Warhammer World 2018 – Exhibition Centre Part 2

With the Old World covered in Part 1 of the Exhibition Centre article, this one focuses on the next two areas, with the (grim) dark Sci-Fi setting of the Warhammer 40,000 world, including the horus heresy and the main piece of the exhibition, Battle for Angelus Prime.

And be sure, the grim dark future of Warhammer 40,000 is not under represented. Indeed quite the opposite. The setting has outpaced the former bigger, fantasy brother in the last decade. This has many reasons, one of them surely the popularity of the Horus Heresy, which is although shown in its broad beauty, both in the newer plastics and extended Forge World resin range.

As promised above, Horus Heresy era World Eaters getting ready for battle, boarding several thunderhawks.

And right on the other side, an epic battle covering the "Burning of Prospero" between the Space Wolves and Thousand Sons during the Horus Heresy on the Thousand Sons homeworld Prospero. In the center of the diorama, on the bridge you can see both primarchs, Leman Russ leading the attack, companied by Freki and Geri, his loyal wolves, and Magnus the Red, the later demon prince of Tzeentch. You can see in the left corner, the Adeptus Custodes joining the battle, supporting the Space Wolves to their later triumph.

And these duells between brothers continue in the cabinets, Primarch versus Primarch, along with lots of Space Marines, smaller dioramas and vignettes, showing Imperial forces and allies along with Space Marines from the first founding and their successors.

Green against Green, the Dark Angels against the Death Guard on an industrial planet.

And more Space Marines, Dark Angels and Ultramarines, including the new Primaris units.

This is a quite known diorama of a Tyranid swarm attacking a snow fortress of the Space Wolves. This battle has been around for quite some time know. It used to be on the ground floor and could be seen from the outside, later it was the center piece in the miniature gallery (see the first picture of the first part of this article) and know is embedded in the Warhammer 40.000 areas of the exhibition centre.

But there is more the Imperium than the Space Marines, the Imperial Guard. The different regiments were shown on display and dioramas, along with this huge mustering of the troops on what looks like Cadia. Look at all those tanks and infantry on the march.

Behind the next door was the true center piece of the exhibition centre. Battle for Angelus Prime. It is the largest diorama, ever build by Games Workshop so far. It shows an epic battle between the Ultramarines and a Chaos Space Marine army devoted to Khorne. This epic diorama covers both stories and the stair case goes around it. It even has a change of lighting, swapping between red and blue, similar to the Night and Day change at the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg.

It contains over 5,500 miniatures from Games Workshop and Forge World (that's even more than the Gallipoli 40mm diorama by the Perry twins in Wellington, NZ), including titans, knights, flyers and lots and lots more units. It took a team of 10 painters and modellers over 9 month to build this 22 feet long and 12 feet wide diorama, that is almost 20 feet in height. But enough of the words, I'll let the pictures speak.

After spending roughly 15 minutes just starring at this monstrosity and trying to take in what's happening right before you, we went back to the floor below. In one corner a mighty relict is on display, the helmet from a Tactical Dreadnought Armour, more commonly known as Terminator Armour. And from the white stripe along the nose it belongs to a Terminator Sergeant from the Ultramarines or another chapter true to the Codex Astartes.

A brief overview over the different houses of the Imperial Knights, before we continue our way to the last remaining area. The knights are so colourful, I'm really looking forward to the (maybe) coming re-release of Epic / the Titan wargame by Games Workshop.

The last remaining area opens up on Warhammer 40,000 and prevents some of the xenos forces. Like this huge battle between the Eldar of craftworld Iyanden against the Tyranid hive fleet Kraken. The lava was lighten from below.

The showcase for the different types of Titans is ready, promoting Imperial as well as Chaos war machines. The mighty Warlord Titan has an additional showcase, to show the ritual of ignition by a techlord of the Adeptus Mechanicus. That one was really tricky to take a picture of, lots of light coming from behind.

The Astra Militarum / Imperial Guard retrieves a gunned down Valkyrie gunship in an Ork town.

The Blood Angels march towards an ancient temple of the Necrons.

Sokar Pattern Stormbird, predecessor of the smaller Thunderhawk gunships. Leman Russ used one of these as his personal transport ship.

A very Forge World loaded battle scene between the T'au and Adeptus Mechanicus, even covering the huge T'au Manta, until the Warlord Titan came along, the most expensive product from the resin forge. The Manta has a wingspan of over 80 cm / 34 inches and is over 60 cm / 25 inches long. At 12.5 kg it is quite massive. But the Adeptus Mechanicus has brought along quite the assortment of Titans and Knights, impressive fight between the yellow armour suits of the T'au and the red and bone coloured tech army from Mars.

Of course there are many more miniatures, small dioramas and competition winners to see. There ist just not enough space here to cover everything. But I hope this coverage gives you a feel, what to expect. To be honest, I was a bit sceptical at first, as I've been there before and the ticket prices are not that cheap, so I was afraid to see a lot of things that I've already seen. But they put a lot of effort into this, it is much larger than the former free exhibition and with the Battle for Angelus Prime it has a proper center piece. Beside that, we may not forget, that even while we are talking about the largest company in our beloved hobby, we're still talking about a niche. So you can not compare this for example to a model train museum or something like that.

I lost a bit track of time while going through the exhibition centre, but I guess we've been there for around 45 to 60 minutes. Games Workshop sells the Warhammer Diorama book, covering the large setups in this exhibition as a softcover for around 16 GBP. So this is a neat idea as a souvenir for yourself or for someone who couldn't make it to Nottingham.

Beside that, Games Workshop is continuously working on the exhibits, changing some of the guest displays in regular turns and even has a treasurehunt included in the exhibit. If you're able to spot the Assassin on the Battle for Angelus Prime diorama, you'll get the kit for free, it is called the Great Assassin Hunt.

Link: Games Workshop Warhammer World Exhibition Centre