Something that did strike me on the day, and I wanted to see if it was just me, was the increased commercialisation of Salute. It's not a terrible thing, but I did feel that there were more stores present, and that they had a larger presence, than previous years.

I guess that biggest factor here was the Wayland Games had a huge area, as large as a lot of wargames stores, but there were others too. In some ways, I found this a shame. I want to buy direct and see more new, small companies who produce these things, and not necessarily save a bit of cash on postage. It wasn't something that I was prepared to camp outside Salute with a tent and placards over, but I hope that this is not necessarily a trend that continues and grows in future years.

Just me?

As for a TacCmd game for next year, it's a really interesting idea. Getting a demo table isn't the easiest thing, however, and we would need to commit to this early.... and I am honestly not sure if I will be able to attend next year.

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I was back for the first time in 3 years and If I'm honest the only thing I really noticed was how much more space there seemed to be in the hall.

Maybe that was either smaller traders opting for smaller stands to cut costs (Bacuss stand was a lot smaller than previous years I'm sure) or less demo/participation games is hard to say.

To me it felt like it was slightly bigger/busier than last year, about the same as 2 years ago, and considerably smaller than 3 years ago.

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Last time i was there was 3 years ago (It conflicts with the Fantasy South Coast GT, and i'd been particularly active on the fantasy tournament scene over the last 2 years) and i'd agree that compared to then there did seem to be quite a bit more space in there.

Sadly didn't spot that many folks, mainly due to the game we were running being rather time consuming, with just a few dashes out to go buy stuff. Still, Did see Chris and Dave there and Chris' new 'Punishment of the Dice Gods' book is very good

One thing that did surprise me though was that last time the main craziness was around the Forgeworld stand, while this time the busiest overall (when i did get off our table) seemed to be the Gripping Beast stand. How times change!

Games wise, a lot seemed pretty quiet as well - although again i only have the ones near us to really go by that much on, and they were rather sad looking naval combat games which no-one seemed to want to play. Happily ours was pretty rammed, but that did mean it was a pretty knackering day!

Having only ever been to Games Day I didn't know things such as Salute existed (I'd heard of it but I thought it was a tournament and French). It was this thread that made me look into it and go (at very short notice). Are there any other shows like it in the UK (south)?

Briefly there are many; SELWG (Crystal Palace), Campaign (Milton Keynes), Warfare (Reading), Call to arms (Newbury), smaller events in Tunbridge Wells, Farnborough and many other places too numerous to mention

It's probably worth saying that Salute is much bigger than the others though.

I have a soft spot for several of the other shows (I always like Warfare in Reading), but they are generally quite a bit smaller than Salute. They don't tend to have the same "new release buzz" that Salute has, with lots of companies trying to get new stuff ready for the show.

Having said that, they are still very enjoyable. And they offer the same type of thing as Salute does (mix of demo games, participation games and lots of interesting things to buy), just less of it.

Oh, there is one in Milk-man Keynes, that's only a 40min drive up the M1! I'll look that one up.

I like Colours in Reading which is one of the larger ones later in the year. However, as mentioned, Salute is easily the largest around. The smaller ones do give more chance to actually play demo games, though as there are less of the larger retailers. Also, Salute is very expensive for a company, and so the smaller ones will often go to the medium-sized cons.

I recommend Colours in Reading, and Warfare, and I have heard fantastic things about Bovington - it's held in a tank museum over two days and so you wargame and battle in the shadow of WWII artillery and armour.

If you go a little further North you get some larger cons - Triples is one of the major ones. England is actually really lucky as we have some kind of con somewhere in the country every two or three weeks between Salute (April) and Warfare (October).

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AS I have recently found out, If you look into Military modelling shows as well as wargaming shows, you could pretty much book all your weekends for a year!

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This might help. As you can see, most weekends have some kind of event:

http://sites.google.com/site/tringwarga ... ames-shows

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There was a show at the tank museum?? I was there a few weeks ago, how cool would it have been if it had turned out to be the same day. Mind you, after spending two hours looking round the main hall, then stumbling on another new hall, if I had found another room full of toy tanks, I think Katie would have had a fit!

Thanks for the links.

Didn't know there was a show at the tank museum! We often pass it on the way home from Luworth cove.

Might have to go there this year then, if only to get out and away from my PC, and buy some DRM & MM (if they are there again, they only have a list up for last years show right now)

And not to de-rail this thread too much, but the martians look fantastic, nice job E&C!

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