A Visit to Warhammer World

Steve Cook

Flying Squad
For the first day of my Christmas holiday, I let my inner nerd out for a play when Arty and I went up to Nottingham to visit Warhammer World. For those who don't know, its the headquarters and event / exhibition display building for Games Workshop, purveyors of small fantastical / futuristic miniatures for table top gaming. I don't play the games themselves, but as a modeller who appreciates the art and act of model making irrespective of the subject, I thought it would be well worth a visit.

A full size armoured tank waits in the car park for you

WW1 Full Size Rhino.jpg

Whilst a bit further down, a Space Marine statue stands guard (it was ruddy freezing, hence the pose!)

WW2 Space Marine.jpg

When inside, there is a huge gaming area used for regular competitions. The tables are available for anyone to play on although they need to booked in advance during busy periods.

WW3 Gaming Room.jpg

Surrounding the gaming area are a few shops:
Games Workshop (GW) - plastic models, figures, paints, tools T-shirts etc
Black Library - books and artwork relating to the various GW subjects
Forge World - high class (and price) resin models to expand the GW collections

Some of the stuff in the Forge World shop was just epic. Its really nicely laid out with examples of all the models in glass cases, you can then choose whatever takes your fancy. They do small things ranging from guns to modify your GW plastic figure for a few pounds, right up to wallet busting essays in casting prowess.

This knight is getting on for 250mm tall and can be built in a variety of poses.

WW4 Resin Knight.jpg

This Stormbird was over 500mm long, weighed in at 6kg and was beautifully detailed. Mind you, at £775 it needed to be...
WW5 Resin Stormbird.jpg

Most impressive to my mind are the Warlord Titans, huge bipedal mechanical fighting machines, shown here in a cabinet next to the smaller Reaver and Warhound Titans. The Warhound (bottom right) is 250mm tall...

WW6 Big Resin Bastards.jpg

Just off the gaming area is Bugmans Bar, a decent restaurant that did good food at reasonable prices. They also provide sofas for social chatting etc. All of these areas are available to access free of charge, if you pay £7.50 then you are entitled to enter their exhibition - the ticket being valid for the day allowing as many visits as you want.

The exhibition is the best bit really (unless you've gone to buy stuff specifically), especially when you are not sure what to expect. I guess I'm about to ruin an aspect of that for you though - apologies if that turns out to be the case!

The exhibition was split between display cases of individual models and large dioramas - the whole spectrum of models was covered including early models, right through to the latest sculpts. I must apologise for the photographs in advance, because its very difficult to get nice shots, certainly with the compact camera I took. The problem is that most models are in glass backed display cases, you are photographing through glass and everything is lit extremely well. The presentation is faultless when you are there in person, the lighting is just right for seeing all the details on the models, but the downside is photographs are compromised. Should I visit again, a polarising filter and knocking it down a couple of stops to darken the images are on the to do list, along with a better camera! There is also an abundance of 'Hello Mum!' reflections, I've got rid of what I can :)

Space Marine army display case - they had racks of these in all the various chapters and colour schemes.

WW10 Display Case Example.jpg

An Ork army laying siege to a castle

WW7 Ork Diorama.jpg

Improbably balanced rock cities

WW8 Diorama Floating Rocks.jpg

An excellent example of paint blending and edge highlighting techniques, total model length about 150mm.

WW9 Epic Painting Techniques.jpg

Some things are a bit closer to reality, the vehicles side of things is a bit more easily relatable than the alien species. This was a good size with a 450mm wingspan, multipart resin kit again, standing you in at £210.

WW11 Hints of reality.jpg

Hints of Stuka and Corsair in this one, smaller at @300mm wingspan, but then lighter on the wallet at less than £100

WW24 Hint of Stuka Corsair.jpg

Another Space Marine battle diorama, probably about 4 four foot square but with lots of really nice modelling on display.

WW12 Space Marine Battles.jpg

I think this was one of the smallest of the dioramas, but it was just jaw dropping in terms of details and cramming in things to look at. The figures have elements of WW1, as do the tracked vehicles, in fact there is a trace element of Nemo in the League of Extraordinary Gentleman about it all.
WW13 Lovely Small Diorama.jpg

At this point, Rich and I were pretty impressed with what we had seen. The figures, the painting, the variety of vehicles and subjects were almost a bit overwhelming to be honest - so much quality in such a small space.

Then we went through the door into the next room...

WW14 Big Display Info board.jpg
 

Steve Cook

Flying Squad
The sign above is actually at ground level but I thought it was best to let you read it first as the photo doesn't necessarily grasp the size of the model all that well

WW15 Angelus Prime1.jpg

Aside from the. fact that you walk round and descend next to the diorama, the lighting in the room changed but I have to be honest, the colour changing aspect was a pain the backside. At first experience it was quite cool, the colours cycling through red to blue to green to white light and back to red again, but once you've seen the model in white / normal light, the red and the blues just hide the details and the green looks wrong.

WW16 Angelus Prime2.jpg

WW17 Angelus Prime3.jpg

It is proper impressive though, no way round it (other than the stairs!)

WW18 Angelus Prime4.jpg

It certainly acts as a highlight of what you can do if enough people, kits and space can be thrown at a project - but given its basically the same size as my house, its not something that tempts me. We did spend a long time looking at it though, you can't fail to be impressed.

As a quick round out, here are some more examples of very nicely done painting.

Hand painted chequers and banners

WW19 Knight Titan.jpg

Mechanised Scorpion style thing, 225mm tall / long I suppose

WW20 Evil Scorpion Thing.jpg

Arty pointing out the shear bloody size of the Warlord Titan.

WW21 Warlord Titan.jpg

Price wise its a bend over £1300...

The base on this is 25mm square and what caught my eye was the blended paint colours on the sword

WW22 Sword Painting Detail.jpg

And to finish a bit more nasty green things

WW23 Ork Castle.jpg

Overall, I have to say it was a really good day out. I went in with the expectation that we would probably spend four hours max there, including eating lunch and a spot of shopping, we actually spent over 6 hours there in the end. The standard of model making and painting was extremely high - I suppose it was bound to be as a example of what can be achieved, but if your eyes and mind are open to other forms of modelling, I don't think you can go wrong.
Highly recommended.
 

geoff_nicholls

Western Thunderer
Well, at least you didn't go dressed as Gandalf, or Darth Vader, like the youngsters I've seen queuing for Comiccon. My local model shop, 4D Models, often has some very impressive looking models of halloween or stage sets, designed to show off their services to all the students.
But I think the Ally Pally Modelling Engineering Exhibition is sufficiently exotic for me.
 

Simon

Flying Squad
Wow, that looks wonderful! Having experienced Warhammer a bit through Charlie's involvement some years ago I can appreciate just how special that display is.

And no Cookie, not that kind of "special":p

Simon
 

Joe's Garage

Western Thunderer
I agree with Yorkshire Dave having had experience of the GW models over the years. We railway modellers have benefitted from this sharing of ideas and experience. I always hover by the GW shop at Cribbs whilst the others "shop"!! Great ideas for figure painting.

Thank you Steve
 

Steve Cook

Flying Squad
Well, at least you didn't go dressed as Gandalf, or Darth Vader...
Arty and I decided to go as members of the general public :) A couple of lads were dressed up playing one of the games - one was a werewolf and his mate appeared to be in a crocodile onesie type thing. We gave them space :))

Thank you Steve
Pleasure - glad people have enjoyed seeing the photos.

Wot, no dwarves?? :(
There was definitely one diorama with them David, but I don't have photos of that. I suppose I actually didn't photograph that much of the exhibition, despite taking 176 pictures - its good to leave a lot for people to discover if they go :)
 

ceejaydee

Western Thunderer
I went to Warhammer World around 3 years ago when entry to the exhibition was still free although there is more to see now judging by your pics.

I also visited the Salute one-day war gaming event at London ExCel in 2015 (I think). The painting on the models and the scenery/battle tables was incredible even if you have no interest in the actual games themselves and is worth a visit.
 
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