It seems to surprise everybody but I’ve never been to Warhammer world the apparent mecha of tabletop gaming in the UK, But I haven’t, it was always a dream when I was a child.
So as a birthday treat my beloved took me their with a hotel stay and everything.
Getting there was easy enough, not easy by London standards for public transport but not bad for most of England, we just got the tram which are nicer than buses and then it was a 10 minute walk to the place, there is car parking spaces and all that kind of stuff
Once you have paid and got in, its pretty much a free roam, there is an order that people tend to do things in, but you don’t have to, We did the traditional order, which is to do all the galleries, then the main play area, then food, then the shop but you can revisit any part you want as you like.
The galleries were the highlight and the main reason we went
The scenery and dioramas are the bits I love the most as they tell the best tale, but nothing beats Necromunda, I want my Grim Dark with extra Grim Dark, and Grim Dark sprinkles on top.
The galleries were everything I could have hoped for, Starting on the real historical stuff, The first miniatures and where game workshop came from, all the way up to absolutely epic sized dioramas that you could look at for days and still not see everything, I can see people coming multiple times and seeing something new each time.
A lot of amusement can be had by listening to other people talking to their friends and family as they walk through the galleries, some trying to explain what this all is, some getting a little bit too over excited about the lore, some trying to justify being there and why they are dragging the whole family round, a personal favourite was the comments of some overly zealous geeks at some small kids who were running around screaming excitedly at all the pretty toys and that they “weren’t toys” and getting wound up.
Food turned out to be excellent, A full spread of everything you want from beers to interesting drinks, vegan and non vegan solid food all catered too, A little bit slow on the delivery service but they did seem to be working confidently, it was just busy that day, mind you there was plenty to do even while you’re waiting, books and games to play and you know as long as someone held onto your table you could just wander around the shops and visit other parts so there was no dead time.
I know for a lot of people the store is the THING because it is the biggest Warhammer store and it has everything in it, Every Forge world model and miniature available like that but for me it was a passing interest, I already have a storage unit of shame so I didn’t need to buy any more models, though it did reinvigorate me to go back to some of the models that I bought in excitement and had not got round to, so that’s a good thing and it’s nice to see a lot of the forge world models in real life before you actually do anything
It was a shame that the one item I did want to buy which was the coffee table book of Warhammer world itself was missing but it was on backorder
Also there is the great big play area where the serious tournaments are held. This did not have the attraction to me that it does for some people. As I’m mainly interesting in the the painting and not the game but it was nice to see it there.
A Selection of the awesome painting in the galleries
Nearly all of these photos are by my beloved, and i was so happy to see she enjoyed it as much as me, even for none Warhammer fans its a good place to see, the lore and amazing painting skills on show may it a fun time for just about everybody, give it between 2 and 5 hours for the full trip.