Sorry for the slight necro, but I thought I'd give my thoughts on the events of today.
To just say it: this wasn't what I was expecting in all honesty. This was for the most part nothing more than a glorified sales event for Forge World, with some other activities going on at the sidelines. Before people ask, it was all Heresy-era space marines and for
40k, the newest Tau stuff. Everything else was unavailable, though it could be ordered at the stand and shipped to your home address with free shipping.
So, if you were looking to pick up a few Forge World kits without having to pay extra for shipping, go you!
What else was there, besides the store area? Well, one set of rooms was set aside for some great 'Eavy Metal painters, another for several people from Forge World with a few items on display and another for Specialist Games. Quite crowded, as the rooms were quite small!
There was also a gaming area with four or five tables with minimal terrain on it, which may sound bad, but surprisingly enough quite a few people had brought their armies and were playing really nice, laid back matches against one another. Why can't we have more like that at the store damn it?
My biggest personal disappointment was that there wasn't a Black Library or general
GW presence. No books on sale in particular was a rather sad thing! When we asked about this (maybe we missed it) we were helpfully reminded that in a few weeks time there would be a big event in the
UK we should attend instead.. As for a main
GW presence, aside from the latest White Dwarf, none of that either really, quite odd! Perhaps it was wistful thinking to hope for early access to the Goliath truck.
It was not all bad though, as there was one room reserved for the budding Specialist Games section where they had three very enthusiastic chaps present who were more than happy to answer any questions (within reason that is!) including Andy Hoare, the headcoach in charge of everything related to Blood Bowl, Mark Bedford who is in charge of cranking out amazing concept art and design sketches for the Studio and a third chap (sorry for forgetting your name!) who was in charge of the Lord of the Rings, with a pair of plastic River Town houses on display and resin dwarves on a pig and with spears / pikes. It was awesome to hear them talk about how it all came together, what the plans in general were and just hearing them shoot the gak in true Lord Borak style.
I also got Andy to sign my copy of White Dwarf 284 and hear one or two funny anecdotes surrounding the contents of that issue in particular, so double win for me!
The 'Eavy Metal painters and model designer in particular deserve some kudos as well, as they were awesome chaps who were very patient and quite talkative about their craft, eagerly showing off how they kitbashed together certain tables or how they pulled off certain colour schemes.
The enthusiastic, nice staff around the Forge World stand and the tills also deserve kudos, for helping everybody with a smile and boundless enthusiasm. Cynics may think these people are heavily indoctrinated into the company, but these were good, nice people who were quick to crack a joke and genuinely help about. Special mention should go to the chap at the Forge World stand who told us all about the new Stormbird kit, which he had handled back at WHW when it was assembled and to be brought down for display.
That said, it was fun, but there was a lot of "dead" time in between the opening of the doors and waiting for the raffle to happen with nothing to do, which is a shame.
All in all, they will have to step up their game a bit, as for me right now, it's not worth going again sadly.
1K Vostroyan Firstborn
2K Flylords
600 Pts Orks
3K Ad-Mech 
