missed and whose games I can't now identify. Some of the larger games were so busy it was difficult to take many photos, but I did my best! Many thanks to the Warlords, their president Martin, and everyone who put in so much effort to make this such an enjoyable day.
The Continental Ward Society had a wonderful Franco-Prussian War games in 28mm, "The Combat at Le Bourget":
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