Salute 09

Saturday 28th March - ExCel
Salute is one of the biggest wargaming events in the country, drawing in wargamers, traders, clubs and enthusiasts from across the country and a multitude of systems. Run by the gaming club South London Warlords, this year's Salute had an immense venue in the ExCel centre out in East London. It had tanks, costumes, gamers of every description, and one Black Library author with a secret package of pre-release novels...


ExCel itself looks like it could have been built by the Thousand Sons... expect to see Space Wolf drop pods screaming in at any moment!


Our own intrepid author, flying his WIP life-size Reiksguard banner. Expect to see the finished thing at Black Library Live.




Remote controlled tanks and some of their bigger brothers were only some of the sights to see at this year's Salute!


The South London Warlords had chosen a Zulu theme for this year, celebrating the anniversary of the Zulu war, and had their centrepiece table in the middle of the floor.


And further along, GW staffers from across London busily set-up nearly the entire contents of a store...(spot the hidden author!)


...including a highly limited batch of pre-release, sneaked out from under the nose of the Black Library's formidable guardians, including shining new copies of Reiksguard. The first time it's ever been able to buy!


Richard brought along all the Reiksguard heroes he'd painted up so far to help introduce the novel to Salute's punters.


Once the doors were open, it was only a matter of a minutes before the first ever copy of Reiksguard was sold. The buyer, the intrigingly named (and, evidently, future body-builder) Andy Scrimshaw.


As well as the new books, GW was also showing off the brand-new game War of the Ring, with an exciting game of the Battle of Helm's Deep.



The Warhammer Historical team also put on a gorgeous battlefield from the Napoleonic era.


The few copies of Reiksguard remaining at the end of the day... and these were the only ones there were to take to Devourer on the Sunday!

"All in all, it was a great day. On the one hand, I was exhausted from seven hours of chatting with wargaming fans (and getting the Reiksguard banner there on the underground was no mean feat in and of itself). On the other hand, Salute is an awesome assemblage of the wargaming hobby in this country (and beyond, in fact, as there were some international visitors to boot). There aren't many places that do panzer tanks and dodo racing all under the same roof, but Salute was one of them!"

Associated Links

Salute