Salute 2023

I managed to get down to Salute with Adrian and Nick (G), then met up with Nick (R) and Evan whilst there, and even bumped into Bob Cordery within a minute of walking in!

Overall it seemed to be a pretty good event. Traders I spoke to seemed happy, and numbers seemed good, although some of my favourite traders weren't there, and there was certainly space for more games, but it meant that show wasn't as overcrowded as in pre-COVID days.

The PMS (pale, male and stale) of the hobby also seems to be a myth, lots of younger (20s/30s) people, reasonable number of women, some kids. This was no doubt due to the ongoing shift/rebalance from historic games to SF&F - both in traders and demo games. One result though was that it seemed to me  that there was no stand-out game or games that made you juts go "wow" - but there were some pretty nice tables, both big and small.

My purchases were limited to things like 8mm cubes, 50mm discs, some retro-SF consoles, 3 old boardgames magasines and some 10mm cows, but that was mainly due to the fact that Nick bought me the 100m WW2 buildings I wanted for my impending Birthday, Adrian did likewise for 10mm modern buildings, and my Mum have me some crisp new notes to pay for some rules (Tree of  Battles - medieval, and O Group) and some books (Henry Hyde's Wargaming Campaigns and a nice original copy of Charles Grant's Battle!).

I didn't take many photos, but here are most of what I took of the games and table I liked.

Star of the show possibly for me in terms of inspiration - War Room by Nightingale Games put on by Adrian's mates from Southbourne Tabletop and Boardgamers - might have to make a trip down to Poole to play it - $290 is just a bit beyond budget!

Rapid Fire Reloaded game from Retired Wargamers Reloaded in 15mm, lots of natural cover - Carentan, June 1944

A lovely "empty table" game, not absolutely sure who from, may have been 2FL/IABSM?

The Friends of General Haig with a Desert Shield game in 15mm, lovely table but not as much clutter as the FoF game below.

A very detailed table from All Hell Let Loose on the Gloucester's last stand at Imjin - although one did wonder what the 2mm figures added - symbols on pins may have been better?

South London Warlords with a great 3D skirmish game set on all sides of a bunch of rotating asteroids - lots of kids enjoying this!

Cornwall Wargames Association with a beautifully stylised inter-war imagin-nations game based on Mark Copplestone's "Little Soldiers"

The slightly different coloured squares produced the ~10cm playing grid - very neat, and loved the boxy curved hills

Another Iraq game, a small but hugely detailed table from Maidstone Wargames Society on Fallujah in 20mm using a stripped down version of Force on Force

Ardhammer Group with some lovely 30mm flats for a 7YW game