Warhammer Fest Europe 2018 – Part 2
Continuing with the coverage of Part 1 on Warhammer Fest Europe 2018, the main venue was a two story hall with a large store, covering products of the main range along with Black Library, Forge World and Warhammer World exclusives. The glass cabinets of the Golden Demon painting competition started to fill up slowly.
Warhammer Fest Europe 2018 – Part 1
This weekend, on Saturday and Sunday, was the first time for Warhammer Fest Europe to open. It is a new event following in the steps of the former Games Days. Games Days in Germany were held in Cologne at the Gürzenich and the new event uses the convention area of the Maritim Hotel Düsseldorf, right next to the Düsseldorf Airport (DUS).
Parking was not a logistical problem, as there were plenty parking lots around the Hotel and the airport area. At rates of 3,50 EUR per hour they weren't exactly cheap. But the airport brought for those who didn't travel by car a couple of benefits. The visitors were quite international, so they had an easy way to get there by plane from the UK, France, Italy or Spain (and from what our readers told me, even Australia!), and for the "locals" of North Rhine Westphalia, the state has superb local service by train and bus.
Warhammer 40.000 Sector Imperialis Basilicanum
In this really long and big review - we're talking 118 pictures (usually only event coverage reaches those numbers) - I want to share with you my building of the Sector Imperialis Basilicanum that was released along the Warhammer 40.000 Kill Team release in July 2018.
Usually Games Workshop releases the terrain novelties around Christmas, as they speak to a broad audience of players, not only those who play specific armies. But this extensive range accompanies the entry level skirmish set up of Kill Team in the World of Warhammer 40.000. There are different sizes of Sector Imperialis Ruins available, the small Ruins set for 30 EUR, the Sector Administratum for 40 EUR, the larger Sanctum for 60 EUR and the biggest kit of the range, the Sector Imperialis Basilicanum for 80 EUR that we're going to unbox and build today.
The Legend of Dead Man’s Hand
The original version of The Dead Man's Hand was written by Great Escape Games (2013) and was later expanded by the french Studio Tomahawk with additional, optional rules. The present review is the German version of the Dead Man's Hand rules, which is distributed in Germany by Stronghold Terrain. Previous rule enhancements are included in the 94-page book and once again arranged to complement rules and characters.
What is it about?
Dead Man's Hand puts great importance in capturing the atmosphere of the 1960s and '70s spaghetti western movies. In several mini-campaigns or in free scenarios, ten different gangs compete in skirmish struggles.
The story of the fictional Wild West town of Dead Man's Hand begins in 1853 Arizona and continues sporadic chunks of story until about 1870. How the city got its name remains uncertain over the path of the book, although there are some legends about it. Hence the name of the game.
Enjoying parental leave
I'm currently taking a parental leave of around 2 months (if you count in the two weeks "pre-arrival" vacation, it's even longer) and that gives me a lot of time to spend with my new-born daughter. It is quite overwhelming, satisfying and exhausting, everything at the same time. She sleeps a lot and I spend that time to support my wife (who is doing an amazing job on being a mother), cooking and trying out some new recipes, as well as of course enjoying a bit more time than usual in my "hobby den".
Our baby carrier arrived this weekend and but we waited to put into use until today, with the help of our midwife, to make sure we do nothing wrong. And what can I say, having to free arms / hands is a game changer. I tell you, eating gets a lot more difficult if you only have one free hand and it's even more difficult if it is your off-hand. The little one loves the proximity and some of the basic stuff I can do with here in front of me. But I'm covering all the parental things on Little Big Adventures (in German).
So what am I currently tinkering about? Well, last Sunday Daniel / Dino (freshly baked dad himself) dropped by, we talked about his upcoming Konflikt '47 Italy army and what possibilities for conversions are in the room. I can tell you, quite a lot. But he'll cover that in separate articles. I took a break or better said interruption from the dominantly historic ww2 reviews, from those Tigers, Hetzers and Marders. I do like those kits and they are fun to build, but a bit more variation is a healthy thing to do, I added a bit of fantasy and sci-fi in there, along with different historical epochs.
Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire – Spiteclaw’s Swarm
The matching counterparts to the Duardins of The Chosen Axes are the Skaven of Spiteclaw's Swarm. The Skaven, almost human sized rat-men, are one of the few (if not the only) faction that kept their name during The End Times and the introduction of Age of Sigmar. As the "existence" of these giant rats is still argued about in the lore (in the records of the human realms the sights of Skaven is continouisly dismissed and the people who saw them simply labelled as insane), they live in the ground, in dens and caves, and sometimes these large underground settlements cross the cities, deep in the mountains of the dwarfs / Duardin, making the two a fitting bundle for this release of Shadespire.
The warband expansion of Spiteclaw's Swarm consists of 4 Skaven clan rats and Skritch Spiteclaw himself. It is set at a price tag of 22.50 EUR and contains two pre-coloured sprues in brown, a card deck and brief instructions on the assembly.
The card deck covers 65 cards, 5 cards for the warband itself, 29 are unique cards for the Orruk warband and 31 universal cards (split across objectives, upgrades and ploys) to be used with any Warhammer Underworlds warband.
Preview to Warhammer Fest Europe 2018
With the Warhammer Fest Europe returns the former Games Day in a new form to Germany. But not like in the past events to Cologne, but to Duesseldorf.
On the 18th and 19th August 2018, so the coming weekend, Warhammer Fest Europe will be held on the European mainland. The Warhammer Community page covered the Warhammer Fest UK in an extensive post over here: Warhammer Fest Live Blog.
Why am I looking forward to the Warhammer Fest? For that, we have to first take a look back to the years of 2008 'til 2010, the last times I was to Games Day Germany in the famous Guerzenich. Imagine entering the grim dark world of Warhammer in a gothic building, in the heart of the old town of Cologne.
The new venue for Warhammer Fest Europe is the Maritim Hotel in Duesseldorf, so there will be plenty of room and parking (which was kind of a problem at the Guerzenich). You could even get there by plane due to the proximity to the airport, if you wanted to. Just make sure you land at Duesseldorf Airport (DUS) and not "Duesseldorf" Weeze (NRN).
Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire – The Chosen Axes
The next double of the Shadespire warband extensions, after the Sepulchral Guard and Ironskulls's Boyz, will be The Chosen Axes and Spikeclaw's Swarm, beginning with the Fyreslayers.
The Fyreslayers are part of the Duardin race and are searching for the Ur-Gold, the remains of their god Grimnir. Grimnir fell when he fought Vulcatrix, the mother of Salamanders, and burst into the metallic shards of Ur-Gold. The Ur-Gold is accepted by the Fyreslayers as payment for their mercenary duty (they will fight against and alongside anyone as long as the payment fits) and can be forged by the Runemasters into mighty runes. As such even the rumours of Ur-Gold in the mirrored city is motivation enough for any Fyreslayer to go on this journey.
Converting Winter Germans
I've covered the review on the German infantry in winter gear a couple of days ago and already opened up on the possibilities to convert them, by adding parts from other sprues and kits. Due to the way the miniatures in the Warlord Games kits are cut, it is quite easy to use parts from other sets within the range. With the Winter Germans two of the most interesting kits to swap parts with are the Soviet Infantry Winter and German Grenadiers.
Before the Winter Germans were released in April, a couple of people used the bodies from the Winter Soviets and added German weaponry and heads. That is quite easy to do, as the Soviet kit is from the older design pattern, where you had open hands and separate weapons. The cloaks have a different design to the German ones, but with some backpacks and the weaponry in front of them, you barely notice or it is repurposed clothing. That works at least for Ostfront armies.
Warhammer Koblenz Store Opening Party
Today, on August 4th, was the store opening of the new Warhammer store in Koblenz, Germany. I did a preview to this event two weeks ago, A Warhammer store on my door step. The store is located quite central in the city, right next to the shopping mall Löhr Center, so you can get there quite easily by public transport, train or car. I could have gotten there by foot, back in the day when I lived in Koblenz.
Around 10:45 I arrived at the store and there was already quite a queue, some even had brought along their camping chairs, like on the release events of Apple or other large companies. Among the crowd were a couple of cosplayers, resembling the Imperial Guard and troops of the Inquisition. I'm sure you have seen them at events like the RolePlayConvention in Cologne or former Games Days.
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