Hello there! It has been a while! As Frank stated, summer trips and all that. This is actually concerning my particular journey across the pond to jolly ol' England. While I wouldn't admit it before, I was having a pretty bad losing streak with 40k before my trip. So bad in fact, that I vowed not to play again until 6th edition came out. So during my hiatus I left the country and went on a Spirit Journey to England to visit Warhammer World/GW HQ. I wanted to get inspired to play again and hopefully get some insider tips and tricks to get me revved up to play again. My first warhammer related visit was to this place:
My first REAL Games Workshop store (Wakefield). Unfortunately it was closed by the time I got there so I snapped a quick picture before an employee came out from the back room. I quickly ran back to my friend's car and hid because I felt like a giant creeper taking a picture of a storefront after they were closed. The next day I went to the one in Leeds and proceeded to be followed around by the employees which was sort of odd because I just wanted to look around, not to have my ear talked off. Compared to our gaming store, the space was pretty small and only had three half size tables, the stock however was greater in number and much more varied than in our non-GW run store. In our store people also don't follow me around, they treat me like one of the guys (with more storage space... cleavage) which I like. I bought a model (Astorath the Grim if you're wondering) and the White Dwarf that came out that day (new fliers edition, it gave me something to read for the next couple days but this isn't a post about that...)
A couple of days later I went to the main event (well the main warhammer based event in this trip, I did a lot of other stuff in my two weeks): WARHAMMER WORLD! Frank asked if I went to business reception but I skipped that part...
This is the view from the front:
A pretty epic way to start if you ask me. Anywho these fellas greet you as you walk in the front door.
I felt it was necessary to sign the guestbook, I really should have mention JaR but I was too excited so I just put down the name of our gaming store instead.
Then it was onto the hall of miniatures! Taking pictures in here was really hard due to clear shelving and lots of glass and lights and reflections so most of the pictures didn't really turn out. I must say this whole room was pretty impressive. I spent a good two or so hours wandering about and looking at everything. I must admit that I know there are a lot of space marine chapters, but I never realized just HOW MANY there really were until I saw half a wall just covered in different space marines... compared to basically half a wall for all the other 40k armies...
Unsurprising for most of you is the fact that I'm only including pictures of the Blood Angels. This was after all MY spirit journey. I have other pictures of the other models as well, but since my army is Blood Angels it is what I've chosen to include. Seeing what their blood angels looked like reminded me why I chose a different color scheme. While they were well painted and looked nice and all that stuff, it just gets boring after a while. Seeing all the different armies gave me some ideas of what I wanted (or didn't want) to do with my guys aesthetically.
After the hall of miniatures I continued on toward the gaming hall. But first I wanted to stare down the barrel of a space marine's bolter and see what I could see. I was told that if you did this then you'd see your life flash before your eyes, all I saw was black plaster... *shrug*
I checked out the gaming hall (which was huge and pretty awesome) and got some ideas for table building and themes. My favorite table was an Egyptian inspired table (unfortunately after a couple pints you forget to take certain pictures... more on that soon). I was sad that I hadn't brought my army to play, but I didn't exactly have room to pack it in my carry-on.
After a stroll around and a bit of observing it was time for Bugman's Pub and subsequently... DRINKING!
I only had two pints (only one of the above was mine, the other was my friend Nate's, my second is below). I had some Troll Brew which was hoppy and yummy. I mostly just sat and took in the fact that I was in a different country at GW HQ and how awesome it would be to bring everyone from my local gaming store to come here. After my first pint I decided it would probably be wise to eat some chips (fries) with my second pint since Nate and I were going to walk to Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem afterward for more beer.
Before leaving I spent way too much money on gifts for Frank and took a couple pictures of the interior of Bugman's.
Outside was another random space marine so I decided to help him hold up his gun since it looked heavy.
So the trip was pretty amazing all in all and as far as 6th edition is concerned, very well timed. I'm properly excited to start playing again and hopefully in the coming days you'll see an updated list for my Blood Angels and my thoughts and feelings on the rules! Frank pre-ordered the gamers edition and we're crossing our fingers that it may show up on our door early!
If you're wondering what took me so long to write this post (I got back about 3 weeks ago...) here is a hint of what I've been doing:
I only wonder what would have happened if you went to the Business Reception instead!
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