Goonhammer Is Going to SALUTE 53!

Every year there’s a commotion in the Goonhammer Historicals Star Fortress, and it’s not because of the usual spring cleaning where we get new rushes and air out the dungeons. SALUTE is on the horizon, and that means we can plan to play and spend too much money on shiny new kits.

If you are very new to the wargaming hobby or have lived under a comfortable rock, SALUTE is the biggest wargaming event in Europe, and every year thousands flock to Excel in London to buy miniatures, play games, chat with game designers, and try out new stuff. For game designers SALUTE is a deadline to show off new stuff and unleash their creations on the masses. It’s a veritable wargamers feast. Demo new games, try something you’ve always wanted. Splurge on a couple of kits on sale.

You can also enter into the painting competition, or attend one of the hobby heroes panels. Can I come in historically accurate armour I hear you ask? Yes you can! Historical as well as fantasy or scifi cosplay are welcomed. The London historical fencing club will also be demonstrating their skills and probably won’t crush your thumbs. Or try your hand at managing a spaceship with friends with the people from Bridge Command.

There has never been a better time to visit SALUTE, and it can be overwhelming to take everything in so we’re here to help. In this article we share what we’re looking forward to, and we’d love to see you there!

General Advice

SALUTE is a big event! There are also tons of people so planning your visit a bit is necessary. We have a little checklist so you can accordingly prepare.

Make a shopping list. This one’s easy enough, but it’s the equivalent of going to the shop and forgetting the onions. Nothing as disappointing as coming home and facepalming because you forgot to buy a 10mm classical Greek army.
If there is a new game that you want to try out, be on time at the demo tables to reserve a slot!
Budget accordingly. Some people save up, or set aside a certain amount to buy, but be aware you can find pretty much anything miniature games related at salute, so it’s easy to splurge. On the other hand, there are deals available, choose your battles!
Make up a list of all the stands you definitely want to visit.
You can come and go from the show as you like, and getting back in is easier since you don’t have to queue at the main entrance making it easy to leave and have more food and drink options than those immediately inside the show, without having to leave the convention centre.
This is going to be a LOT of walking and it typically gets very warm in the show, dress appropriately with comfortable footwear.
Don't forget to hydrate!

What are we looking forward to about SALUTE?

Lenoon

Despite the last couple of years of SALUTE happening all of a 20 minute train ride from my house, 2025 is the first time I’ve got my act together enough to attend. I don’t go to all that many conventions, but have been actively trying to correct that these last few years so I’m looking forward to going to the one and only legendary SALUTE.

There’s a lot to look forward to, and unlike everyone else I haven’t really got a plan as to what I want to do. The bit I think I enjoy most about the Historicals side of things these days is talking to the people who make the miniatures, so I’m looking forward to putting some faces to names of the various companies and sculptors I’ve chatted to to bring you Historicals content. Hopefully I come off substantially less awkward than my emails do.

My main shopping list item is interwar tanks for wrecks. Credit: Lenoon

For Historicals and Grimdark fans the list of traders is an insanely tempting shopping list - getting to see some of the weirder bits and bobs in the hobby space, as well as smaller manufacturers in person can end up pretty expensive, so im hoping to limit myself to some well chosen terrain pieces and perhaps an obscure interwar tank or two. Aside from shopping, the big draw for me this year is the Kitbashing Korner. I love a kitbash, I love a chat and I love a big pile of sprues, so sharing ideas and pieces with the assorted weirdos drawn to kitbashing sessions is very much my jam. On top of that my home club - the Hobby and Tabletop Enthusiasts (HATE) are running a drop in game designed in house - Mayhem at the Castle of Chaos. I’ve seen some behind the scenes work on this and it’s going to be spectacular, messy, chatty, fun. Can’t wait to see it on the day.

The Zombies I donated to the club may appear? Possibly?

Jackie Daytona

It’s my first year going to SALUTE, but it’s always been a bit of a legend. I have only visited Warfare in the UK and Crisis in Europe as far as events go, but it’s always fun, so I think I know what to expect a bit. The first thing is always the gaming tables the various clubs put on. Every year people do their best to make immersive and beautiful wargaming tables and it’s always amazing to see. Even better is joining in a game!

This year I’ll be joining with some people from the club as well, and Muskets & tomahawks is gaining popularity. So the first quest will be to get my hands on the newest supplement, Kepis & Bayonets. I am currently working on a couple of Perry ACW kits to prep for that. I will definitely be visiting the Oathsworn stand as well to pick up some nice burrows and badgers minis, as they’re hard to get on the continent. Deepcut Studios, the friendly people from Lithuania are bringing along their excellent mats and I’ve ordered one for Full Spectrum Dominance. I would recommend doing an order if you’re in the market for a mat as it’ll certainly cut down on shipping. They’re also organising a speedpaint markers demo, which I’m keen to see.

Pendraken German Infantry & Cavalry Credit: Class Warcraft

To be honest I had a whole bit prepared about 6mm gaming, but since Baccus won’t be attending, I will simply pick up some cold war stuff from Pendraken, or maybe a starter army of some sort. Specializing in 10mm, they have an enormous amount of products from a vast range of periods.

There are also some nice demo games I would recommend.

GCT Studios from Bushido fame are running See How They Run. I have no idea what this is, but GCT Studios is known for solid games see I’ll stop by to see what the fuss is about - STAND GA04
The aforementioned nice people of Oathsworn will gladly introduce you to Burrows and Badgers, we heartily recommend a stop! - STAND GA13
Goblin King Games are somewhat in the same league with Moonstone, the whimsical small scale skirmish with excellent miniatures. - STAND GC02
If you’ve never played To The Strongest! You can now try out their 17th-18th century rules expansion Lust For Glory. Forget about range rulers and dice, step into the fu! - STAND GJ16

Mike Bettle-Shaffer

This will be my third or fourth SALUTE, and the journey has been vastly improved since the opening of the Elizabeth Line. I wasn’t sure what to expect with my first trip, and had a lot of advice from friends on what to look out for if I wanted to start my own early War British force in 15mm from the Battlefield Miniatures collection. I came away with a backpack full of white metal and a growing interest in historical wargaming. Please don’t ask me if I’ve painted them yet.

Lion of Jabir. Credit Mike Bettle-Shaffer

SALUTE is both the perfect place for me and the worst place for me. There’s a huge variety of publishers, manufacturers, and demo games on the go. A huge amount to see, and potentially buy. Successive visits have become exercises in self control, doing my best to stay focused on the handful of items I have on my list, plus a couple of treats because who am I fooling. This year there’s a new tension, I plan to enter the SALUTE Painting Competition. I’ve toyed with the idea of entering painting contests in the past, and finally decided to see if it’s for me by actually taking part in one.

Putting aside the added tension of entering the painting competition, there’s a few publishers, collectives, and designers I’m excited to catch up with. I’ve spent a lot more time looking at smaller publishers recently as I’ve indulged more of my impulses to hop not just between army projects but systems as well. Lighter rulesets, smaller footprints, and lower model counts are all very appealing for me at the moment due to the lower overall deman on time for a given project to be done and to the table. Miniatures agnostic systems also make trying systems much easier, and there’s a wealth of interesting rule systems to explore.

Department of Wargaming - Stand TE06: An indie publishing collective focused on the community, taking everything from small ideas to big dreams and helping to make them reality. Lennon originally gave me a nudge to take a look, and my imagination was captured when I saw Aetherpunk28 and Contraventor. The allure of impetuous wizards and nobles piloting machines of war fighting over the ashes over a civilization they drove the ruin of was too hard to resist.
The Drowned Earth - Stand TD03: Fight through the jungles of Ulaya with a small crew of explorers. A chance to build a dense, lush board, for what looks to be an interesting little skirmish game.
Forbidden Psalm - Stand TJ04: “Gaming at the end of the world” Scratching a grim and dark tabletop itch, with collapsing worlds, unknowable horrors, and horrors that don’t know or care if you exist. I recently backed Legitimate Salvage, and I’m excited to have a chat with the team behind it. You can check out our review of Forbidden Psalm here.

Bair

Hi, I’m Bair and I’m shifting further and further into skirmish and historical wargames, so much so that I now co-host a podcast with Mike (the guy that you just read about) available to our patrons, about once a month.

Batch Painted Saga Vikings - Credit Bair

My favourite game at the moment is easily Saga and this trip to SALUTE is going to be at least partially scouting out odds and ends for Saga armies; I currently have three different ones that have each grown far past the size necessary and am wanting to collect and paint one army for each Age Of supplement. I was recently asked if I had an Ancients warband, either Age of Hannibal or Age of Alexander, for a small meetup in July and my answer was “no but I could have one by then!” so now I’m doing that. Not quite decided which yet, tossing up between Gauls, Graeculi, Carthaginians, or Persians. Four pretty different playstyles and army compositions.

This will be my fourth SALUTE trip, despite having lived in London for 12 years now and being back in wargaming for nearly that whole time it just wasn’t something that I thought would be super interesting to go to and I’ve been kicking myself ever since! It’s a great day out, especially if you’re local enough to make just a day trip of it. I’m very much looking forward to meeting up with lots of friends and connections that I’ve made in wargaming over the years, people that I don’t see too often but enjoy seeing as well as all of the smaller vendors that turn up and show off their wares. A lot of these smaller companies can be really hard to even know about so it’s great to just wander around every stand and see all of the weird and wonderful things that people make. The usual suspects for me to go and see will be Oathsworn (Burrows & Badgers), Bad Squiddo, Warp Miniatures (Arceworld), and Para Bellum (Conquest) and one that I’m specifically keen to go see that’s newer to me is Offensive Miniatures. I’ve recently gotten into WW2 wargaming with some Perry plastics I picked up at Warfare last year. Offensive Minis came onto my radar thanks to the Wargames Illustrated magazine and the photos online don’t seem to show everything they make so I’d love to see these in person.

Greek elephant cavalry macedonian saga age of hannibal

I have a 28mm Numidian project in mind for Saga, so that's a big SALUTE plan. I like the Victrix elephants but they’re a bit static in pose so while I will get a set of them I want to see if there’s anything more dynamic to get too. I’m not doing much research on this ahead of time, despite in the past having googled around for war elephants but most of those results are the overly silly giant creatures that are oliphant or Warhammer mammoth sized, not an African elephant with howdah and some dudes. Would 6 points of elephants be insane? Yes. Alongside a bag of Victrix Numidian infantry and cavalry I’ll have more than enough at that point to also see about Midgard or Sword & Spear gaming. I’m really keen to get Sword & Spear on the table this year.

Broadly speaking, I want to see about any bundle or show deals that might be going, sometimes you can pick up stuff at really great discounted rates if you buy a certain amount of stuff from various vendors. Specifically I’ll be on the lookout for Victrix Numidians as above but also Wargames Atlantic Halflings.

I’m also hoping that the Titan Owners Club are there again this year with their normal, insane, game of 28mm scaled Titanicus. It’s absolutely insane with them stepping around thousands of pounds worth of resin toys but it looks so cool. I’ve not played Titanicus for a while now but it’s still one of the best games I’ve ever played and scaling that up to 28mm is a level of insanity I love to see at these kinds of shows.

Lastly, and very importantly, picking up a few more sets of Gamers Grass tufts to go into my tuft drawer. An annual tradition cause these are just the absolute best.

Meet you there!

SALUTE is a big deal, and we'll be there so you could even come and meet us - look for at least one person in a suspiciously Led Zeppelin style Gregbot T Shirt, or try to spot Bair under a giant pile of Numidians. We'll see you there in April and we're really looking forward to it!

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Tags: events | Goonhammer | salute