So Warhammer Fest has returned, and for the first time since Games Day 2013, I was finally free to attend and sample everything that GW has to offer. I had a blast of a time over the three days and it was an excellent way to spend my birthday weekend. That being said there is certainly a lot of room for improvement. This is also the first time I have entered Golden Demon since I was eligible for Youngbloods and I’m very happy with my finalist’s pin!

I will be doing a separate write-up about my Golden Demon entry at a later date as I still need to take some proper pictures of my Doom Scythe since I only finished it on Friday morning. I’ll try and go through everything chronologically as I did it so that I don’t miss any details. I’ll also add some comments that I got from other people who were able to attend activities I did not.

This is also a bit of a long one! But hopefully, you should be able to jump to where you are interested here:

1. Day 1 and the Hobby Challenge
2. Day 2 and the Great Queue
   1. A Digression on Tournamens
   2. Horus Heresy and Old World Reveals
   3. Hang out & Paint Live
   4. The Golden Demon cabinets
3. Day 3 and The Awards
4. Final Thoughts
5. Golden Demon Entrants

Day 1 and The Hobby Challenge

Day 1 for me was booked up with the hobby challenge – you pick an event-exclusive miniature of your choice and jump into a massive pile of kits and sprues to build and paint something up in one day. This is effectively the latest incarnation of the Scrap Demon and the winner of each day of the Hobby challenge takes home the Scrap Demon trophy.

Doors opened at 8 and my friends and I rocked up at about 9. I went to enter my GD entry so we got to the hobby challenge at 9:30 ish. There were still lots of great sprues available but it was evident that all the good stuff had been grabbed when doors open.

Most of what was available were scenery kits and old push-fit models. It was a shame to see that there were actually a load of kill team kits and AoS Dominion sprues available at the start that some people had just picked up and put straight in their bags. I completely understand the need to and I’ll admit I’m much more speaking out of jealousy than anger but it definitely ruined the diversity of what could be made. That being said there were also some lovely people who were more than happy to share what they had and a massive shoutout Ben who was there from 8 until 6 studiously working on his minis and spreading around all the great stuff he wasn’t using.

There was also a big box of pre-built minis which was really handy. Largely lots of push-fit pox walkers that you could build a horde around. This was a nice touch since it sped up a lot of time for people that really wanted to make something big – much like my friend Chris’ entry…

Since there was such a large amount of AoS stuff, I decided to choose the Chaos model as my entry. I preferred the commissar but actually getting Tolgar Split-Eye out and putting it together really made me fall in love with the model and the box photos do not do it justice. The dynamic pose is something that you don’t see much unless a model is heavily converted so I bought an extra later on in the Fest since it gave me some inspiration for a future GD entry. Since there weren’t many kits that were getting the creative juices flowing I figures I would just paint a simple duel with Tolgar charging towards an AoS sorcerer (no idea what the actual kit is called) and just see how much I can get painted in a day – especially since I am notoriously slow.

After building our pieces they were then primed by the Event staff in either white or black. If you asked nicely they may have given it a zenithal prime for you too. It was about a 30 min wait for me which was completely fine since it was a prime opportunity to take a break and go and get some lunch. That being said, later in the day the security at the venue stopped the staff from priming so there became a big backlog while it was confirmed that GW had in fact cleared it with venue staff beforehand. Sadly Chris ended up waiting nearly an hour and a bit for his which was a shame. That being said, since the problem was simply the venue security being unsure it was allowed, I’m sure it wouldn’t have been a problem on the other days, nor should it be again.

Come 6 o’clock everyone had their entries on the table ready for judging and Effie from the GW painting team came along to have a look. The winner got the Scrap Demon trophy and two runners-up also got some other prizes though I am not sure what they were. Unsurprisingly the people that got there early had some great pieces since they had more time to plan and realise their ideas, and rightly these people were rewarded for their endurance and effort. That being said there were some really fun ideas and conversions of the event mini, and genuinely impressive paint schemes for the time we had available and it was a shame they couldn’t all be recognised.

I’m really happy with my entry. I got the chance to paint some models I wouldn’t normally pick up and I think I got them to a pretty good tabletop standard in effectively 5 hours of painting. I also had a good chance to try out more contrast paints which I wouldn’t have picked up otherwise. Chris took a slightly different approach with his duel and had the commissar fighting off a hoard of poxwalkers, which I think visually looked really good and was excellently executed, even if he did have trouble getting anything painted in time due to the priming delays.

One thing I am glad about though is that I did bring some of my own paints and tools with me. I had them in my bag just in case something awful happened to my GD entry and it meant that I wasn’t scrounging around for paints all day. I did rightly have the piss taken out of me for being a try-hard when I pulled out my wet palette though. The paint selection was eclectic at best so having at least a couple of triads in my box with me meant I could actually challenge my speed painting rather than painting with a limited range of paints.

I hadn’t realised how much I missed just sitting down and painting with other people until the challenge. It was something I used to do all the time at my LGS and it’s just great to sit and chat as everyone is working on a different project, trading ideas, giving feedback and generally talking about what we like. Warhammer Fest was also the first time I had seen Chris, my friend who I was doing the Hobby Challenge with, in nearly 8 years. It was also the first time we had ever done any hobby together which was a really nice moment.

As will be a running theme throughout this write-up (I hesitate to call it a review), it is really the people I was with that made this a special event. I’ll admit that I’m not massively clued up on Warhammer content creators outside of the big painters, and people who regularly post tutorials that I pour over every detail of, but I felt really grateful to get to chat with PickleJarHobbies and LetsMakeitOrkie as we constantly made jokes about the excessively large number of pipe sprues.

So day 1 was a blast. I really felt like I was part of a community that day, and genuinely felt like I had made friends with people that I would love to see at conventions and meet-ups at a later date. To top it all off, my GD entry had already been judged and I had at least a finalists pin! I had also timed the day perfectly because the main complaint throughout the festival, but especially on the Saturday, was the queues. Even the queue to just buy things from the shop was nearly an hour long and it seems like I had avoided the worst of it by keeping myself busy on day 1. Nonetheless, for the rest of the weekend I had nothing else booked and so on Day 2 it was time to move on to the convention itself.

Day 2 and The Great Queue

Having been sat down quite comfortably all day on Day 1, Day 2 I was on my feet trying to get a feel for everything Warhammer Fest had to offer. Most of the morning was spent wandering around on the scavenger hunt, but I also used this as an excuse to talk to some of my favourite painters that were also at the convention. A particular shout out to Darren Latham, who is as lovely and supportive as you would expect, and Marco Frisoni who was incredibly friendly and happy to talk about his work and what he had planned for the future. It’s unusual having watched so many hours of these painter’s (and others) videos because in my mind I do hold them as celebrities in some way. It was really lovely just to get to hang out with them and realise that in fact everyone is just human and they really do just love what they do and enjoy talking about their work.

I was planning on having a go on the 10th edition tables, but the queues for this were incredibly long, often more than a couple of hours to just play a round of 10th edition. Something I heard from a lot of people is that they didn’t necessarily want to be the person rolling the dice or making decisions, they just wanted to hear what was being said to get a feel for the rules. Since there was only 5 tables, this whole activity should certainly have had much better capacity. That being said a massive hats off to Nick Bayton and the rest of the GW team running these tables – I cannot imagine how exhausting it must have been to be running games for nearly 10 hours a day for 3 days straight with what felt like no drop in enthusiasm. Any criticism here is at the logistics and definitely not the incredible staff manning these stalls.

As for the rest of the hall, after chatting plenty of shit to Chris and Matt in the queue for the Squigapult, I didn’t make a fool of myself and got 2/3 winning a Warhammer Fest poster. Not a huge prize though given they were also being given out for free if you bought anything from the store…

Right next to the Squigapult was the Titan Owner’s Club who were playing a full-scale size game of Adeptus Titanicus. It was admittedly very cool, but as someone that doesn’t play the game, the novelty wore off very quickly, especially since I don’t think spectators could actually play. Nonetheless, the titan display was very well done, and bravo to the Titan Owner’s Club for keeping up their enthusiasm for three days as I constantly heard shouts of “ENGINE KIILLLLL” whenever a titan was defeated.

Next to the main hall was also a great stand where all the cosplayers were present. So many full-sized space marines, including a Warmaster Horus. I’m happy that GW gave them an exclusive space to show off and support their work. I also took the opportunity to chat with some of teh painters I had followed online and just generally let them know how great they are. Particular shoutout to the ‘Eavy Metal legend Darren Latham and OSL/Oil paints master Marco Frisoni

A digression on Tournaments

I also took the time to have a look around the tournament tables. My friend John had been playing in the 40k GT all weekend and I thought it a good opportunity to have a look at people’s armies. From what I heard from John and other people who had done gaming events, the competitive and casual tournaments were incredibly slickly organised. From speaking to the tournament judges too, apparently the team that organises a lot of competitive events in the US had been shipped over to run them. There were also screens around the outside of the hall televising the Twitch stream of the top tables with some great commentary on the tactics. As someone that hasn’t played 40k properly since 7th edition I never realised how detailed tactics could actually get but it all sounded incredibly insightful.

A particular shout out to the American announcer who was generally making sure the tournaments went smoothly and also occasionally announcing things for the Fest as a whole such as GD updates. He had the timbre of a slick radio host and it always made me smile whenever there was an update.

Horus Heresy and Old World Reveals

Anyway, back to what I was up to… it was reaching 1:20 now, and the announcements that I was interested in, namely Horus Heresy and the Old World, were coming up at 14:00. Since I didn’t have anything else pressing to do I went to the queue to get into the hall and I’m glad I went when I did. Even 40 minutes before I only just got in as the hall reached capacity. It was a long wait, but it was really lovely just striking up a conversation with the people in the queue and talking about how they got into the hobby and what they were looking forward to.

As a Tomb Kings player, this was great news for me. Being able to see new TK models for the first time in 10 years got me really excited. The atmosphere in the room was great and the Q&A afterwards was wonderfully insightful. The main headlines were to expect rules for all 8th edition Fantasy models, but only the factions present during the War of the Three Emperors would be regularly supported with new minis for now. It was interesting how candid GW were about how their support for the game will be based on how popular the rules and models will be.

Hang out & Paint Live

I decided to stay around in the auditorium for the Hang out & Paint session that was happening straight after. I don’t normally tune in to the Twitch stream but seemed like a great place to chill and just listen to people talk about the hobby. It wasn’t as well attended as all the announcement seminars of course, but it was a lovely intimate hour of just asking questions and talking about painting with WarhammerTV presenter Em Robinson. Adam Troke was on hand to run about the auditorium with the microphone and he did a stellar job of compering the auditorium events all weekend with excellent time management precision, quick-witted humour and lovely additional insights and his own thoughts on people’s questions.

This was the hidden gem of Warhammer Fest and a great way to escape the hustle and bustle of the main hall. It would have been lovely if it was just a bit longer and felt like when we used to be able to chat with the Design team in the days of old.

The Golden Demon cabinets

It was coming to about 16:30 now and the crowds were largely dying down. By this point the first round of judging was completed in GD so I took the opportunity to take a look at the entries. I have put a gallery at the bottom of the post with all my pics of entries. Going around the cabinets it was great to hear people’s thoughts on entries as well as have people point out what they had done. I had a blast speaking to a couple of Youngbloods entrants and we chatted about the stuff I had entered in Youngbloods over 10 years ago now!

It’s always so different to be able to see these miniatures in person. As well as seeing the incredible talent on display and details that may not be pictured by miniatures, you can see the brushstrokes which certainly helps to de-mystify the process that people have taken to make them. I always have a personal love for the simple pieces that tell a great story, or painting styles and colour palettes that are different from what one typically expects from a GW miniature.

A particular curiosity was that non-finalists (i.e. those without green stickers) could collect their miniatures from 16:00, but while I was looking around the cabinets, green stickers were still being added to some entries. It’s a shame to think some people who had collected their entries straight away might have missed out on a pin because of it.

Nonetheless, I could always spend hours staring at GD entries, and I was glad I went later in the afternoon as many of the crowds had died down.

Day 3 and The Awards

We have finally made it to day three. The rest of my friends were involved in the Doubles tournament so I was left to occupy myself. Unfortunately, there really wasn’t that much left to do that I hadn’t done already. I played the trial of Boltgun, which was fun, but only killed 20 mins at the start of the day. So I sat around for a bit before I decided to go pick up my GD entry.

I got a finalists pin which I was super happy about, and I realised there were a lot of artists hanging around so I took a chance to just ask people for their thoughts on my piece and suggestions on how I can improve. I will give them all individual shout-outs when I do my write-up on the entry itself. But for now a huge thank you to all of you for being so lovely and approachable as well as giving me some great advice on what to focus on for next time.

I noticed on Instagram that the Cult of Paint team were also having a meet-up at midday so figured I would swing by and have a chat. Once again, like a broken record, the best people to have a chat with. All of the team had their minis with them and were just open to chatting about Cult of Paint, their work, and the competition in general. Really insightful and I got chatting with plenty of other GD entrants and we all shared our work and discussed them. I actually thought this was a highlight of the event as I could just chat with other like-minded painters and we could trade tips and ideas on how we did everything we did. I ended up being there for an hour and a bit, so quickly went to grab some food before joining the queue an hour and a bit early for the GD awards ceremony.

It turns out that we didn’t need to queue for so long as most people had in fact gone home by that point in the Fest and so the hall was never at capacity.

The way the award ceremony works had changed a lot since I last entered in 2013. Back then, all the winners knew who they were before the ceremony, and so there was no anxiety. Speaking to several previous winners this apparently changed a few years ago such that the commended entries don’t find out until the winner was called on stage which sounds anxiety-inducing.

This year, GW decided to take this one step further and get all the commended entries on stage for each category and announce the winners while they were up there. I understand the thinking behind this because it gives recognition to all of those who may not actually win a trophy. Since the standard of GD has increased so much over the last few years it is important to make sure that people who do incredible work are given their time to shine. On a practical note, it also made it much easier in the auditorium to give out the awards as there was less awkward shuffling, but at the same time, I have a lot of problems with it. In fact, by the sounds of the groans from the entire audience, especially the commended entrants themselves, this was not a popular move. I also thought that making the Youngbloods go up first was definitely not the right way to go about it just seconds after springing this format change on them. All that beings said, the love that those Youngbloods entrants got from the crowd was so great to see and I’ll admit I’m very jealous of their skill at such a young age.

There are understandably a lot of popular painters in GD that do well and rightly deserve recognition. But at the same time, there are a lot of nervous people (myself included) that would find it pretty intimidating sharing a stage with these great artists, let alone when the crowd starts chanting people’s names before the results have even been announced.

I think the simplest thing for GW to have done would have been just to go back to the original format of letting people know beforehand. I really worry there is the potential for someone to have a bad reaction while on stage and that’s only going to reflect badly on GW when that inevitably happens. By all means, then get the Gold winners up for the Slayer Sword announcement, and also invite the commended entrants and winners in each category, but once people have had a chance to process their nerves.

Now all of this negativity should do nothing to detract from the actual achievement of the incredible artists who won Demons on Monday. Every single one was incredibly well deserved and Alberto’s Slayer Sword winning entry was breathtaking. I’m really glad none of the audience followed the instruction to stay silent until the sword was lifted, you could not keep a lid on how blown away everyone in the room was.

I’m also really happy to see that Warhammer Community are publishing the commended entries as well. The standard of this competition has reached so high that any of the commended entries could have gone home with a trophy on any other day. I also really like the idea floating around on social media of bringing back finalist medals for the commended entries. These could then be handed out with the trophies and I think it would remove some of the awkwardness if you are one of the two people on stage not to get anything for the smaller categories.

Anyway, after that it was time to collect my things and go. Just as I was leaving I had the opportunity to speak to Angelo di Chello - a personal hero of mine since he won the Slayer Sword the first time I ever entered, and what a wonderfully sincere man he is. Apparently, his Bronze winning entry was his first try and NMM in a competition?!

Final Thoughts

I had a really incredible weekend and got the chance to speak to loads of great artists and creators. I’ll be speaking more about the specific advice I was given when I actually go through my GD piece in a separate post. But it did feel that Warhammer Fest was great despite GW’s best efforts. If you hadn’t booked anything extra at the event, it was very easy to run out of things to do, and queues aside, you could have got through everything in an hour or two. Some of my group on the second day just brought their armies with them and had some games on spare tournament tables, which the tournament organisers were more than happy to facilitate. In future, I will definitely bring an army up with me too even if I don’t do the tournaments.

I would also be interested to know what the painting classes were like. Despite the main topics, there was very little detail on what models students would be painting or what they should expect to achieve by the end of the class. It did seem that every student got to pick 10 citadel paints to take with them as a part of the class though which does make them really good value.

Overall it just felt like there needed to be more. No design studio members were present, no additional vendors, nothing from Black Library and just very little actual interaction with GW itself. It was fun because I happened to get talking with so many other attendees. I feel like GW needs to be more of a facilitator at these events rather than be everything. Very much focus on GW products and minis for sure, but allow external artists to host classes as they do at Adepticon, get Black Library authors and GW’s ‘conventional’ artists in to give seminars and talks on their work. Why not even get some of the writers/actors/designers from the Warhammer+ TV shows to do panels akin to ComicCon?

I bought my ticket without details as GW had hyped up that this was going to be the greatest thing ever, and while it was better than the last Games Day in 2013, it very much felt like it was oversold. Games Day 2013 was a big shop with Golden Demon and Armies on Parade. Warhammer Fest was a big shop with Golden Demon and some games, but it was better because I got to speak with other attendees whose work I knew and loved.

And yet… even after all that… I would totally buy a ticket again straight away next year. I got to be a part of a community that I haven’t been able to interact with in so long, and I’m really happy that I made the most of my time in Manchester to share what so many people clearly love. Let’s face it, I’m by no means a big-time creator, I just have this tiny corner of the internet to record my thoughts and make sure I don’t forget anything I have done, if people happen to also read it then even better. But this weekend I really felt like I had my place as just this guy with a tiny doom scythe who enjoys telling people how great they are.

So thanks to everyone for making my 26th Birthday so special. Now finally let’s get to that sweet sweet GD gallery:

Golden Demon Entrants

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