I apologise for the lack of pics. I simply didn't take any!
For many Games Workshop is the Evil Empire of wargaming. I have never felt that way, in fact I have played GW games since I was 10. I worked in GW retail for nearly 12 years and have stuff for pretty much every game and army they have produced. These days most of my hobby consists of playing Warhammer Online although I do still buy the odd model or army if the mood takes me and frequently "intend" to paint something or play a game.
Every year for as long as I can remember Games Workshop has run Games Day, a giant gaming convention and celebration of all things Games Workshop. some criticise that the event should encompass all aspects of wargaming, but those same people think GW is evil and would probably not attend anyway... I thin I have been to the majority of Games Days since 1993. The first I went to was in Donnington but since then they have moved to larger venues, the NIA in Birmingham and more recently the Birmingham NEC. It was to the NEC that my self and my mate Rob journeyed at 5:45 on Sunday morning.
The last 2 Games Day's since leaving the company, Rob and I have driven up to the event, preferring that to the alternative of going up by store ran coach, filled with the customers I used to deal with on a regular basis. It also offers a certain degree of freedom, like when you have to get up, toilet breaks and leaving before everyone else does! So anyway we got there about 8:45 am which gave us plenty of time to get in the queue. As it turns out it gave us too much time... we were about a third of the way from the front of the eventual queue and for the first time ever in all my Games Day's they actually let everyone in late :(
So what was the event actually like? Well if you have ever been to a Games Day then the format was pretty standard, everything was well set out and accessible with no real chance of not being able to find anything you wanted to see. If you haven't been before then I shall elaborate. Games Day these days consists of 3 large halls each containing something else. One hall contains all the gaming tables and hobby activities (conversion/ scenery building, bring and battle tables and the giant mega battles and store run games.). the second hall contains all the retail stands (mail order, Warhammer/40k / Lord of the Rings, Forge World and the Black Library). the final hall contains the Studio, Golden Daemon competition as well as any licensees that wanted displays.
The Gaming Hall
Games Day is a great place to come and play a few fun games over the course of the day. They had some awesome battles, some even had 40k scale Titans (including a particularly impressive, if slightly over sized Warlord Titan that lit up, hurrah!) These tables were ran by poor sap Games Workshop retail stafflings and surrounded by slightly scary looking caffeine fuelled gamers of all shapes and sizes. Having had to run these games for over 10 years, I had very little interest in taking part. But the tables looked impressive and everyone seemed to be having fun.
What was odd was the Hall seemed largely empty... I cant remember if the games were in the same place as last year, and the games themselves were packed to the brim and there were lots of people milling about, but the hall was so huge that all this really only occupied a corner of it which made it seem really empty.
The Retail Hall
I must confess they I simply could not be arsed to get into the Black Library section, they had some limited books on sale and the main authors were signing, however the cattle barriers that all she frothing gamer sheep were being herded along looked unpleasant and really don't need any more books I wont get around to reading to add to my pile of books signed by Dan Abnett.
The Forge World stand was predictably packed, It never seemed to be less than 5 people deep. Rob wanted to get a few bit so I stood in queue with him for a while before eventually getting bored with the interesting concept of queuing that some people had and moved to the side. (seriously every time someone left the area having bought their resin goodies or books, 8 people would force themselves into the space he had left behind, usually forcing themselves in front of people who were actually queuing sensibly.)
The actual Games Workshop retail stand was a let down. This is only my opinion as an old crusty retail veteran but here are my quibbles.
- It seemed really small and was positioned on its own in the hall once again making the massive space of the room appear empty.
- They weren't selling a whole lot. Sure there were boxes and boxes and boxes of stock. Very few or no blisters. But it seemed like they had cherry picked what they thought would sell (which makes sense) which meant that there were shed loads of the same product.
- The Presale. For me one of the coolest things about Games Day is the stuff they sell early. In the past I have bought models at Games Day that haven't been released for months, in some cases... never at all! This year they were pre selling Space Wolves! My favorite 40k army! I could buy all the new miniatures barring the blisters! Awesome! Except the models come out in the shops on Saturday, so they were not even a week early. I was expecting them to have at least something from Skaven, the new clan rats for example, not that I would have bought them cos I hate Skaven. In the end I bought (on my third trip to the stand) a box of the new Space Wolf plastic marines. They are awesome. All in all it wasn't BAD per say, just a little underwhelming. I would have been happy with whelmed.
The Studio (and Golden Daemon)
Now I will mention here that I did not look at the Golden Daemon stuff. For me, I prefer to see the models photographed nicely in White Dwarf or on the web (they should be up at the website by now http://www.games-workshop.com/ ) to having to shuffle along a bunch of glass cabinets, pressed up to a large guy with questionable hygiene habits, occasionally having my face smashed into the glass by an over excited cretin who "has to see his mates model" (cos of course seeing it in a cabinet is so much better than having him show it to you). So yeah, Golden Daemon was ace and full of lovely models, just chose not to look at them :)
If you have never been to Games Day, or never been to Warhammer World or never worked for Games Workshop, then the Studio is epic win. They go through in detail about every aspect of the design process from actually designing the miniatures, to sculpting, to designing the packaging. It is really interesting and all the actual guys that do it are there and more than happy to answer any questions you like. However... if you have seen all this stuff before the you really only want to see one thing. What they are working on now. You see like most companies, the stuff the studio is working on wont see release for anything from 3 months to several years down the road. The stuff they have in the cabinets might not be out for a year or may never see the light of day. Seeing models for your favorite armies, that have literally just been sculpted and are sat there in all their green glory is something indescribably exciting. Years of Games Days have had the coach journey home literally abuzz with talk of things people had seen. Last year tucked away behind the Ork Stormboyz that weren't coming out until the following January, was a new sculpt for the Eldar Jetbike. Truly awesome but has to this day remain elusive with no word of when it will come out...
This year the only thing they were previewing in anyway shape or form. Was the Space Wolves. You know the ones that come out on Saturday and are plastered all over White Dwarf. They didn't even have any Skaven. And they are out in November.
I will admit, that it is feasible that there was a cabinet full of glories I somehow missed. And if someone can prove me wrong (and no I am not going to count the single new Skaven Clanrat 3 up they had with the Space Wolves.)
That said, it is really cool to see all this stuff if you haven't before. And they did tease us with artwork covers for both Skaven and Tyranids who are allegedly out in January (damn you Games Workshop for releasing my 2 favorite 40k armies back to back!) I also spent a good half hour chatting to my mate Christian Byrne who works for White Dwarf, so that was nice.
They also had a few stands for the various computer games and licenced games (the Fantasy Flight games stand was pretty busy and in all honesty I forgot to go back and check it out). Thy had a big screen showing trailers for various THQ 40k games, Dawn of War II has an expansion due and they showed footage from the FPS game Space Marine due out on consoles in the near future. They also had several PC's set up so you could try out the DofW II expansion if you wished (its got Chaos in it.) Mythic were conspicuous in their absence and there was no mention of Warhammer line anywhere that I could see. The Blood Bowl computer game had a pitiful 3 PCs set up in a corner with like 1 poster up. I didn't look too hard.
Again all this area seemed smaller but in a larger space than last year (mostly due to the fact that they had a section covered up for a presentation last year, and a full size Rhino taking up all the room.) There was less there this year in the computer game area.
The most interesting thing was the post card I was handed when leaving this area. It has an Ultramarine U on it and said "ULTRAMARINES : A Warhammer 40,000 Movie" with http://www.ultramarinesthemovie.com/ underneath...
All in all the day was pretty much like other Games Day's I had been to. I felt it was lacking in a lot of areas, but most of those were because they didn't have what I wanted them to. I think most of their decisions with space were to prevent crowding, but it just made the whole thing look really empty. I enjoyed it to an extent, but could have instead quite happily had a lie in. If it is significant in anyway... Rob and I left at 1pm. Yes we were actually there for less time than it took us to drive up...
If you want more info got to GW's website, also http://www.warseer.com/ is a great place for info, check out their forums.
I really don't know why I am so excited that my pitiful excuse for a blog comes up THIRD if you run a search for