Throwback – Lead Belt Nottingham 2010 – Day 4
Last day of our trip to the lead belt and we headed to the outer area of the Nottinghamshire, to Mansfield to be exactly. Why head out there? Maelstrom Games had their facilities there, back in the day one of the largest wargaming stores, maybe only second to Wayland Games in the UK.
What made it interesting was not only the vast range, but the incredibly large gaming hall with 72 (!) tables, that hosted two tournaments at the same time. Epic 40.000 and Warhammer Ancient Battles on that day we were there. But not all, they even covered a bar, lounge and even more gaming tables. I think one of the things that impressed me the most, that even although the vast amount of tables and this not being club rooms, the amount of terrain was high and the quality of it more than just presentable.
Throwback – Lead Belt Nottingham 2010 – Day 3
Friday started quite early, at 9 a.m. we went for a quick shopping at Mantic, as some of us wanted to buy some Kings of War armies. In my case, it were a few zombies (I really like the versatile use of the ghouls and zombies by Mantic) and the Dwarfen kings council. On top we got these Mantic messenger bags with personal dedication by Ronnie and Alessio.
But that was just a brief stay at Mantics, as we had the second part of our meeting with Warlord Games. I had the chance to meet John Stallard, who was tied the day before (he participated in the Games Workshop shareholder meeting). It was really great to meet another former high ranking manager. John participated in the same battle report, we mentioned yesterday with Ronnie.
Throwback – Lead Belt Nottingham 2010 – Day 2
For the first full day in Nottingham we had the two newcomers on the miniature market on our schedule, Warlord Games and Mantic Games.
Warlord was already in the Lenton Business Centre where they sit until today. But back in the day, as a young and small company, they only rented single offices that were spread across the centre and not the whole wing and own brick & mortar store like today.
The range was already quite broad in terms of historical coverage, but far from the variety of plastic kits as today. The Early Imperial Romans and some Black Powder kits were already available and the first German soldiers for Bolt Action.
Throwback – Lead Belt Nottingham 2010 – Day 1
In August I have written about my anniversary in "professional" wargaming, and during my time as editor-in-chief I visited a lot of shows and convention, and we did some tours to meet with some of the manufacturers. Our first large tour of that kind was exactly 10 years ago (well in the night from the 14th to the 15th), towards the lead belt.
For those of you not familiar with that term, the lead belt describes the greater Nottingham area / Midlands, as due to Games Workshop sitting there, a lot of other tabletop companies were founded in the surrounding area - many by former Games Workshop employees.
As we were already in touch with the bigger companies for coverage, news and such, we arranged a couple of meetings in and around Nottingham and booked our stay in a hotel in Nottingham (Jury's Inn, proper stay, can only recommend). When I say we, it was Christian/Darkover (my former second-in-command), his wife Sarah, and two friends of mine from the local wargaming club; Andre (the albanian national coach, more on that later) and Lukas (my flatmate from my student days).
A comment on “Is Historical Wargaming Dying Out?”
The US-american wargaming channel Little Wars TV asked the question, "Is historical wargaming dying out?"
It feels like an rather odd question to ask, for one thing at the current time, with a completely empty event schedule accross the board of wargaming, not just historical. But not that, but a rather enthusiastic article on The Economist about the lead belt booming - not just Games Workshop.
Decluttering the ‘bunker
With the project private home continuing further, I'm preparing moving my studio into the new house. And as I don't intend to bring "dead projects" into our new home (as it will be harder to get rid off them, as that hopefully will be our last move), so I'm progressing further with the evaluation of projects and minimizing my stock. Currently focusing on bulk projects and items, where I'll see the results of emptying up space quickly. Sold and gave away a few items already, for example the majority of my Warmachine stock (Colossals and Battle Engines), Battle Masters leftovers, and am willing to split with my early Saxon Saga and Mantic Orks.
And while sorting through the drawers and boxes of my studio, I did not only find things from the days past, like the tickets to my first Warhammer World or Games Day visit, but quite the lot of assembly instructions.
A Medieval Siege Engine
Ever since I played Age of Empires 2, the tribok or trebuchet caught my interest. In the The Outlaw King, the impressive Warwolf was seen in action. And when the Baron's War kickstarter covered a set of siege engine crew, I got them, as they fit very well the early crusades armies as well.
But as for the siege engine itself. I always liked the Gripping Beast siege engine, but that one is out of stock since I ever looked it up. Sarissa Precision covered a tribok of their own, as an MDF kit, which is a steal at 20 GBP, very inspired by the Warwolf and incredibly huge. But to huge for my use and I am not that keen on MDF for these kits, as I wanted the wood texture, that you can show like that in resin or plastic. The kits by Games Workshop for the Bretonnians or Gondor are quite nice, but OOP, so I went on looking for plastic or resin kits.
Looking back on August 2020
I ordered Knightmare Miniatures retro-style miniatures through Battlefield Berlin in April and after a lot of reminding and pushing, they finally managed to send the few casts to Berlin and it was quickly forwarded to me. I am aware of the situation in Spain and that it is niché, but seriously, 4 months and that amount of pro-activity necessary ... annoying.
The few models will be added to my greater Realm of Chaos collection, along with the bat swarms by Reaper and Masquerade to be included in the small undead warband.
A miniature Odyssey – Fresh Meat
After finishing my Summer Project in the last article, I have to say that I have developed a taste for it and would like to expand my army of Hades. All in all, the experience of a team project was very motivating and I would like to give the army a little more variety.
Well, what goes well with skeletons? Sure, zombies! For this purpose I snatched some zombies from Mantic from Gregor, who participated in the summer project with his indigenous tribes.
A miniature Odyssey – The Gates of Hades…
…have opened and the last block for the Summer Project 2020 is finished. Since I already had some practice with the skeletons from Warlord Games, it didn't take long to paint the last six of them.
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