Salute roundup

Salute was certainly an experience.

The support from various friends and acquaintances was outstanding and I never found myself there alone.

I managed to run two games and get a small amount of time to look around the show myself. Interest from the public was muted but constant and I managed to give out a reasonable amount of cards.

It was also a learning experience as far as the game was concerned, especially as this was the first time it had been played.

Both games were rather a-typical however.

The first resulted in a the slaughter of the coalition, with minimal horde casualties, but this may have been compounded by the fact that my lovely assistant had a rather liberal interpretation of 6" and seemed to have trouble understanding the phrase "no doubling through terrain". I let this slide as I didn't want to start being belligerent that early into the game. Adding to this, his young opponent seemed to have a rather lax grasp on tactics in general and managed to wander his cavalry into charge range for the Karns command group.

The second was a complete reversal, with the horde being mowed down while charging SMG armed veterans across open ground. Apparently, early on, the players mistook me saying "no doubling through ruins" as "no moving through ruins" and thus they proceeded to manoeuvre down the fire-lanes recently constructed by my assistant in a rookie table dressing error.

Despite this there were some useful takeaways. The Sentry special rule is under-pointed, as is off map mortar support and off map sniper support. In fact, the ability to fire more than once per phase is under-pointed. It's not that primitive firearms may not be able to move and fire that makes them less valuable, its a modern firearms ability to move, fire, and then fire again at full rate of fire in defensive fire that makes it valuable. So point bumps all round. Cavalry charges also probably need a slight nerf, something along the lines of not being able to insta-rout units more than twice their size.

Also, for display games, units should be uniformly armed.

Here are some pics

Manchester Veteran Guard and Cartel troops manoeuvre through the village

A horde cannon advances through a forest after deploying behind it for some reason

Advancing warriors

Yours truly playing the final turn for the embattled coalition

Horde warriors take cover in a tactically important animal pen.

Unable to form an effective firing line the coalition leave themselves open to assault

Overall it was a great experience, but given the cost, the effort that went into getting there, and the stress of effectively going it alone right in the middle of what turned out to be an academically important moment as well as an impending house purchase I cant honestly say it was worth it. I think Salute always inspires me. I look at all the great games and get intoxicated on the atmosphere, and think "I too want to be here" but in all honesty I think I should have reigned in my ambitions and gone to some local shows, at least initially.

Speaking of which, come see and play All That Remains at the Table Top Sale, in Lincombe Barn on the 8th! And possibly Blastastic! in October if I get round to asking the organiser soon.

Update: Salute is on!