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).
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.
Journey of the Maulers: The Corona Games
Meanwhile probably everyone has felt the effects of this virulent plague, no matter in which area. Unfortunately this has also had a strong influence on the season of the Maulers. I had already planned a few matches that cannot take place now. As a father of two children, grandparents as neighbors and a pregnant woman who is not allowed to take medication, I had to find an alternative for the remaining three matches of the first Maulers season to avoid exposing my loved ones to unnecessary risk.
The fans want to watch games, Corona or not
Coincidentally I have three painted teams standing here and so I tried something that I usually only do to learn rule mechanics - I played against myself. At first it seemed strange to me, but with the new edition on the horizon, time to finish the season is running out and playing a video game on the computer isn't really different.
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.
Realm of Chaos – Hooves and Fur Part XIII
Here they are, the Realm of Chaos undivided warband - Hooves and Fur.
A trip down memory lane … my first Games Day
Games Days (the predecessors of the Warhammer Fest) were a format of an event, organized by Games Workshop for the first time in 1975, originally in London, and covered the broader range of products that the company imported and distributed, like role playing games or miniature boardgames. Later the event was moved to Birmingham, to the NEC and the focus changed according to the company's range towards tabletop wargames.
With Games Workshop growing internationally, the Games Days were not only held annualy in the UK, but in many European countries like Germany, France and Italy, and on other continents, like Australia (Sydney) and North America (Atlanta, Baltimore and Chicago) as well. The first German Games Day was hosted in 1999, with many of the international events joining in the early 2000's.
I went to my first Games Day exactly 17 years ago on August 24th 2003. But why do I write about a Games Day that was so long ago? The same day I found the tickets from my first trip to Warhammer World, I came across my ticket from the 2003 Games Day in Cologne.
Back in the day, the German one was held in Cologne, at the Gürzenich. Quite an impressive location for such an event, as the Gürzenich is a representational building in the heart of the city, which was first opened in 1447 and has a classic late Gothic façade. And is it used as a festival theatre, it easily covers enough space for a wargaming events.
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