Warhammer Day 2019 in Koblenz

Yesterday was Warhammer Day in every Warhammer Store all over the world and I took the chance due to proximity, to stop by at the store in Koblenz.

What's the idea of Warhammer Day? Games Workshop has a larger marketing plan, making it easier to recognise the brand and to enter the hobby. So if most people already call it Warhammer and don't connect it that strongly with Games Workshop (especially like friends or family trying to buy items for you as a hobbyist), it makes sense to bring up the Warhammer brand stronger / more present. Similar with smaller scale games, with less miniatures, offering them as easy to build / faster to assembly kits and products like contrast paint, to cut down the time it takes to put them on the table. Oh and just to point out, Warhammer Day is not Warhammer Fest. We're still waiting for the announcement of the date in Europe / Germany.

The "party guests" were welcomed with cake, cup cakes and cold drinks, along with the Warhammer Day exclusives. Those were a Battle Sister Superior, a store exclusive Funko Pop! Primaris marine that is primed so you can paint it in your own style, a set of 6 strategic markers and a special Warhammer Day pin.

I really liked the video Games Workshop prepared on the Warhammer Logos through the ages.

I got myself the Funko Pop! and the Sister Superior, on top I got the Pin and some art post cards / small art prints.

The Funko Pop is the same as the #494 Ultramarine Primaris Intercessor, simply primed grey instead of the chapter colours. The Funko Pop shows a bit of mould lines, that should be filed down before further painting. I have to take a look how to partially disassembly that model, as some parts need some cleaning and the helmet bottom is not aligned well. Have to decide on a chapter / colour scheme. Have seen some amazing custom pops online, repainting and converting the four others Funko Pops.

As for the Sister Superior Amalia Novena. She's a plastic kit and there was quite a lot of backlash online due to the inconvenient product picture, showing the 3d print steps of the master on the bolter. Depending on the production (pre-run) time of a product, sometimes resin (printed) masters are used for production pictures, to give the painters a bit more time for the paint job. Sometimes these 3d print steps are so fine, that you just see them after painting, similar to an unspotted mould line. Just to point out, the steps aren't on the delivered product, as you can see in the second picture.

On Forge World products that is unfortunately not the case, the masters of which they build the moulds upon are not "post-processed" and the steps that you can see on some of the pictures are unfortunately on the final product as well (that's of course only the case with the newer models that were 3d mastered, like Blood Bowl or Necromunda). As due to the premium surcharge for Forge World products I'm rather unhappy about that laziness in production.

The art print is a nice addition to the boxed set.

As for a "general" Warhammer Day it was pretty heavy on the 40k stuff, along with the pre-order of Apocalypse the whole Age of Sigmar / Fantasy part of the hobby was pushed back further. The day could have been more on the decade long journey towards today, with maybe picking up the theme of the video, where they went through the logos. Games Workshop offers some reprints of old books like the Rogue Trader and Realm of Chaos hardcovers at Warhammer World, so I would have expected maybe something along these lines.

Next store event in Koblenz would be the store anniversary on August 3rd. There's already a preview on the items you can get on the store anniversary on Warhammer Community.