ToaTS First Ever Salute!

So this year was my first ever visit to Salute. And I Loved it!
I know the ole blog network has been flooded with reports over the last week so Im not going to go into too much depth, just cover the things I found and liked!

Apart from getting stuck on the M25 in rush hour, it wasn't too bad a journey from the far South West.
We settled down Friday night and headed off to the ExCel early Sat morning.

Just before the doors opened we met up with afew of my fellow bloggers and Pulp City players for the first time. Great lot!
Then it was time to go in. Luckily we were hovering in just the right place and jumped onto the back of the first cue!
We each had advance ticket goody bags aswell. When my wife opened hers, she had a golden ticket for a free KR Multicase backpack! Yay!

This is what we found as we went in.

Wow! Amazing! In Heaven!
Never seen anything quite like that before and didn't know where to start first!
Well, I did. Pulp City. Being a huge fan of the game and chatting to the creators on a regular basis I HAD to go and finally meet them.

Karol on the left and Maciej on the right. A great pair of blokes that seemed mobbed with customers for most of the day. That's great news for the game!
They also had a couple of new models on display. The L3 Green Emperor of the Jade Cult and some new underground dwelling Grimm.

Maciej also had one of his new Reaver Lords on show. His own personal side project of large fantasy minis.

We did go back to the Pulp City stand afew times during the day for my little Super Hero fix.
The fix included seeing lots of pics of new models that haven't been shown yet!

With that covered it was time to feed my Pirate obsession!
That started with a visit to Black Scorpion to pick up lots of their new releases.

My wife then spotted a couple of VERY nice boards.
Cutlass by Black Scorpion but run by the Redditch Wargaming Society and Simon the pirate!

(Thats my wife and little one with him)

The next piratey find was Freebooters Fate.

Great looking boards and a STUNNING line of minis.
I wanted to pick some up but with no interest for the game in the area at the moment I couldnt really justify spending out on it.

One of the display boards also caught my eye. The battle for Coruna.
An amazing table and imo it was the best in the entire show.

With the pirate in my happy, it was time to go and see what else we could find.
The GCN (Gaming Club Network) had a stand there and after a chat, our local club is going to re join.

A stunning range of minis we found were BaneLegions. A range of highly detailed resin heroes and monsters for you fantasy games.

Another range that really stood out a mile was Dropzone Commander by Hawk Wargames
All of the minis and scenery was wonderful. Cant wait to see how well this game takes off.

Talking of ranges that stood out, there was 1 other for me.
The Discworld Minis from Micro Art Studio. Amazing sculpts and I think they have really captured the characters perfectly.

While we strolled around the show we ran into afew people I have spoken to online over the last few years.
Including lots of Pulp City players and some of the Privateer Press team from when I was a Press Ganger.
(Cheers for the prezzie Vish!)

We stopped at one point to have a chat with Warren from Beasts of War who wanted a picture with James as a mini pirate.

Then we bumped into Ian from Fenris Games who has supplied ALL of my Pulp City and Mailfaux bases as well as several scenery bits.
I highly recommend checking out his range of goodies.

Whats a selection of people pics without a Storm Trooper though?

Towards the end of the day we headed over to see the guys at Sarissa Precision to see what new goodies they had. As well as lots of new Wild West additions, Steve told me there will be more for the CityBlock range in the near future. (Which will be on here as soon as I can get hold of some)

We didn't realise how big and manic this show was going to be. So a combination of lots of chatting and a poorly little boy meant we couldn't get to all the stands we wanted to.
Apologies to Ainsty Castings and Heresy Miniatures. We just ran out of time.

All in all it was a great day and an awesome experience. We are already planning next years trip. Within an hour of being there my wife said 'Got to come here again!'. The joys of a gamer wife! Yay!

To finish off this (not really a) report, a pic of my goodies from the day. Including cannons from Britannia Minis and an order for some new Battlefoam Trays that arrived at out house the day after we did!

If you haven't been to Salute before, you should plan for 2013. You wont regret it!

Hendybadger awaaaaaaaaaaaaay!