Salute 2023 Live Blog!

One of the games pretty much right outside our little room is DAK Attack from the folks at Offensive Miniatures. This was originally designed as a solo wargame but can also be played as a multiplayer skirmish affair if you like. As you will have guessed from the name, DAK Attack is set during World War II and the Desert War between the Allies and the Axis.

In this game, you take control of the Long Range Desert Group and you will play out not just one fight but a couple of games spread out across a ten-day campaign of lighting assaults. You will draw from a deck of cards each day to see what new foes you face and in some cases, you might not even be playing out a game. When it comes to actual mechanics, the game uses D10 and D6 with D10 for shooting and D6 for saves.

Offensive Miniatures seem to have found a winner here that could be a lot of fun for World War II lovers.

As well as some tried and tested games out there in the hall, there are also some brand new wargames from a few different independent creators. For example, James Morris of Morris & Chums has been working on this new tabletop wargame, Midgard: Heroic Battles which can be played at a variety of different scales and with a focus towards Fantasy or Historical.

The games being shown off today focus on a clash between Norse Gods where Thor, Freya, Odin and the like are battling against an army of Frost Giants in 28mm. The other table showcases the game in 15mm scale and a more traditional Dark Age clash. Their focus was on providing a game where warbands of warriors march into battle alongside mighty heroes.

The tabletops look great and it’s nice to see another game out there that is looking to do that traditional rank-and-file style of gameplay.

Andy Callan is also here this year demonstrating his new game, Never Mind The Billhooks. This is a quick and easy set of rules (similar to some of his past work) which is great for playing out Late Medieval European battles on the tabletop. An absolutely wonderful gaming table has been put together for this showcasing a clash from sea to land.

This particular focus is on the Italian Wars and the clashes over on Europe rather than your muddy battlefields of England. It looks seriously impressive and takes place on some wonderful terrain that was provided by Wargames Illustrated.

Another absolutely packed tabletop here at Salute comes from the folks at the London Wargaming Guild. They are running a game that takes place across the entire of London Bridge during The Great Frost Fayre on the River Thames.

In this game, players take on a band of different characters that have come to blows after having one too many drinks at the local tavern. Trained Men, Ruffians and the Clergy of all people have ended up getting stuck into fisticuffs!

This one, again, looks like a lot of fun and folks are really getting into it. The game uses a set of specific rules for the different parties and activations come through the drawing of cards.

Another of the impressive battles being played out comes from the Hornchurch Wargames Club. They have taken to diving into some Zulu action with the battle of the Ntombi River. The British soldiers at the time were defending a convoy of wagons that was on the road from Derby to Luneberg as it came under attack by the Zulu troops.

The tabletop, once again, is absolutely stunning and it’s brilliant seeing so many miniatures on a tabletop at any one time. It will be fun seeing how people get stuck into the game over the next few hours and how the situation unfolds.

One of the nice things about Salute is that it caters to all sorts of different gamers. You have a lot of Historical stuff but there are also plenty of Sci-Fi and Fantasy games being played as well. One such game has been the TRON racing game that was set up by the Bexley Reapers Wargaming Club.

This game features the light cycles from the TRON movies that are controlled by an X-Wing-style dial that dictates where you move on the tabletop. You have to make sure that you don’t end up ramming into other riders of course but also making sure that you can cut others off. The folks here are having a lot of fun with the game!

To ensure the quality of the images, I’m only uploading a few at a time… bear with me 😀