Tabletop Warlords – Salute 2018 – Convention Survival Guide

Aaah Salute. The first con of this year, and the first time that I’ve personally gone along to it. What is it? Salute is a tabletop wargaming convention, featuring various companies selling miniatures, paints, and tabletop accessories, and/or giving live demos of the new games that they have coming up, based at Excel London.

Now, before going really into the details, I have to say that this was so much fun, and if anyone has any interest in tabletop wargaming, you definitely need to attend! Like, definitely. There’s all your usual expected vendors, Games Workshop, Warlord Games, Forgeworld, but you also get some of the more abstract ones too, like Bad Squiddo Games, and they cover all sorts of varied games.

So the details! We (me and Nathan) arrived (late, but that’s a standard), tickets were scanned, and a bag of goodies handed over at the door. Not a single eyelid was batted at the camera rig we had with us, which we thought was strange, but I guess we weren’t the weirdest thing they’d seen that day. Goodies included a mini, a die, a programme of sorts for the day, and some advertising for some of the vendors there. Pretty good mix of things!

So, first we had to find a person, so arranged a meeting spot and picked up Swin. Got some nice panning videos of the WWII tank that Salute had transported in, that was pretty damn cool. I knew tanks were big, but I didn’t fully appreciate the actual size until then (and Swin pointed out that it was actually not long enough, so there’s that!). From there, we had a bit of a wander, spoke to a couple of vendors, and got some good deals on things with them.

This led us to our first demo game of the day: Blood Red Skies. It’s an upcoming tabletop wargame, published by Warlord Games, and it’s essentially a dogfight simulator. You both get a few planes a side, and you try to outmanoeuvre each other for the best positions. It has some very interesting mechanics in play, and the game was greatly enjoyed. What then made it better is that we got to speak to the designer of the game, Andy Chambers! And there’s more to come! Definitely worth purchasing and playing, in my opinion. 

From there, it was a bit more wandering, some more purchases, and a quick bite to eat for lunch, before back into the fray! Paid a visit to Bexley Reapers after lunch, and they had the most meta tabletop scenery out of everyone there. They built a miniature version of Salute, and were giving live demos of their game on it. Pretty sweet!

We came across (accidentally; we were looking for another stand all together) a cool stand of “miniatures” (they weren’t really all that mini…), by the company Mierce Miniatures. Now, these minis were super detailed, super big, and fairly pricey. They were on at a sizeable discount, and there were still more than a few costing £96. However, from what I saw, I would say they are entirely worth it. They’ve all been sculpted, so a lot of time has gone into those details, and they are absolutely gorgeous. I’m definitely going to check out their website at a later date!

Finally, we came to the big aim of the day: Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, the new Fallout tabletop skirmish war game/RPG from Modiphius Entertainment. It’s a bit of an odd one in what it can be classified, as there is more than one way to play it. We got to test out the skirmish style, and came to the conclusion that power armour is incredibly powerful, and true to the game! The power armour guy did most of the damage during the game. Greatly enjoyed that, and looking forward to the arrival of Swin’s copy later this year. The experience was only improved by, again, getting to talk to the designer, Chris Birch!

By this point, the three of us were knackered. It was time to collect one of our earlier purchases (it was a KR wheeled case. It’s absolutely huge), and head back home for some dinner, beer, and well earned rest. Until 2019 Salute! We’re coming for you again! 

Liam Purkiss – FURN Gaming

Follow FURN’s D&D Adventures on Twitter and YouTube