Hey everybody!
That’s right, I went to Warhammer World today! I’ve been before, but I don’t think I’ve really written up much about the tabletop Mecca on this here blog before, so I thought I’d share some of the photos I took while I was wandering around the exhibition area!
The exhibition hall is a bit smaller than it was when I first went, back in 2015, partly due to the extension of the shopping areas. It’s broadly divided into two, of course – Age of Sigmar and 40k – with some of the smaller games like Blood Bowl and Necromunda having some floorspace along the way. The exhibition is partly a museum of Citadel miniatures, featuring cabinet after cabinet of all the minis that we know and love (those shown on the box-fronts and within Codices), and partly a display to fire the imagination, with set-piece exhibits that show you what can be done with the models – as well as providing a little bit of imaginative realisation, showing to us all what we see in our heads every time we play a game!
The Age of Sigmar stuff feels like it’s a lot smaller, confined to just one hall but with about five major exhibits. The older, Fantasy models have been pushed away, in favour of the new Age of Sigmar stuff, which has the majority of the display space. I remember my first visit there, in July 2015, when Age of Sigmar had just come out – pretty much everything was still on square bases, and things like the Tomb Kings still had a place. Well, not anymore, but when you look at the models on display here, today, it’s hard to feel like that’s a bad thing…
40k is what I always enjoy seeing when I come to Warhammer World, and there have been a couple of new exhibits added since my last visit.
There is something really quite amazing about seeing all of the war machines and ranks of soldiers among the variety of battle-scapes here. The amount of models is stunning, of course, but the finished products are well worth seeing. My personal favourite, probably because it is so close to my long-held idea for an Armies on Parade board, is this Sector Mechanicus-inspired piece:
It’s quite the showcase for just what can be achieved with these terrain kits, and I had to stop myself really quite hard from buying any of them when I emerged!
There are a lot of Tyranids on show as the adversaries in many of the display boards – we see them going up against the Space Wolves and the Eldar, as well as the Genestealer Cults in the Mechanicus display I mentioned earlier. However, centre-stage has got to be the two-storey diorama of Ultramarines vs Daemons of Khorne, in the Battle for Angelus Prime:
There are all manner of lighting-effects on this board, making getting a photo of it really tough. It really needs to be seen to be believed!
There are sadly no displays that feature my beloved Dark Eldar, but there are some Necrons and some Tau, so it’s nice to see my other xenos armies getting some love!
Finally, there are a couple of display cabinets in the main foyer, the 40k one of which again captures that essence of what I want for an Armies on Parade board, with all the Mechanicum scenery on it:
All in all, it’s a fantastic place. Tickets for the Exhibition Area are £7.50, as of this writing, and while I think I was only there for an hour, this place is tremendous and well worth it for any hobby enthusiast to come and get lost among the models for a while. I live about 2 hours’ drive away, so I’m hardly local, and when I do go I tend not to want to hang about there, but it’s always been so worthwhile going to have a look at all of the stuff on display.
While I’m not currently in anything like a hobby slump, I have been feeling a bit all over the place lately with my painting, so I think today’s trip has really helped to focus me on getting down to finishing some models off now. There are a lot of things I want to get done, and quite a few things that I can probably try to offload, so I’m definitely feeling more focused now!
As for the swag… well…
spalanz.com 