Warhammer Fest 2023 - Part 1: The People

Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration,

motivation, and a pinch of creativity.

- Robert Foster Bennett

 Hello everyone and welcome back to The Art of Caesura!

Before I get started on this mammoth post about Warhammer Fest, I want to say a huge "Happy Birthday" to the love of my life, my wife, Jules. This post is all about important people, and for me, she's the importantest. 

What an exciting time to be alive! This past weekend, I was lucky enough to attend Warhammer Fest in Manchester! Today, in this non-Friday special post, I'm going to share a portion of my experiences with you!

I took almost 300 pictures of Warhammer Fest (such was my enthusiasm); so rather than assault you with a fire-hose of un-curated images, I have pared them down to the most fun and representative pics and I'm going to divide them over two posts. Today, I'm going to focus on what is most important in life (no, not crushing your enemies)...people! Next time we'll look at the minis!

I'm going to look at some of my general experiences of the convention and some of the "famous" people who make the hobby community a better place. 

Here I am leaving from Cork, Ireland at 6:30am on Saturday...and then arriving at Manchester Central. 

In honour of the 10th edition Warhammer 40k boxset, the venue had themed decorations playing on the Imperial vs Tyranid theme. Each day there was also a scavenger hunt where you would be given clues to scan QR codes on various decorations hidden all around the massive venue. Once you got them all you would earn a different metal collectors badge each day. 

It was cool to see the models we paint (or will soon be painting in the case of the Terminator below) blown up to life-size. The 'Eavy Metal paintjobs hold up pretty well when enlarged to 11 ft. tall!

Below you can see the Titan collector's gang in full swing. (Not-so-) miniature wargaming!

There was a paint-and-take area as well as other fun areas like the squig-a-pult, Kill Team-themed laser tag and even a large Warhammer board game area where you could borrow Warhammer-themed board games (Risk, Munchkin, Warhammer Underworlds, ?monopoly - is that one?) as well as a bunch of vendors counters, not to mention like half of the venue filled with the many tournaments that were running for like 10-hours per day. I didn't take pictures of all that stuff - not wanting to interrupt the gamers. 

Focus Entertainment were there with the huge Space Marine II billboard as well as a demo of the upcoming "Boltgun" video game. I got to take it for a spin and it is everything you would want in a slightly modernized (you can jump) Warhammer 40k re-skin of Doom II. Rip and tear indeed!

Hands down the most fun and creative vender booth was for Warpforge by Everguild (the guys who made the Horus Heresy Legions game). It's an online collectable card game which (while not specifically my jam) was a lot of fun to play and is due to release in the coming months I believe. The real joy came from the extra gubbins they had at their "booth". They had a capsule that you would walk into and a servo-skull would talk to you, scan you and then assign you to one of the various factions in the game; it would even print a photo of you as a character on a card from the game! This was a blast and us attendees were really getting into it striking various poses. 

They had a bunch of objectives for you to complete (play a game of Warpforge, play a game of Legions etc) and when you completed your little objective card, you'd get a branded mouse pad. Not too shabby for free!

Finally, they really marketed to the community by having a display made by Squidmar Miniatures, a model of Ghazghkull painted by Jon Ninas (of Ninjon / Trapped Under Plastic fame), a model of Abaddon painted by Angel Giraldez with looped videos of their painting processes. 

The Games Workshop (and Forge World) shop, where they had all their regular stock as well as event exclusives, had cool massive billboards of the new models from Leviathan. 

Another amazing element was the cosplay. I love how diverse different peoples' engagement with the hobby is: whether it be painting (like myself), gaming, getting into the lore, or indeed cosplay.

Below, is Em Johnson who one the cosplay competition...

I was fortunate enough to get a picture with her!

I attended as many of the reveals as my schedule would allow!

At the "Old World" one, a guy even happened to be dressed up as one of the models that they revealed! It was hilarious!

Below are the cool chain sword trophies for the gaming tournaments. 

I was so fortunate to meet so many pillars of the hobby community. I was totally star struck much of the time as you can tell from the gigantic smile etched into my face!

Tabletop Tactics (with Maxine in the background)

Guy (and Hatty in the background) from Midwinter Minis

Matt from Miniwargaming.com and Maverick from Maverick's Paint

Below are all the regulars from Warhammer TV demoing the games of 10th Edition! Man, the energy, humour and grace that these guys kept up all weekend was something else!

I was thrilled to see Marco Frisoni from Not Just Mecha, with whom I took my first painting workshop last year. 

Lukas from Squidmar Miniatures whose girlfriend attends the same University in Ireland that I teach at. 

Eddie - I don't actually know what his job title is within Games Workshop, but he hosts all the reveals and seems to know everything there is to know about all facets of Warhammer. 

Aaand...the man, the myth, the legend, Darren Latham who I (appropriately) met peering into the Golden Demon cases (featuring many miniatures that he sculpted, and several that he had painted). 

I also said "hi" to Louise Sugden (recently of Rogue Hobbies) and saw Angelo di Chello and the gang from Vanguard Tactics but didn't snap pics. 

Anyway, it was legendary! Every single person was enthusiastic and open for a chat. It was a wonderful experience to put a person behind these legends that we watch on Youtube. 

Anyway, thanks as always for tuning in. I'll see you next week when we look at a bunch of the pictures I took of the Golden Demon entries, right here on The Art of Caesura!

Reading: White Dwarf

Listening: Auspex Tactics

Next Week:

Auric devil...