As I hadn't ventured up to "Warlord Games" Headquarters in Nottingham since it moved to its new site at Finch Close in 2020, I decided to attend this year's "traditional annual Open Day and partake in John Stallard's "celebration of our great hobby". The new venue certainly looked much more spacious than the company's previous collection of outhouses and side buildings, but to be honest I did miss the opportunity to visit "North Star Military Figures" first whilst waiting for the event to start.
Furthermore, despite a couple of large canopies being erected outside in the front car park to 'house' a series of excellent-looking participation games, I still thought there wasn't much room to move about in - especially once all two hundred plus attendees had arrived. This 'press of people' vying for a natter with their favourite YouTuber, rules writer or games designer was doubtless a testament to the popularity of the show. However, a couple of times I simply put products I was planning to buy back on their respective racks in the sales area because I couldn't see a way through to everything I wanted to 'pick up' and so thought I'd try again later on.
Minor quibbles aside, the tables on display were absolutely first-rate, and once I'd been given my goodie bag, complete with a superb 28mm metal Desmond Doss Open Day Figure, some paints, a '0' size paintbrush and much appreciated US Marine Corps plastic sprue, I sought inspiration at a rather comfortably-sized Napoleonic Black Powder table and later, an awe-inspiringly large ACW Epic Battles 'feast for the eyes'. Both these layouts and subsequent chat with the chaps behind them, immediately got me enthusiastically thinking about my own similarly-themed projects - which is just the sort of buzz I like to get from such shows.
Perhaps the biggest highlight of the day though was bumping into wargames author, Roger Gerrish, and spending a good half an hour chatting about his upcoming plans for Konflikt '47, all things Star Trek and visiting various historical battlefields. I had already managed to exchange a few words with the likes of Chris Peach (now of "The Painting Phase" fame) and Stuart Mack (from "Miniature Realms Studios"). But Roger's knowledge of numerous rulesets, the challenges of working on an officially licenced "Doctor Who" game, and the current hobby obsession with Weird War One was thoroughly entertaining.
Likewise, the highly-anticipated tour of "Warlord Games" was an experience simply not to be missed, and proved an incredibly enjoyable ninety minutes of talking with some of the industry's leading designers, sculptors, painters, and manufacturers. In addition, I was able to see some of the upcoming miniatures planned for release over the next twelve months, and this included a look at all the A.B.C. Warriors figures taken straight from the pages of the British science fiction anthology comic "2000 A.D."
Cast in Warlord Resin Plus, it was made clear to us just how difficult and expensive it would be to produce such large war robots in either resin or metal, courtesy of some enlightening demonstrations from each of the respective departments. I really was flabbergasted by how speedily efficient the Siocast machines were, especially when compared to the two-three day long process it takes for the company to produce its resin vehicles. Moreover, by the end of the day I'd been given a crisply-detailed 28mm Skull Sword Champion and US Marine as examples of just how this "new formulation differs from the current Warlord Resin" - as well as a 28mm metal Robin Hood from the highly informative and entertaining Peter Hely...