Warhammer 40.000 Killzone: Sector Mechanicus
As supplements for the Kill Team Starter kit Games Workshop released a series of specific Killzone Environments. These kits are bundles of already available terrain kits with added content for the Kill Team rule set at greatly reduced price.
In this unboxing and build review, I continue with the terrain kits after the Sector Imperialis Basilicanum and move forward to the Killzone: Sector Mechanicus.
For 65 EUR we receive a huge and heavy box, with a lot (and I mean it, a lot!) of sprues. I had to add the comparison with the Primaris Space Marine so you get a feeling for that huge stack of frames you get for that money. But that is not all, as mentioned above, this is not simply a discounted terrain bundle, this is a Kill Team Killzone supplement, covering a double sided thick card board gaming mat and additional gaming material, like an environment chart for the Sector Mechanicus, 4 new scenarios using the terrain from this kit and 12 new tactic cards.
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.
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 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.
A Warhammer store on my doorstep
Earlier this year I saw an unexpected advertisment by Warhammer Recruiting on my facebook feed. They are looking for a Store Manager in Koblenz. Wait a minute? Koblenz? That's my (former) home town. That would mean ... that can't be ... a "real" Warhammer Store right on my doorstep?
I've lived in Koblenz, the beautiful city at Rhine and Mosel, for 7 years and if you would have told me, we would get a Games Workshop store in our city, I'd laughed and said no way. But on August 4th Warhammer Koblenz will open up. A bit strange feeling for me, the last time I've been to a Games Workshop Store Opening was almost 20 years ago. That was the Games Workshop in Darmstadt on June 26th 1999! I was there with my oldest friend, with whom I started wargaming back in the day.
DREADBALL EPISODE 1 – Team presentation: Marauders
Until Monday, July 9th 2018, Mantic is giving a 25% discount on all Dreadball teams. For us enough reason to launch a series of Dreadball focused articles, where we will introduce some of the teams and review both editions of the game. We`ll start with Darkhand's Disciples, a team of Marauders.
The Disciples are made up of ex-pirates and convicts. It is named after the notorious Orc general and raider Darkhand, who took so much pleasure in the game that he quickly set up an own one. Although Darkhand is no longer the owner of the team, the name persists.
Playwise Marauder teams consist of Guards and Jacks, while they don`t have Strikers at all (the type of player who is most likely to score points). While in the first edition of Dreadball they were able to keep up relatively well with the better teams, they find themselves more in the midfield in the second edition, as the Jacks got better, but with the amount of beafier teams, the Orcs got a little weaker.
Mantic Games Studio 2018
As mentioned earlier, we combined Salute in London with a day trip to Nottingham. First stop on friday morning was Mantic Studio. As with the Warhammer World, this wasn't the first time visiting Mantic. It was quite impressive to see, how Mantic has grown over the years.
My first visit at Mantics was 2010, back then Ronnie and his crew was located at "Mantic Towers" with roughly the space that the new front area covers. 2013, for the first Warlord Games Day, I was the second time at Mantics. They already moved to the outskirds of Nottingham then, and moved from an apartment to an independend office building with enclosed warehouse. Now Mantic has moved again, into an even larger office building, roughly twice the old building, covering a front desk with visitors area, multiple studio offices, production facilities and a warehouse.
In the front is a gaming area, with couple of tables and a front desk. Several games from the Mantic range were displayed, including the board games. On the front desk was a loose assembly of the new and upcoming terrain crates, along with announcements to the new Hellboy Kickstarter.
Salute 2018 Haul
The concluding post to our Operation Sealion 2018, the haul, the loot, the gathered goodies and shiny stuff made from metal, plastic and resin. If you're going by plane, make sure to have enough empty space in your luggage to cope with your buying. As mentioned before, I was quite happy about the shipping services of some of the companies (and that is the reason, why this post was postponed in comparison with the other coverage, as I was waiting for the remaining miniatures and kit to arrive).
But let's begin, this pile of boxes and blister is my yield of our trip to Nottingham and Salute. Let us begin with the main event, the Salute 2018. The South London Warlords did once again a great job with the show, and I made sure to get my hands on the 1918 memory event exclusive vignette, sculpted by Perry Miniatures. It shows a trio of Soldiers from World War one, a french, a british and a german soldier. The always have further souvenirs at their booth, so I made sure to grab two sets of dices (with a poppy on the six), a badge and a copy of last years female russian standard bearer miniature.