Warlord Games – HQ Store & Studio 2023
While were in Nottingham for Bring Out Your Lead, we used the time on our hands to visit the new Warlord Games Headquarter and Store. The moved within Nottingham from the Business Centre (where Northstar and a few other miniature companies have their offices as well) to Lenton, not far from the Warhammer World. And once again, it is impressive to see how much the company has grown and I want to share my impression with you.
You can sign up for a guided studio tour, which is held Fridays at 13:00. You'll need to book the day before by 12:00. Tickets are 15 GBP per person (free entry for children under 15) and you get a goody bag of sample figures. Conor, who runs the Warlord HQ store, is the tour guide and brings you from station to station, to learn more about how the miniatures are crafted and how a miniature company this size operates.
August 2023 review
Half of the things that I promised in the preview on August actually happened - and we were in Nottingham for a prolonged weekend, including all the things we had planned beforehand and a few things more.
Our main reason for being there was BOYL / Bring out your Lead. I wrote a sum-up on it here - Bring out your Lead 2023, and it was a lovely day. And as we didn't have a tight schedule, as we had in our Salute trip in 2018 (Operation Sealion) or the prolonged detour in 2020, we had more time for other activies.
These included a bit more being at the pubs and restaurants, and some leisure time, that we used among other things to go Nottingham Castle and had a great time at the Lost City Adventure Golf. Very well maintained indoor golf facility, where you could not only have a beer while you play, you can order more on the course.
Warhammer World 2023 – Exhibition Centre Part 3
And the third part of our coverage on the 2023 visits to the Warhammer World exhibition, focusing on the 40,000 part of Warhammer, including the gigantic centre piece of the exhibit further below.
Imperial Might
A huge mustering of the Imperial Guard. This has been in the exhibition since 2015, and can be seen in our 2018 and 2020 coverage, but is updated from time to time, to include newer units. For example the tanks in the front rows have been replaced by the Rogal Dorn Tanks. This time I paid more attention to the background and I really like scratch build supply train in the background, as well as the modified Valkyrie using the wings and eagle from the Aquila Strongpoint of the Wall of Martyrs kit (rare kit and OOP).
Warhammer World 2023 – Exhibition Centre Part 2
After covering the Bugmans Bar and the fantasy parts of the exhibition, we move further into the Dark Future of Warhammer 40,000 and the Horus Heresy.
As mentioned in the first article, we've covered parts of the exhibition in the visits of 2018 (Warhammer Fantasy / Age of Sigmar, Horus Heresy / Warhammer 40k) and 2020 (Warhammer Fantasy / Age of Sigmar, Horus Heresy / Warhammer 40k), and will focus more on the novelties and some spotlights this time.
Warhammer World 2023 – Exhibition Centre Part 1
Part of the Warhammer World experience is the Exhibition Centre, which covers large dioramas and walls full of display cases with vignettes, armies and individual miniatures very early ages of Citadel Miniatures until the most recent releases.
The exhibition centre spreads across two floors and four areas, and ticket prices are 7,50 GBP per adult, 5 GBP for children from 12 to 17, younger kids are free. There are group and family tickets available as well. You can buy a softcover book, which covers professional pictures and additional information on the larger dioramas for 18 GBP onsite, which is a perfect souvenir. The book is updated regularly and currently in its third edition.
As we already have covered the new exhibition centre in extensive articles from our visits in 2018 (Warhammer Fantasy / Age of Sigmar, Horus Heresy / Warhammer 40k) and 2020 (Warhammer Fantasy / Age of Sigmar, Horus Heresy / Warhammer 40k), the focus this time is more on some spotlights and novelties, as some of the larger setups were replaced and / or updated.
Warhammer World 2023 – Hobby Centre, Gaming Area & Bugmans Bar
Another visit to Nottingham, after 1999, 2004, 2010, 2013, 2018 and 2020 - if I didn't miss anything in between. While the big theme of the weekend was BRING OUT YOUR LEAD, we of course wouldn't skip a visit to Warhammer World while were already there. Not much new in the front, the Rhino is still there, the old Space Marine they moved from the Office building (was replaced by a Stormcast) towards the courtyard in front of Bugmans Bar.
But they remodelled the entrance of the shop and gaming area a bit. There's a front desk and small store, along with facilities on the ground floor. This used to be "just" an entrance, with the service desk being on the first floor, along with the store. They enlarged the store, which now feels more like a larger version of a regular Warhammer store and less like the Warhammer World store, as they replaced a lot of the merch, reduced the exclusives (like T-Shirts, Mugs etc.) etc. for regular stock. The reading area of the Black Library was removed for regular shelves and added a painting area. You can get a good comparison if you look up my 2020 visit of the Hobby centre.
Bring out your Lead 2023
Last weekend we were in Nottinghamshire for Bring Out Your Lead 2023! And that gave me the opportunity to cross two items from my bucket list, visiting BOYL and visiting Foundry, as we never had the chance to do the later, not even in our initial Lead Belt trip in 2010. Brief warning - this article covers about 90 images.
What is Bring Out Your Lead?
Bring Out Your Lead (affectionately and unfortunately known as 'BOYL') is a celebration of all things Oldhammer; old games, old miniatures, old ... well, people too! We get together once a year to put on amazing narrative games surrounded by these old rules and miniatures - just like the pictures of the games we stared at in those various gaming magazines all those years ago before there was an internet.
And, whilst it gets harder to bring any more definition to BOYL, you can rest assured: Bring Out Your Lead is NOT A TOURNAMENT!
Wargames Foundry is kind enough to provide a venue for this event, the Carriage Court Stoke Hall, so we put on proper boots due to the weather and went from Nottingham towards Newark.
Throwback – Lead Belt Nottingham 2010 – Day 4
Last day of our trip to the lead belt and we headed to the outer area of the Nottinghamshire, to Mansfield to be exactly. Why head out there? Maelstrom Games had their facilities there, back in the day one of the largest wargaming stores, maybe only second to Wayland Games in the UK.
What made it interesting was not only the vast range, but the incredibly large gaming hall with 72 (!) tables, that hosted two tournaments at the same time. Epic 40.000 and Warhammer Ancient Battles on that day we were there. But not all, they even covered a bar, lounge and even more gaming tables. I think one of the things that impressed me the most, that even although the vast amount of tables and this not being club rooms, the amount of terrain was high and the quality of it more than just presentable.
Throwback – Lead Belt Nottingham 2010 – Day 3
Friday started quite early, at 9 a.m. we went for a quick shopping at Mantic, as some of us wanted to buy some Kings of War armies. In my case, it were a few zombies (I really like the versatile use of the ghouls and zombies by Mantic) and the Dwarfen kings council. On top we got these Mantic messenger bags with personal dedication by Ronnie and Alessio.
But that was just a brief stay at Mantics, as we had the second part of our meeting with Warlord Games. I had the chance to meet John Stallard, who was tied the day before (he participated in the Games Workshop shareholder meeting). It was really great to meet another former high ranking manager. John participated in the same battle report, we mentioned yesterday with Ronnie.
Throwback – Lead Belt Nottingham 2010 – Day 2
For the first full day in Nottingham we had the two newcomers on the miniature market on our schedule, Warlord Games and Mantic Games.
Warlord was already in the Lenton Business Centre where they sit until today. But back in the day, as a young and small company, they only rented single offices that were spread across the centre and not the whole wing and own brick & mortar store like today.
The range was already quite broad in terms of historical coverage, but far from the variety of plastic kits as today. The Early Imperial Romans and some Black Powder kits were already available and the first German soldiers for Bolt Action.
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