My 30th birthday was technically last Friday, but I was away on a birthday surprise at the time, so had prepared that entry a couple weeks in advance. Now that we're back in real-time, I can tell you that my birthday surprise was both amazing and relevant to this blog...
As you no doubt know by now I'm a big fan of Warhammer, and especially the lore. For me, rather than actually playing the game, the hobby is painting and reading about the guys I'm painting. So when we got to the airport a couple weeks ago and I saw our gate said "East Midlands" I knew it could mean only one thing: WARHAMMER WORLD!!! And what's more: THE BLACK LIBRARY LIVE event. My fiance? She's a keeper.
I'm from the West Coast of Canada, but have been living on Ireland's west coast for the past good bunch of years. As long as I've been into the hobby I've secretly dreamed of visiting Warhammer World and it's only compounded by being North American, because it's always been so far away.
Anyway I was barely able to sleep on Friday night and awoke super early, having to force myself not to leave the AirBnB till at least after 8am. The half-hour walk down Nottingham's Canal turned into a skip and jump at times and when I rounded the corner off the canal the sun was shining so brightly in my eyes, that I could only barely make out the deific structure in front of me.
Though I arrived just after nine, there were already (literally) hundreds of people lined up buying pre-releases of Black Library novels and getting them signed.
It was all fairly overwhelming at first, and remember this is coming from a country bumpkin who lives 2.5 hours from the nearest gaming store. I had just enough time to check out the Forge World store (the only one in the world) and browse the gaming tables (many of which have graced the pages of White Dwarf) before the special Black Library talks began at 10am.
Over the course of the day I went to 6 talks by the legendary likes of Gav Thorpe, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Josh Reynolds, Guy Haley, David Guymer, Mark Clapham and many more. Actually getting to meet the people who have been creating (and destroying) the worlds that I have loved living in (via painting miniatures, playing games and reading books) for the past decade and a half was nothing short of mind-blowing.
I won't give you a blow-by-blow of every talk because we'd all be here all night, but some tidbits were: Gav and Josh Reynolds demonstrating through multi-media display how the audio-dramas are made. It was pretty funny hearing the celebrated actor stumbling over the Sci-fi and fantasy names and cursing the whole while!
I went to a talk on Age of Sigmar (where my interests predominantly lie now that the Olde World is no more) and while it wasn't as packed as the 40K talks, it was still well attended. Guy Haley, Josh Reynolds, and Nick Kyme spoke candidly about what they missed about the old world and the freedom that Age of Sigmar has introduced. Where as previously, in the Olde World, changes with a large impact were hard to orchestrate because the world was relatively small (you couldn't just blow up Altdorf for Lustria (well, until they did...). But with the Age of Sigmar being spread across the vast Mortal Realms there is scope for more radical changes happening over the course of a narrative.
When I originally wrote this post I got a bit long-winded about their views of the tone of AoS which I actually think warrants a whole entry to itself...so tune in next week for that!
I sat there with glee during the Q&A section when interested hobbyists asked questions trying to get a sneak peek into what's coming down the pipeline and the authors would have to squirm until Nick Kyme (acting as the host for that talk) would have to interject and just cut them off every so often.
So here are two AoS rumors that I gleaned from the event:
Will we see any more characters from the Olde World make a return?
Josh Reynolds said a character he'd like to see return: Vlad von Carstein.
Obviously, as an author, his rationale is a narrative one and he explained it by saying that we need another opponent (aside from Chaos) to keep Nagash busy while the "main" story line is going on. He said that Vlad might be able to control his "son" Mannfried and together they could provide something of a challenge to Nagash in Shyish.
Guy Haley gave a more diplomatic answer and said that while he loved Skarsnik (and Gobbla) he would rather introduce a character that serves the same purpose as opposed to filling up the new world with characters of Olde.
Okay, I know these two aren't rumors, but when asked specifically about the potential for Karl Franz to make a return they both paused, looked awkward, and glanced over to Nick Kyme. Hmmm...
Will the timeline progress in the Age of Sigmar as it did in the Olde World or is it static?
It was kind of funny the way they answered this one, without any prompting, they immediately started saying things like "Well if you mean 'will we see more technology and steam punk elements introduced' then YES."
This could obviously be referencing Scaven, but I think it's much more likely a reference to the new "steam-head" Dwarves (Duardin) that have been rumored since the Fyreslayers came out. I have even heard rumors that if they create a Deathroller for Bloodbowl, that there's a chance that the model could crossover to AoS.
Anyway, exciting times.
Well guys, I'm afraid I've run way over time. I'm going to just post a ton of pictures below that you can work your way through at your leisure if you wish. Moral of the story: if you get a chance to go to Warhammer World (and especially one of their special events) TAKE IT!!!
Okay! Well there you have it! I hope you enjoyed my fanatical look at an incredible place, and I really hope that you too get a chance to check it out at some point!
Reading: Death Zone - Season One - Games Workshop
Drinking: My Great Redeemer Ale
Watching: Arrival
Next Week:
Tone in Age of Sigmar
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