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Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Games Day UK 2011

This year I wound up in the UK, within striking distance of Games Day UK, and Games Workshop saw fit to hold the event on my birthday no less! Here's my impressions an photos, only a month late.
The event was a zoo. We had to fight our ways into the Golden Demon cabinets, and once we'd fought our way through those, I wound up feeling a little lost.
I kept wandering around, trying to find the preview models for upcoming releases in all of the studio cabinets...but there weren't any.

I was more than a little disappointed by that, if not exactly surprised, but I made up for it by having a decent chat with Jes Goodwin and a decent look at one of his Dark Eldar (particularly Haemonculus focused) sketch books. He shed some light on the lack of sneak peek models when I asked to photograph some of his sketches, saying that they've had to clamp down on every and all of their advanced info due to jokers like Chapterhouse snapping them up and attempting to turn out models faster than Games Workshop can.

In sad news, he confirmed that lovely things like codex entries for model-less units are now going to be a thing of the past. Sure, these entries open the door for imaginative modellers and converters, but they also open the door for opportunistic independent companies to swipe GW concepts, release the models first, and then claim the IP as their own.

For all my frustrations with Games Workshop price increases and Finecast failures and trade restrictions; with how I may have believed that independent model companies were vindicating independent artists in the face of an attempted monopoly on creativity; all my righteous anger is called into question when a phenomenal artist like Jes says that Chapterhouse and their legal/IP hoop-jumping is keeping him from making beautiful things and telling us about them.

Anyway. Enough of that maudlin line of commentary. Here are some pretty models from the Golden Demon competition, and some from the Armies on Parade will follow:
 
This fantastic diorama had the shadows painted in:
...and here's a great Talos take on a Wraithlord:
...and here some armies on Parade, including my favourite: an Eldar exodite army that utilized Kroot Great Knarlocs.
If you're interested, all of the photos are here.

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