Forge World Open Day 2013

Over the weekend I took the short flight (followed by a much longer bus trip, it transpires) over to Nottingham to visit the mighty hobby citadel that is: Warhammer World.

I've wanted to go check it out for a long time now and the Forge World Open Day provided the perfect pretence. Myself and my buddy made all of our preparations a few months back; we snapped up Open Day tickets as soon as they were available, booked our flights and made a hotel reservation... but alas, it was not to be. At least, not for him. Suffice it to say that a much more important event took place that required his full attention (and certainly, that he be in the right country at the time). So, instead, my girlfriend joined me on the epic voyage over the seas to Games Workshop HQ... And to be fair, we did also manage to find a really good Indian restaurant and see a pretty impressive castle, so it was by no means a total loss for her.

Getting there from the hotel proved a little tricky but this was solely due to roadworks in the city... if you're staying in the city centre and plan on walking, the canal tow path is pleasant enough way to get there. Be warned though, it's currently blocked off at the bridges nearest to GW HQ. We used our amazing ninja skills to sneak around this seemingly impassable obstacle but such feats would not be recommended for anyone carrying large army cases or anything else that might impede your progress through minefields/razor-wire.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the place at all. To give you an idea, it's basically a couple of office/warehouse type buildings, one of which houses the miniatures hall, gaming/event area, bar and store - the other areas remained a mystery but are presumably where the resin mines and plastic forges are located. Also, I would imagine people actually work there and have you know, offices and things.

Moving inside, you head upstairs to the gaming/event hall (if you go upstairs again you'll get to the miniatures hall where all of the various army displays are). For the Open Day this was mostly taken up with a gigantic queue of people trying to buy Forge World gear. I'm guessing that equal parts fear (of limited stock) and excitement (at the shiny new book and resin things) kept these people queueing for the first hour or so. I don't really blame them but in truth I wasn't that interested in the new stuff this year, so we bee-lined straight for the bar. Now, you might think this was a waste of precious Open Day time but I assure you, my life would have been forfeit if I had not provided sustenance for my accomplice immediately (for we had not yet feasted that day).

Bugman's Bar is great - it's decorated in proper Warhammer Fantasy style and has a pretty good sense of humour about it. Plenty of shields, weapons and the occasional Orc head decorate the walls. If you're here for a long day of gaming or any big event, you'll probably end up eating and/or drinking here. Which, it turns out, is a good idea because the food was pretty good!

So, once the dreaded hunger had been sated we moved into the area (it was labelled a restaurant so maybe that's what it usually is...) that had been set aside for the actual Open Day. The walls of the room were lined with display cabinets, each manned by a member of the Forge World design team who were available to take questions and just generally chat about all things Forge World.

I managed to talk to quite a few of the guys that are primarily working on Heresy / IA miniatures. I'm not sure how much they're 'allowed' to tell us but it didn't seem as though they were being overly tight-lipped. They all seemed to be genuinely nice and were happy to talk to people at length about anything that was on display.

In terms of what was on show, my favourites are below:

Heresy Era Land Speeder

Another view of this, note the lascannons which may or may not actually be a valid armament...

Zone Mortalis Display - This was themed to be a World Eaters boarding action against a Salamanders ship but my love of the Imperial Navy drew my attention to the row of Lightnings.

HH Legion Praetors - I can feel my resistance to Heresy era miniatures crumbling...

Minotaur named Contemptor (although I forget his name now).

HH Whirlwind - Not sure about this one in its current state but the finished version may still impress.

Legion Fellglaive - Volkite main gun apparently, quite an impressive sight.

Rapier platforms with graviton gun and quad heavy bolters - nice, but no idea how effective these are.

Realm of Battle tile with earthworks - Pretty sure this is a Fantasy piece but some light conversion work would turn it into a fine Imperial Guard siege position!

Realm of Battle tile with crashed Thunderhawk - This is the raw version and the sheer level of detail really shows through here.

A painted version of the above RoB tile - This was part of the IA12 display board (as evidenced by the Minotaur casualty).

The Necron side of the IA12 board - The new bombers are pretty amazing in person.

Once we had spent plenty of time starting in awe at the displays we took a look around the Warhammer World store. Interestingly, the store at Warhammer World also stocks Forge World miniatures (if only they all did...) so I was able to get most of what I had planned on picking up without ever queueing. Other than that, it's your standard GW store but with some very cool stuff on display (mostly large imposing Forge World models).

And that was pretty much it, in a nutshell. We had to leave early since we needed to make our way back (seemingly all the way across middle-earth) to the airport. As a final judgement, with the flights and epic bus transfer (and having now actually seen the whole place once), I would say that it's probably not the kind of trip I'd be in a hurry to do again... However, since I'm moving to the UK anyway before next years Open Day... it wouldn't *be* the same trip... so we'll see.