With things easing in the United Kingdom, my family was able to travel over for my younger brother’s wedding.
As anyone other nerd would do, when you find yourself in the UK, you do the reasonable thing: grab your brothers and drive 2 hours each way to Warhammer World! Thus the three of us ventured off! Two Warhammer fans and a third brother under the illusion it was a normal bachelor party.
Initial Impressions
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the necessary restrictions, the Games Workshop staff were very helpful. Given the nature of the occasion we had set up the works for the trip: lunch at Bugman’s (which required a reservation) and then a tour of the displays. One of the first things that impressed me was that each of the desk attendants were happily painting miniatures (something I wish I could do at my own job). While we couldn’t get a game in the gaming space, it was nicely arranged though it appeared the terrain was a little sparse.
Bugman’s
Bugman’s was quite the experience with a nice old-world Warhammer ambiance. One of my brothers ordered a burger, one got the loaded fries and I ordered the Pizza. We each got one of their bespoke branded beers which we all thoroughly enjoyed. The food was good, if a little over-priced, but you are mostly paying for the ambiance anyway. We were very impressed by the staff who were again courteous and attentive.
Shops
While we waited for our tour slot to open up we took a quick tour of the store (which lasted 30 minutes!) As you would expect the offerings were impressive. While I don’t have the catalogue fully memorized I am pretty certain you can buy any Games Workshop product possible (Forgeworld and otherwise). I briefly considered buying a Stormbird (but figured my wife would make me fly it home haha). I was a little disappointed some of the Night Lord and Horus Heresy units I was looking for were out of stock : (
Galleries
When I initially scheduled our visit, my impression of the gallery space was that it would be pretty simple and would take 15-20 minutes to walk through. Needless to say I was wrong. All told it took us over an hour to go through the various displays and dioramas set up. It was cool to see a lot of the older models and how they progressed over the years. However, the true depth and detail of the set piece battles were what caught my eye. Especially the Battle for Angelis masterpiece which measures over 22 feet tall. Apparently it took over 9 months to build and has to be seen to be appreciated.
Final Thoughts
Overall we were very happy with our visit to Warhammer World (even my brother who doesn’t play 40k found a new appreciation for the hobby.) I had expected the visit to be a quick diversion and an overly-corporatized vehicle to sell miniatures so I was surprised at how extensive and immense the gallery space was. I think Warhammer World shows the pinnacle of the hobbying side of all of their games and it’s not an experience I expect to be duplicated. Overall we had a marvelous time and enjoyed out experiences and especially our interactions with the staff. Oh and we also achieved our primary goal….
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