Warhammer World - The Oldhammer Collection (Part 3)

Welcome to part 3 of my photo collection from my August 2016 visit to Warhammer World.  This post concentrates on photos of some of Mike McVey's fantastic dioramas constructed during the 1990s.

There's an excellent interview with Mike himself over at Realm of Chaos 80s here.  As Mike says these became his full time job for over a year and they are still fantastic pieces to look at today.

First up we have Azrael of the Dark Angels in a Chapel.  I believe this was first featured in the Angels of Death codex where it was the inside back cover piece.  As far as I can tell most of this is a scratch build however its nice to see things like the 90s plastic Boltguns used as decorations on the right while assorted banner-tops are used as gothic architecture pieces around the setting.
The centrepiece of this is obviously the highly detailed Stained Glass effect windows which are incredibly well finished.
Azrael and the Watcher in the Dark mini's are unusually standard, with only Azrael's combi-weapon swapped for a book, however the colour schemes and the painting style are pleasingly different from the Studio Army version which existed at the time, injecting some more colour to the robes and drawing the facial features in more.
Sidenote;  Azrael and Watcher are both still available from GW in metal if anyone is interested clicky.

Up next we have some more Dark Angels, this time storming the corridors of a Space Hulk in a delightfully 2 dimensional sort of way.  I first recall seeing this pictured with the release of the 2nd Edition of Space Hulk around 1996 and the minis all look like the plastic multi-parts which came in the box.

Sticking with the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, we come next to the Emperor & Horus.  Now at the time this was created GW had not delved deeply into the story of the Horus Heresy beyond that given in Codex Imperialis and the Marine and Chaos books which followed it.  The only miniatures that had been produced to portray the mythical Primarchs had been Angron and Magnus for the Epic range so the sizing was certainly not developed to the scale of what is now available from Forge World and (if rumour is to be believed) the upcoming Daemon Primarch kits.  Both Horus and the Emperor here are heavily converted from period Terminator kits, with Sanguinius largely scratchbuilt.

Sidestepping now into the world of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, we find ourselves in the days of 5th Edition.  Plastic Bretonnians and Lizardmen fill boxed games across the country and find themselves the subject of Mike's skills.  Sadly I didn't take as many photos of these as I thought so there's only one each.
The Lizardman sacrifice piece I remember seeing in White Dwarf 206 which was my third ever issue of the magazine.  There's a lot going on in this scene, ranging from the dynamic horseman shooting at the Mage Priest to the simpler Skink archers positioning on the balcony.

The second piece is the Bretonnian Joust, published in an article in White Dwarf somewhere around 215 (from memory, please don't shout how wrong I am) which also included the Full Tilt mini game and a card Joust set up in the magazine.  Another very detailed work, lavished with some incredibly intricate scriptwork throughout and some very neat conversion work to create the Noble audience in the box while some Men at Arms minis act as retainers to the competitors.

I'll end this post with the last piece on display which was Mike's multi-layered Warhammer Quest diorama.  Stupidly I failed to take a decent picture of the whole piece so for those who haven't seen it published I fear the effect of this will be rather lost.  Instead I have a couple of detail shots focusing on some of the heroes, which are fantastic examples of those which came in the boxed game and in the supplement hero boxes, some with some tasteful conversion work such as the Empire Noble.

Thanks for reading, if anyone has any memories of these pieces, links to better photos on your own blogs etc please do comment below.

Warhammer World - The Oldhammer Collection (Part 2)

Hello all, with a typically long delay (I was on holiday and getting engaged, thank you for asking) I present part 2 of my photo dump of the Games Workshop Studio display of Oldhammer items.

These are not split by the cabinets they are displayed in, rather I have tried to group them more by era and type.

Today's selection shows you some of the early books on show, including a rather fresh looking copy of Realm of Chaos, and a number of the early 40k boxes including the Land Raider and the Ork Raiders set which includes a display of them painted - I'm not certain if these are GW's original set or a later addition but I'm sure someone out there will do.

Also included here are a few snaps of the famous John Blanche undead diorama replete with GW's very old Victoria St address.  I've seen a lot of photos of this over the years so it was very exciting to see it in person.

Until next time!

Warhammer World - The Oldhammer Collection (Part 1)

On entering Warhammer World proper, you now arrive in the Games Workshop / Citadel store which is about the size of their average multi man store but as it doesn't have Gaming Tables in the middle of it, gives over more space for stock and has a small number of displays set up.

We were greeted enthusiastically by one of the team who give us a run down of what there was to see and do, took our payment for the Exhibition (£7.50 a pop if you were wondering) and stamped up a couple of tickets for us.  We were then directed toward the entrance doors of the Exhibition area.

On stepping through the doors you find yourself at the bottom of the stairs which lead up to the 5 Main Exhibition galleries, and it is here you will find Games Workshop's display of its past.  3 Cabinets are here with a mixture of items from the 80s through the earlier 90s, including several of Mike McVey's classic dioramas.

The first cabinet contains the oldest parts of the collection and I've included a dump of my photos below.  Please accept my apologies for the quality as they are all taken on my phone, through glass, and many have reflections from the mirror backed cases.

These first shots capture a mixture of Chaos Warriors, Sorcerers and Human Heroes all of which predate me and my time in the hobby but which I recognize from many other community blogs and the older publications.  Enjoy!

Warhammer World - On Arrival

I'd like to preface this with an apology, my blog does link to the Oldhammer Forum and there will be material in upcoming posts which do not fit that criteria.  Hopefully it doesn't put anyone off too much!

This was my first visit to Games Workshop's HQ and to Nottingham in general, so I had little idea what to expect.  I remember when they moved to the Lenton site and the building was pictured in White Dwarf (I think even before they got the Space Marine out front).  Our satnav took us from our hotel across town, passing along Castle Boulevard at one point which I got a little excited by, until it told us we'd arrived at the entrance to an unassuming industrial estate.

The main HQ building actually sits slightly into the street so you don't immediately see the oft-photographed Statue and reception area, but rather the back of a separate building which had signs for an ominous "Security Check".  If anyone can tell me what the layout of the site is, please do comment below.

As we were rather early, we had some time to kill so wandered the areas outside Warhammer World itself until opening time.

Now as most people will have seen, the famous Space Marine at reception was replaced a year or so ago with one of the new fangled Stormcast Eternals.  Its actually still quite an impressive thing to see outside a corporate HQ.  My quick snap attempt at getting an epic backlit silhouette can be seen failing above.  There is a better photo on my better half's phone which I will obtain later.

The Marine statue himself hasn't gone far, and has been set up in the extensive carpark with a screen behind him to make a bit of a photo op.  A passing GW staffer saw our tragic attempts at selfie'ing this and took our photo with him which again I will post up once I get it downloaded.

Also in the carpark you will find this.

Yes, its Games Workshop's very own life size Rhino.  A modern APC of some form dressed up to look the part but undoubtedly a very cool feature to have at the entrance to your visitor centre.  I presume its never run since installation however I have seen the one that was made for the makers of the Dawn of War PC games online, making short work of small hatchbacks.

A nice little plaque displays the in-world specs of the mighty Rhino, while and altogether more modern health and safety sign tells us peasants to stay off!

After about 20 minutes of hanging around in the uncharacteristically summery weather, the blacked out glass doors of Warhammer World opened and we entered into the lobby.  A few small display cases display some of the stuff for sale - essentially there was one for Citadel, one for Forge World and one displaying some of the Bugman's and other exclusive items.

A short flight of stairs bedecked with long artwork posters leads you up and into the centre proper.....

Not dead after all

Two years since I updated this, about right for most blogs I reckon!  I now have a house, a display cabinet and just last week entered my 30s.

As part of my 30th, me and my better half decided to have a little road trip holiday in the UK, which took in the Edinburgh Military Tattoo (fantastic) and a long drive South to Nottingham........

This of course allowed me to visit both Warhammer World and Foundry, where the aftermath of BOYL 2016 the weekend before was very much still in evidence.  I massively enjoyed both of these visits and have a couple of hundred photos which I'm going to try and organise into a few posts for the coming weeks.

In the meantime, a quick snap of my Haul from the trip.  Not pictured is my ceramic Dwarven Tankard which they sold out of before my very eyes but very kindly arranged to ship to me for free once restocked.