With a paper due in a matter of days, time has been tight. But I have not forgotten the Warmaster, and so here is a sneak peak of the future of the 29th Company.
The long road to Canberra begins.
Stay tuned over the coming weeks!
The Unblinking Eye
Home of the Sons of Horus 29th Company
Monday, 6 April 2015
Sunday, 29 March 2015
The Horus Heresy Weekender 2015
Horus Heresy Weekender 2015
A somewhat belated review
Ever since Forge World started running their Horus Heresy
Weekender events back in 2013 I have desperately wanted to attend one. Games
Days were canned in Australia after GD 2012 and it was starting to seem like
I’d have to wait until I moved overseas before attending the HH Weekender.
A series of fortunate (and somewhat unfortunate, as I will
elaborate on later) events conspired to move the Weekender to February rather
than its traditional spot in May for the 2015 event, which fit in with my
strict schedule. After convincing my girlfriend that this was an excuse for a
holiday, we booked and within a couple of months I found myself at the HH
Weekender, surrounded by people who have been writing the books I’ve loved for
(in some cases) much of my life.
Many others have covered the specifics of the event –
whether that be the seminar details or many pictures, and so I hold little
interest in emulating their great contribution to the community. Rather, I’ve
written a sort of review or account of my time at the HH Weekender. Perhaps, if
anybody else is looking to make the leap to travel vast distances in the name
of the hobby they love this will assist them in their decision making.
The Location
The Horus Heresy Weekender is located in the Nottingham
Belfry, a 4 star hotel located approximately 15 minutes’ drive away from the
Nottingham Train Station. I’ll be blunt; the hotel was fantastic in every sense
of the word. While it’s too far away from most of Nottingham’s attractions if
you’re not driving, the building and location are gorgeous. As with any good
establishment, the staff are kind and helpful and the rooms are quite
impressive also. We received a discount on our room price due to attending the
Weekender which made the whole thing a bargain. We chose to stay an extra night
on the Sunday so we wouldn’t have to check out during the last day of the
Weekender itself, and for the money you’ll be hard pressed to find a better
hotel for the price in the UK.
There are two great bars in the building and overall I felt
that the place was good enough to justify dragging your spouse/significant
other along, if you were to do what I did and make the HH Weekender part of a
holiday. My girlfriend loved the place, and we’d both happily come back.
The Store & Merchandise
Forge World had set up a huge stall right in the foyer as
you entered, a big circular beast. I was incredibly excited for the event
exclusive minis, and was disappointed to find out that FW hadn’t been enforcing
a limit of one per person until the end of the event, so when my friend and I went up to buy them
around lunchtime on the first day they were all gone.
Thankfully, FW were kind enough to take my order and ship
the event only minis to me back in Australia for free. FW’s exceptional service and class was a
common theme of the event. When Nick Kyme wasn’t able to make a book signing,
he personally came out of Warhammer World to sign my book for me, and if I
hadn’t been able to make it FW were going to get it signed and shipped to me
with, once again, no cost. There were no
Primarchs or books available for pre-order, which was a little bit
disappointing, but the art prints & event anthology were more than enough
to satisfy me.
To any prospective visitors, I’d highly recommend taking
cash to the event. Several times I was able to skip significant lines because I
preferred to use cash and not card.
I bought a completely new copy of Conquest and got it signed by everybody involved in its creation. It is now my most prized possession. I also grabbed a massive Sons of Horus poster and a canvas sketch of Horus himself. For the Warmaster!
The Seminars
The Seminars were a mixed bag. All of the Forge World run
seminars were fantastic, Tony Cottrell is a great host & the legends that
be (Alan Bligh, Andy Hoare, Mark Bedford etc) make them universally
entertaining and interesting. The Black Library seminars weren’t necessarily
bad, but generally fell into the category of a Q&A rather than a seminar.
My favourite seminar was The
Galaxy Burns: The seminar on Conquest. Those who know me will know that I
believe this to be the greatest book ever written, and it was great to hear
them talk about it and answer general questions on the Heresy. My girlfriend & I got a cheer for
travelling from Australia at the beginning of this seminar, which was really
nice.
Evening Entertainment
This was, for me, the only really disappointing part of the
weekend. I expected some kind of giant HH quiz – which was what the other kind
gents at my table expected also – but what we actually received was some kind
of Laurie Golding twitter promotion festival. It was fun for a while, the teams
built monstrosities out of Lego etc and completed some smaller quizzes, but
then for some stupid reason Laurie Golding decided that he wanted teams to take
selfies and post them to his twitter (while following him on Twitter, of
course). While winning obviously wasn’t important, it meant that for a solid
20-30 minutes my team just sat around, as none of us had twitter-capable phones
on us. Some of the groups in the room had fun and others were completely left
out.
I would have preferred that every table be able to
participate. It was quite disappointing, and I hope that next year they change
the way this is run, or confiscate Laurie Golding’s phone and inform him (kindly)
that he will never be a twitter celebrity.
Musings & Legends of the Hobby
Because of the grand Warhammer World unveiling in May, the
HH Weekender this year did not have as much ‘exclusive’ or pre-release/preview
content as the two preceding events. In terms of brand new content, it didn’t feel
like there was as much as I’d seen in pictures from other events.
What carried the event were the people. The staff and
authors were universally wonderful people. Never had I felt so geeky as I felt
that weekend, but people were understanding, even when I was babbling inanely
in an (ultimately futile) attempt to convince Alan Bligh and Simon Egan that I
wasn’t a lunatic. From Tony Cottrell welcoming us to the event personally, to
Alan Bligh not minding me fanboying over Conquest (BEST BOOK EVER), to AndyHoare not minding fanboying over Conquest & the 3.5ed CSM codex, to SimonEgan simply being an amazing bloke when I fanboyed over Horus & generally everything
the man does, to Mark Bedford who was an insanely funny, helpful andinteresting guy, to Graham McNeil who put up with my fanboying over his many brilliant works (notice a
common theme here?) and was happy to talk about Honsou & Vengeful Spirit,
and to Chris Wraight and Guy Haley who stood talking to me for so long, speaking
so candidly about things I thought I’d never hear anybody affiliated with GW
say. Not to forget Dominik, an incredible & friendly artist who gave an
incredibly insight into the design process, and Rhys who was helpful in
explaining the subtleties of Sons of Horus green.
It was incredibly endearing and I left the Weekender a bigger fan than when I arrived.
It was incredibly endearing and I left the Weekender a bigger fan than when I arrived.
Conclusion
I’d like to sincerely thank my girlfriend for putting up
with my resin addiction.
Also, a huge thank you to all Forge World staff, writers and
artists as well as the various BL authors. Without you all there wouldn’t be
the 30k so many of us know and love and it was these great people that made the
event worth travelling for.
I'll definitely be back next year!
Monday, 24 November 2014
Welcome!
Hello and welcome to The Unblinking Eye! My name is John - I'm a 21 year old from Brisbane, Australia. I study Classics (Ancient History & Classical Languages) at the University of Queensland, and will be commencing post-graduate studies in 2015.
I've been collecting Warhammer since I was in 9 years old, having been introduced to the game as a little child by a cousin. Despite this cousin leaving the hobby while I was still quite young, he bequeathed me a large number of older White Dwarves, from which my love of Chaos Space Marines was kindled. I was transfixed by the stories of the traitor Legions, and the diorama of Horus vs the Emperor (done by Mike McVey I believe) really inspired me.
From these early days I counted myself as a follower of the Black Legion, and despite forays into fantasy you could be sure that when I took to the tabletop, it would be with the Eye of Horus adorning my models.
In my later school years I fell out of the hobby due to time constraints, but immediately following school my girlfriend (who would have thought) claimed that she could paint better than me when she discovered unpainted Chaos Space Marines in my cupboard.
Boy, has she regretted saying that in the years since.
I immediately threw myself back into the hobby, aiming primarily to increase my painting skills to a competition level that I could be proud of. Unfortunately, Games Workshop are full of morons and removed Games Day after 2012 from Australia, so it is unlikely I will ever realise my dream of winning a Golden Demon.
In late 2012, Forge World released Horus Heresy: Betrayal. The moment I saw the Sons of Horus, I fell in love and I've been a dedicated Son of the Warmaster ever since.
This blog has been created so I can muse on the Horus Heresy in general, and perhaps post pictures and WIP's of my Sons of Horus. There is a fantastic tournament scene in Brisbane related to 30k, and I am signed up for many of these events. I aim to do battle reports in the future to cover this.
I do not expect this blog to ever attract many viewers; I am no power gamer so it is unlikely you will find revolutionary new tactics here. This blog is as much for me as it is for any possible reader. I love the 30k community, and hope to contribute as much as I can.
Thanks for reading!
I've been collecting Warhammer since I was in 9 years old, having been introduced to the game as a little child by a cousin. Despite this cousin leaving the hobby while I was still quite young, he bequeathed me a large number of older White Dwarves, from which my love of Chaos Space Marines was kindled. I was transfixed by the stories of the traitor Legions, and the diorama of Horus vs the Emperor (done by Mike McVey I believe) really inspired me.
From these early days I counted myself as a follower of the Black Legion, and despite forays into fantasy you could be sure that when I took to the tabletop, it would be with the Eye of Horus adorning my models.
In my later school years I fell out of the hobby due to time constraints, but immediately following school my girlfriend (who would have thought) claimed that she could paint better than me when she discovered unpainted Chaos Space Marines in my cupboard.
Boy, has she regretted saying that in the years since.
I immediately threw myself back into the hobby, aiming primarily to increase my painting skills to a competition level that I could be proud of. Unfortunately, Games Workshop are full of morons and removed Games Day after 2012 from Australia, so it is unlikely I will ever realise my dream of winning a Golden Demon.
In late 2012, Forge World released Horus Heresy: Betrayal. The moment I saw the Sons of Horus, I fell in love and I've been a dedicated Son of the Warmaster ever since.
This blog has been created so I can muse on the Horus Heresy in general, and perhaps post pictures and WIP's of my Sons of Horus. There is a fantastic tournament scene in Brisbane related to 30k, and I am signed up for many of these events. I aim to do battle reports in the future to cover this.
I do not expect this blog to ever attract many viewers; I am no power gamer so it is unlikely you will find revolutionary new tactics here. This blog is as much for me as it is for any possible reader. I love the 30k community, and hope to contribute as much as I can.
Thanks for reading!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)