Salute 2017 - Aftermath

For those that missed it, last Saturday (22nd April) Salute 2017 was held at Excel London. Allegedly the biggest wargaming event in Europe, this massive expo is hosted annually by South London Warlords. I was fortunate enough to attend and spent the day shopping and painting with Blazmo from Tabletop Apocalypse. 

Warlords' Warlord!

We decided to drive down to the venue as I wanted to buy plenty of terrain and it was bound to be heavy. Despite the wallet crippling parking fee (still cheaper than the train!) they journey down was easy and we arrived just before the doors opened at 10am. Needless to say there was already a huge queue of eager gamers ahead of us ready to spend their hard earned cash!

So many nerds!

Despite the lengthy queue, it moved swiftly and we were soon inside the exhibition hall. As usual, the show included plenty of trade stands for all kinds of different games and wargaming products.

Nerdvana!

Having made a rough game plan beforehand, we headed straight for Troll Trader as we had found some excellent deals there in 2016. Once again we were not disappointed, quickly snatching up a copy of Red Veil for Infinity and a huge stack of TT Combat mdf terrain. We quickly realized our error as we had to carry around a massive block of wood for the rest of the day, how foolish!


Plenty more spending was to come as we grabbed more Infinity figures and templates from various stands (Micro Art Studios was one but there were too many to remember.) Every shop seemed to be offering discounts and freebees, I ended up with a small pile of different miniatures from random games systems. Always nice to have!


The other highlight of the day was the speed painting competition hosted by Eavier Metal. In a mere 25 minutes contestants were challenged to paint a model to completion, obviously no mean feat!

Blazmo and I, furiously painting!

This was my first experience of speed painting and I enjoyed it immensely. It was a great laugh as we manically splattered paint onto the miniatures. Even getting a basecoat on every area seemed like a challenge at first! It was also my first time using Army Painter products, which seemed strange at first but over the 25 minute period I came to actually quite like them. I will definitely consider Army Painter when I need paints in the future.

Such skills! Mine is the one on the left.

Another highlight was the massive 30k Horus Heresy display put on by the Warlords themselves. This seems to be a fixture which grows in scope every year. The obvious standout this year was the enormous (though definitely under scaled) Warlord titan. Despite my dislike of the model (because of the scale issues) I had to admit that it was an impressive piece which had been masterfully painted. The display itself was full of great details which were well worth taking the time to admire. One of my favourites was the three gore spattered World Eaters contemptors shown below.

So evocative!

Strangely, despite spending plenty of money, I didn't buy any 40k figures this year. There just didn't seem to be any stand out deals on the day. Still, with a pile of terrain and Infinity figures, I should be kept busy for some time yet. All in all the day was a blast and I look forward to heading down again next year.