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Those Armoured Clash models remind me of Mortal Engines's predator cities.

OnTableTop have lots of actually useful videos beyond "boomer takes selfies next to cool dioramas"

https://www.youtube.com/@OnTableTop/videos

Thanks for the pics, always nice to see some of those tables, good stuff.

Thank you guys for the reports, links, images and videos. Much appreciated feedback and does give a good look into what was there this year.

Part 1 of my trip! Lots of photos!

https://warminiatures.wordpress.com/2024/04/14/salute-2024-part-1-games-on-show/

Some of the best table photos I have seen there Overread - thanks for posting!

Reminded me as well about that Martian cloudships game, which was probably the highlight of the demo tables for me.

Yes I would like to know more about Space 1889

Is Salute the biggest Wargaming convention in the U.K.?

It seems heavily weighted towards historical models and wargaming, which I respect but am not into myself, with a bit of science fiction on the side.

Are there other comparably large U.K. conventions more weighted towards Sci Fi and fantasy without being Games Workshop-run, Games Workshop-only events? Or do those tend to be smaller, more niche conventions?

I'm curious if there's one convention in particular that would be worth crossing the pond for some day.

Salute is not really a convention in the sense of something like Adepticon or Gen-Con. It's a single day event, 10am to 5pm, and consists of the trade stands and demonstration games (some of which are for participation, some of which are really more like big dioramas). There's no organised play events, no tournaments or anything like that. There is a painting competition, and in the last couple of years they have introduced some panels etc. It's by far the biggest show of it's kind in the UK. It's pretty much exclusively focused on miniature wargames, although it covers both historical and sci-fi/fantasy.

The largest multi-day convention is the UK Games Expo in June which is much more similar to something like Gen-Con, with a wider emphasis on tabletop gaming as a whole - board games, RPGs, miniatures, card games etc. That does have organised play such as tournaments, and RPG sessions as well as huge trade hall, panels, geek related comedy shows, playtest workshops etc.

Slightly later than planned: Part 2 - the Highlights
https://warminiatures.wordpress.com/2024/04/16/salute-2024-part-2-highlights/


Also note there's a LOT more of the fantasy/scifi stuff being shown off in this post

Is that terrain on the Space 1889 board available through retail?

That Rampart tank is ringing all my 'what-the-heck' bells! lol

Otherwise the terrain is awesome and the Twilight world game does remind me of Starfield in a good way.

I had a good time, got to meet a couple of people that I only knew through Instagram and threw my hat into the painting comp. Didn't win anything but I did enter the Two Thin Coats 45 minute speed painting competition, judged by Duncan himself. Won myself a selection of the paint range for my troubles.



Not a brilliant paint job, but only so much can be done in the time frame.

I got some nice minis from Black Scorpion and Cerberus Studios, as well as a 3D printed BB Star Player from Beowulf

Ahh nice! I don't know if it was Duncan's or another but I certainly heard the time-whilst on painting going all day long

That Tudor boats game was lovely to look at. Sadly I had about 30 seconds a table in my free time so the wander round was very quick!

We won the best 6mm game, by virtue of there not being any 6mm games so it became small scale trophy

My friend, Psysquig Painting (check him out on Instagram) made the first cut in two categories, which for his first competition is impressive!

He was also positive about the overall organisation and lay out. Whilst the games and vendor stands were understandably busy, there was otherwise lots of space. As a fellow person that doesn’t like people, he found it perfectly tolerable.

I may get some photos up somewhere at some point. It was my first Salute, and while I wouldn't say it was anything to die for, it was work the small ticket price and a couple hour train journey into London. I get why travel might not be worth it to some, but being in London the trick is just to tie it into something else at the same time. I made the mistake of beelining it straight to the Archon stand and making some purchases, which meant I spent the rest of it with a rather large bag if stuff. In retrospect should have wandered around the smaller stalls first then bought my terrain, but live and learn. Will likely go back next year, and am hoping the Perry's will make a return as they've taken the last couple off. (Though if interested in purchases several retailers had their plastics and someone had quite the selection of their metal ranges.)

 Dawnbringer wrote:
I may get some photos up somewhere at some point. It was my first Salute, and while I wouldn't say it was anything to die for, it was work the small ticket price and a couple hour train journey into London. I get why travel might not be worth it to some, but being in London the trick is just to tie it into something else at the same time. I made the mistake of beelining it straight to the Archon stand and making some purchases, which meant I spent the rest of it with a rather large bag if stuff. In retrospect should have wandered around the smaller stalls first then bought my terrain, but live and learn. Will likely go back next year, and am hoping the Perry's will make a return as they've taken the last couple off. (Though if interested in purchases several retailers had their plastics and someone had quite the selection of their metal ranges.)

I think there's two approaches
1) Get a shopping list before you go and charge right for those stalls at the start to get stuff early whilst you know its there. This has the bonus of being potentially faster so its ideal if you don't want ot spend the whole day there.

2) Don't take a shopping list and wander around and get a look at everything then make some choices. This will be slower and has a chance that some rarer items might sell out before you come around again; however if you want to make a day of it then its an ideal approach.


I took the latter approach and did a lot of wandering and "windowshopping" at the stalls. Even flitting back and forth between a few of them. Honestly stock levels on most places were pretty good even in the latter part of the day when I did most of my shopping. Plus at an event like this whilst there are some event-only deals; a lot of the stuff is stuff you can order after. So you can always take notes if you see a new firm or brand you want to invest into later or if they run out of what you want etc...

Genuine question, around here con stalls just carry full price items that I could get discounted online whenever I wanted, are UK and US cons different or why bother shopping?

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Genuine question, around here con stalls just carry full price items that I could get discounted online whenever I wanted, are UK and US cons different or why bother shopping?

It varies.
Some stalls were selling event only discounts that were not present online; some had discounts on both and some didn't have any discounts*. Exclusive models have steadily shifted more and more toward being sold online and at conventions, though there's a few (like the convention model itself) that are often only sold at the event itself.


So if you're discount hunting you likely want a shopping list and to research (ask around) and see if the stores you're going to buy from are running event exclusive discounts or not. Otherwise it can be cheaper to stay home and just buy online



That said I think that's only part of the battle. I think the real value of a convention is getting to see and even handle products in person and that makes a big difference. I said in my blog post that chances are if I saw the Twlight models in photos online only I wouldn't have been all that interested in them. It was seeing them in person that changed my impression. Plus it made me notice them; they and a few others are firms I'd never heard of online - smaller firms or niche ones that aren't in the mainstream youtube/influencer videos and such. So their stuff isn't pushed hard like GW or other bigger brands.



That's where some regular convention attenders were starting to worry in the pre-salute thread about fewer smaller time designers attending; because once you lose them attending the big events, the event itself starts to lose interest for many. All the big names you can find discounts and product online easily and you're already sold on it or its already easily marketed toward you to pick it up. It's the smaller names that can sometimes be the biggest interest to just see what else is out there.


*there are also a few who you can negotiate a better deal at the end of the day if you ask around. Typically its the "We don't want to take it home" kind of situation where it becomes more important for the seller to shift stock and when there's 30-10mins left they've not the time to know they'll get many more sales.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
I had a good time, got to meet a couple of people that I only knew through Instagram and threw my hat into the painting comp. Didn't win anything but I did enter the Two Thin Coats 45 minute speed painting competition, judged by Duncan himself. Won myself a selection of the paint range for my troubles.



Not a brilliant paint job, but only so much can be done in the time frame.

I got some nice minis from Black Scorpion and Cerberus Studios, as well as a 3D printed BB Star Player from Beowulf

Nice work on the painting competition! Very cool for 45 mins.

Did you get any of the new Foot Knights from Black Scorpion? They look amazing.

Cheers!

I did indeed pick up some of the new knights! I made a line for their stand and got one set plus the commander, and a goblin on tortoise.

The knights are just stunning minis. Not sure what to do with them but maybe a diorama or something? Who knows.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Genuine question, around here con stalls just carry full price items that I could get discounted online whenever I wanted, are UK and US cons different or why bother shopping?

In the past it's been quite poor but I thought this year was better and noticed quite a few stalls doing show-only offers.
You also had some doing pre-release stuff (the Fallout TV show characters from Modiphius etc, which I think were for sale there before elsewhere).

I was able to get a really good discount on some TT Combat terrain (about 33% on an already cheap set) and also the Hellboy boardgame from Mantic.