Games Day UK 2011 Part 1

This morning me and my friend set off at 7:30 for the journey to Birmingham from Cardiff for my first games day since 1996. I was so excited and the anticipation was huge. Unfortunately it was another type of anti, an anti-climax.

The display cases were half empty, the majority of models on show were from this year such as Ogre Kingdoms with a smattering of Tomb Kings. Hardly any 40k except for a bloke dressed as a Grey Knight and way too much space given to Dreadfleet. The ships look too small, the cardstock is too flimsy and it just doesn't engage me at all. Sorry GW.

As we walked into the hall the first thing we saw were a lot of PCs and consoles spread out for space marine, blood bowl and the warhammer thing. This took up a huge amount of space and you couldn't get a t-shirt unless you bought a game which meant there was no luck there.

Next was a dash to the retail area, however we soon found the massive queue which we didn't want to waste time in so instead had a look around the display boards. Some of them had come straight from Warhammer World and others I'd not seen before. The buzz in this area was great with lots of gaming and stuff to see.

The Black Library corner was also in this part with author signings (which I didn't go to because I didn't take any books) and I got a free badge!

The construction tables were for building the Garden of Morr and the arcane fulcrums. Technically you weren't meant to just take the sprues but oh well, I ended up with 2 complete gardens, 2 complete fulcrums and 2 halfs of the other fulcums. An absolutely awesome haul which I'm very proud of!

I had a quick chat with Jervis Johnson before heading into the White Dwarf seminar. It was hosted by the PR/communictaions manager but just felt like a load of spin and bull. But there was a Q&A session at the end and I asked Andrew Kenrick (WD editor) if he was happy with the content of his magazine or if he'd like to put in more personal content which related to gamers and hobbyists. This threw him a bit and started rambling that I should like the brand new releases and that should be enough.

The armies on parade displays were really hit and miss. There were some very stunning and thoughtful entries but there was also a lot of awful rubbish. Didn't see who was the winner and didn't really pay any attention to the golden daemons, the cabinets were constantly crowded.



Overall the lack of surprises and announcements was a real let down, only rectified by loads of 'free' stuff and the always impressive and friendly Forge World guys.

The question now is, shall I go next year?......Yeah probably, boys got to hope!

Recent Forge World releases

So a couple of these are not so new but two of them are hot off the press and very exciting. Starting with oldest first...

This conversion pack for creating boarding marines looks really good.

I haven't seen the rules in the Imperial Armour book and I'm not sure how useful they'd be in a regular army.

Because of this they're quite low down on the Forge World wish list.

Now for the Land Raider Proteus. This looks totally awesome and very old school.

80 quid is just a tad bit on the expensive side being about double what a GW raider costs. Also I'd be concerned about the size of it, mostly whether it would be the same size as the old ones from the beginning of time.

Again, low on the wish list, but due to price this time.

This beauty has only just been previewed and has got me checking my wallet ready for this weekend in Birmingham. The original Contemptor looked sweet but I always thought it looked too plain. Somehow the guys at FW heard my thoughts, pimped it and come back with the Relic version.

This is quite high on the wish list but that depends if I can get to the stand in good time!

And saving the best for last, I am totally in love with this conversion kit!
I'd just recently forked out 25 quid on a brand new in box mark 1b rhino and thought that was cool, this trumps that by miles.
The Mk1c Demios Pattern Rhino is only £33 and is going to be available at games day but up for general release.
This along with some new weapons for my venerable dread are right at the top of my list.

So that's it for now. The Warhammer Forge book is also coming out but no news on IA11 yet with the amazing new Eldar and Space Wolves models yet, hopefully more information over the weekend.

My Ultramarines army

Thought I'd share a shot of my space marine army so far. At the moment it's fairly basic with pretty much no thought about competitive armylists. I basically just buy what I think looks cool. Although now I've started to plan the army that I was to have as my core so tomorrow I'll be picking up another drop pod (or 2) and am very tempted to get some mkV assault marines from Forge World this weekend at Games Day. Then it'll be a mad rush to get them finished ready for my next battle the weekend after...never going to happen!

Mechanicum

I really enjoyed this instalment of the Horus Heresy series. From turning the first page and seeing that there was a map I knew it was going to be awesome!

The story was really well thought out with a good mix of action (titans!) and intellectual stuff with adepts and the psykers and things. The only small criticism I have is some of the descriptive text gets a bit repetitive, like the constant use of the word 'manifold'.

I reckon it's a solid 8/10. Next is Tales of Heresy.

Battle for the Abyss

Just finished this instalment of the Horus Heresy series. Have to say it was a big improvement on the previous book, Legion.

The plot was a part of 40k history I was somehow unaware of, even though it was mostly concerning Ultramarines. This made it a really gripping read.

Basically a few Ultras, Wolves, a Thousand Son and a World Eater learn of the Word Bearers treachery and set off in pursuit of their new massive ship to try and stop it before it blows up Macragge.

There are a few bits of astartes v astartes action which are awesome, but no outright war, which makes a nice change. The main guy on the Word Bearers side seemed a bit hammy and I couldn't stop thinking that their big red ship had Red Dwarf written down the side of it.

There seems to be a trend with HH books of finishing a bit abruptly, this one could've done with a final chapter actually on Macragge with Cestus receiving honours or something like that.

Overall this gets 7/10.

Mechanicum up next.

Welcome

So here I am! After dabbling with Tumblr for a while I have finally grown up and created a proper blog.

As the title suggests I mainly play 40k but hopefully I'll be able to cover fantasy and many other hobby related areas as time goes by.

I'm currently trying to finish off a 2k Ultramarine army in time for the Tau to be re-released sometime next year, I always get distracted so progress is fairly slow and scattered. For example at the moment I should be finishing some Servitors but instead I'm writing some rules for a campaign I want to run, oh well!

Feel free to leave comments, suggestions, feedback, anything you like really. Over the next week or so I'll be porting over some of my better posts from tumblr. Cheers for your time, Tim.